Unshackled Echo ~ March 25, 2019 ~ Jonah And The Not Whale

I have multiple reading plans, devotionals and the like that I read regularly. I switch them out from time to time and read some during special times, for example I usually do some special Bible reading plans and devotionals during Advent and Lent each year. One 40 day scripture reading plan that I am in the middle of used the section of Luke chapter 11 where Jesus tells those demanding a sign that the sign that would be provided was the sign of Jonah, which they would only be able to see and recognize after His death and resurrection. I can't even estimate how many times I have heard or read this from either Luke or Matthew and thought, "Yeah, I get it. Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three nights and then resurrected as it were by being puked up on shore. Jesus was in the tomb three days and then 'Hear the bells ringing. They're singing, "Christ is risen from the dead!"'"

But there are some interesting complexities that I missed by believing I had the meaning of the parable-like statement in its entirety. That's not even to mention how we all got it wrong in Sunday school with the whale thing. Jonah wasn't swallowed by a whale, but a fish. A whale is not a fish. It's a mammal. But the writer or Jonah didn't have that information. Well, the Holy Spirit who inspired him to write it did, and the same Spirit who could tell the author of Job to write of the springs of the deep, which weren't discovered by science until recently, as in my lifetime, could tell the author of Job the sea beast that swallowed Jonah wasn't a whale if it wasn't. Also, the whales would all have either had to be altered physically or instinctively in order to swallow a man whole, whereas the whale shark, a fish that can get up to over 50 feet in length and easily swallow a man whole, would just be doing its thing.

Anyway, to get back on topic, there's more to this than Jesus pointing out that He would be swallowed by death for three days and then come back to life. Not that that's not huge enough to stand alone. It is. But let us also remember that there is a huge difference in these two stories. Jesus came and lived the perfect, sinless life, doing only what His Father told Him to do and doing all of that without delay or falling short in any way. He did it all, even and especially to the point of the cross, in order that we would have the opportunity to repent and be restored to relationship with our Creator. Jonah got mad at the idea that the people he was sent to would repent, refused to do it, preferred that they simply suffered the wrath and death of judgement and ran from the calling of God. He tried to escape God's will and found himself in the dark death of the fish.

The people of Nineveh were gentiles. After Jonah returned to the shore he preached to them, they repented and were spared the impending judgement. The story of these gentiles responding to God had been written down as an example to the Jew. One of the things we miss in the idea of the sign of Jonah being a foreshadowing of Jesus is that the gentiles would be the ones who mainly hear, respond and repent after the resurrection of Christ and would be used as an example to show the Jews that the Messiah has indeed come.

But the main idea for today is that the sign of Jonah is our sign. Jonah went to darkness and sure death because of his rebellion and sin. He repented and was saved. Jesus was sinless, but He took upon Himself our sins and rebellion, and the result was darkness and death. But He overcame death and raised from the dead so that we could have life with Him. Like Jonah, we have all ran and rebelled. We all bear the scars from the stomach acid of the fishes of our life that served to show us that the result of running from God is to run to the gaping mouth or Death. We deserved our death, surrounded by the stench of rot and digestion, cut off from light and life. But Jesus stepped in and suffered it for us, so that, if from the depths of despair, upon realization our position and chances without relationship with our Creator, we would repent, admit we can't save ourselves or be our own gods, and call out to Him for help, we will be saved. The fish spit us out on the shore to go and do the will of the One who saved us and loved us and gave Himself for us.

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

February 26, 2013.

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