When we left Jonah in part 2 of this series, he was just vomited onto dry land by the great fish God send to bring Jonah back to Him. It seems there’s a great lesson, pun intended, that Christians need to learn about God from Jonah. Something that kind of reminds me a bit of a scene from Star Wars. The thinking behind “Let the Wookie win” is quite different from the contest of wills between God and Jonah. And yet, the idea of “Let God win”, is just so striking.
What Christians need to learn about God from Jonah is article #3 in the series: Jonah and Christian love.Click button to view titles for the entire series
I found this description/narrative on mygeekwisdom.com.
“Let the Wookie win”
Who said it?: C3-P0
The story behind the quote: As much as I love the Star Wars films, it’s difficult to find clips on YouTube where the characters actually say the quotes since they’re usually taken down immediately. This was one of those quotes I wanted to write about when I started this site but I was never able to find a clip of the said quote… until now.
The quote comes from the first Star Wars film. R2-D2 and Chewbacca are playing a form of chess and Artoo is beating the wookie. Chewie starts “complaining” about losing and C3-P0 states that he has no right to complain. Han Solo then chimes in and says that there are certain “bad” things that can happen if you emerge victorious over Chewbacca’s species. It’s then Threepio delivers the quote to Artoo.
Geek wisdom: Winning isn’t everything. While it does feel good to actually display your dominance over someone during a game of chess or any other form of competition, it’s not the most important thing in the world. In the grand scheme of things, it’s still a game.
Let God win?
As I said, the analogy isn’t exactly right on target. Maybe it’s not even close. But for those of us that stood in lines to watch the first showings of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and some other movies of that time, it’s memorable. And close enough.
God will win!
See? It’s the same words. Just a different order. And different punctuation. And in that – we see the lesson. The lesson that we Christians need to learn about God from Jonah.
What Christians need to learn about God from Jonah
Well, let’s go through Chapter 3 of Jonah and see what Jonah learned.
God did get His way. Jonah did go to Nineveh.
Jonah Goes to Nineveh
Jnh 3:1 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
As you can imagine, this isn’t good. I mean, do we really want to be the one to make God repeat Himself? But what could Jonah expect? Jonah ran away the first time. Endangered a fishing vessel and everyone on board. Got thrown overboard, with the expectation from everyone that Jonah was dead meat.
But God had other plans. Jonah was “rescued”, if you can call it that, by a great fish. And then rather unceremoniously vomited back onto dry land. That wasn’t a good start to Jonah’s “Mission Trip”, was it?
And as we saw previously, just how different are we when we refuse/ignore/run away from something God’s trying to get us to do? So, what else can we expect?
Hopefully we won’t go out to sea and replicate Jonah’s journey. And yet, when we were baptized, we promised to be a follower of Jesus. We promised. Promised God! He’s got a perfect right to expect us to follow through.
Truth be told, we should want Him to do that. When I run away, and I have, I’d much rather have Him call/bring me back to fulfill my promise than to hear Jesus say, after this life is over, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!
At some point, if we continue to run away, and we refuse to actually follow Jesus, I do believe we fall into the situation Jesus described in the passage below.
A Tree and Its Fruit
Mt 7:15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
Mt 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”
Why didn’t Jonah want to go to Nineveh?
If you read Part 1, you may remember the discussion about why Jonah ran away. The gist of it is:
You probably want to know, why did Jonah run away? But first, does it matter why Jonah ran away? The reality is, no matter the reason, Jonah was given a task by God, and Jonah refused to do it. Jonah figuratively and literally ran away from God. As I asked earlier, which of us hasn’t done that?
When I teach a class, I always say that there is one dumb question. It’s the one that isn’t asked. Why is that unasked question the one dumb question? Because when we don’t ask something, our mind keeps thinking about that unasked question. We get more and more dialed in on it. We focus all our attention and mind on that one thing. And miss everything else that’s going on in the class!
So let’s answer the question. Why did Jonah run away? And then we’ll find out why, in one respect, it really doesn’t matter what Jonah’s reason was. At the same time, we’ll see why Jonah’s reason did matter, and what that means for us.
Therefore, once again, I’m not going to say much about it. Again, why not? Because as soon as we think we’ve nailed down the one reason Jonah ran away, we also convince ourselves that every other reason would’ve been OK. And so, we think we’ve got a way and a reason to run from God’s request/command to perform some task. Or, in our modern-day New Covenant language, to fulfill our promise to follow Jesus that we made at our baptism.
There is just no good reason to run away from something God wants us to do. Honestly, what’s the worst that can happen? I’ve asked this question before, and I’m going to give the same answer. The worst thing that can happen if we follow God is that we die – and then go to Heaven. Trust me, that’s far worse than dying and going to Hell because we refused God so often that we heard those scariest words in the Bible – I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!
Jonah goes to Nineveh and proclaimed God’s words.
Jnh 3:3 Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days. 4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
Most commentators agree, this is not good news for Jonah. Chapter 4 of Jonah confirms the likelihood that Jonah truly was bothered by the response from the people of Nineveh. Where commentators and various scholars disagree is why it bothered Nineveh.
Until I got into the research for this series, I always remembered hearing/reading that Jonah hated the people of Nineveh because they were enemies of God’s chosen people.
Then I read some thought it was the forty days in verse 40. Some think Jonah was afraid to go preach to enemies of God. Others that Jonah figured God was going to relent, and not destroy Nineveh, otherwise why send him in the first place? All sorts of thoughts are out there.
But as I said, the why doesn’t matter for our discussion today. There’s still no good reason for us to disobey God.
Jonah’s worst nightmare continues.
Now, things go from bad to worse. Again.
Jnh 3:6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh:
“By the decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”
Now, it seems like things are going well for the Ninevites. Not so well for Jonah.
Again, we need to know how this ends to make the next statement, but for now, trust me, Jonah’s not happy at all.
The Ninevites turned to God. God relented. Jonah succeeded.
Jnh 3:10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.
God’s plan worked. The people of Nineveh repented. They changed their ways.
Good news, right?
Well, as we’ll see in the next installment of the series, it wasn’t for Jonah.
Conclusion – What Christians need to learn about God from Jonah
Obviously, we Christians need to learn to actually do the things we promised to do when we were baptized. That doesn’t mean just go to church on Easter and Christmas.
It does mean doing things like The Great Commission:
The Great Commission
Mt 28:16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
For more on performing The Great Commission, please check out Is the Great Commission for Everybody, Somebody, Anybody or Nobody? Or, here’s everything I’ve written that mentions The Great Commission.
For the simplest. most concise statement on what we should be about, there’s Jesus’ response to the question of what is the greatest commandment?
The Greatest Commandment – Matthew
22:34-40 pp — Mk 12:28-31
Mt 22:34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Mt 22:37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
And here’s the article list for The Greatest Commandment.
Both of these are very relevant to what we’re going to see in Chapter 4 of Jonah. The part where read what Jonah did, and what we shouldn’t do. Kind of like what Christians shouldn’t learn from Jonah?
Hope to see you there!
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Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay