The violence and immorality in
Nineveh was legendary. It was beyond anything that we have have ever seen in
modern history. As far as violence and debauchery go, Isis has nothing on the
Assyrian Empire, of which the Ninevites we're a part. The prophet Nahum gives a
vivid depiction in his prophetic work written in 612 BC.
"Woe to the bloody city! It
is all full of lies and robbery. Its victim never departs. The noise of a whip
and the noise of rattling wheels, of galloping horses, of clattering chariots!
Horsemen charge with bright sword and glittering spear. There is a multitude of
slain, a great number of bodies, countless corpses; they stumble over the
corpses; because of the multitude of harlotries of the seductive harlot, the
mistress of sorceries, who sells nations through her harlotries, and families
through her sorceries."
There are still to this day
monuments that give depictions and inscriptions of the horrors of the Nineveh.
Here are a few...
“I cut off their heads and formed
them into pillars”
“Bubo, son of Buba, I flayed in the city of Arbela and I
spread his skin upon the city wall”
“I flayed all the chief men who had
revolted, and I covered the pillar with their skins”
“Many within the border of
my own land I flayed, and spread their skins upon the walls”
“I cut off the
limbs of the officers, the royal officers who had rebelled”
“3,000 captives I
burned with fire”
“Their corpses I formed into pillars”
“From son I cut off
their hands and their fingers, and from other I cut off their noses, their
ears, and their fingers, of many I put out their eyes”
“I made one pillar of
the living, and another of heads, I bound their heads to posts round about the
city”
So you can probably understand
the hesitancy Jonah shows when God calls him to a city that uses human skin as
wall paper. Ummm, I'll pass. Those people are crazy. I think I am going to make
a run for it on this merchant ship. Just a few hours into his journey, he finds
himself thrown overboard and in the belly of a fish. A big fish. It must have
been a HUGE fish. Jonah responds by praying for forgiveness and making a
promise to go to the evil city and warn them of the destruction that is coming
if they don't repent.
As soon as his heart is right,
Jonah goes to skin city and spreads the word of God's quickly approaching wrath
that will destroy them and their entire way of life if they don't change.
Amazingly, and probably to the complete surprise of Jonah, they do change, and
they do repent, and for one of the first times in biblical history, Gods message
from the mouth of one of his prophets was proclaimed to a non-jewish audience.
The people of Nineveh tear their
clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes and repent. God declares in Chapter 3 Verse
10
"10 When God saw what they
did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on
them the destruction he had threatened."
Wait. Hold on. Thats it? With all
the evil, all the pain, all the harlotries, all the murder and death, all of
the contamination caused by these people and you just forgive them God? Doesn't
seem quite right to me. It didn't to Jonah either. In fact Jonah in Chapter 4
declares that he would rather die than see these depraved people experience
grace. What a depressing end to a great story. God even explains why he showed
compassion to Nineveh. It didn't matter to Jonah.
Jonah had an addiction, and I am
afraid the church of Jesus Christ has it too. We are addicted to Justice. We
believe in grace to a point, but when we see a really bad group of people, or a
disgustingly bad person, our grace gives way to justice. We genuinely want
people to pay for what they have done first, then they can have Gods grace. Our
Facebook feeds are filled with visceral indignation and wrath. Our hearts are
bitter towards the one who has caused us calamity or pain. In almost a
bloodlust mindset, we almost always, want justice, not grace. This is not the
Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the Gospel of Jonah.
2000 years ago calamity was
coming to mankind. Instead a baby was born in Bethlehem, Crucified, and rose
again so that we could experience the inexplicable, unexplainable,
counterintuitive GRACE of almighty God.
What do we do with that? Matthew
28:16-20 is the answer.
"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.”
So the question before us is
simple. Do we follow the gospel of Jonah or the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
We often talk about how the
church should not be a safe haven for saints but a hospital for sinners. So,
come ye prostitute, come ye thief, come ye poor, come ye disabled, come ye
pauper, come ye murderer, adulterer, addict, and greedy. But lets be honest
with ourselves in this moment of reflection. Is that who we really want to be
filling the church that we attend? Would we be comfortable with that? Would we
squirm in our seats?
These are the people who God is
calling us to go to in Matthew 28. So let us tread lightly when our
self-righteous hearts cry out for Gods Justice before Gods Grace....
We might just find ourselves in
the belly of a big fish...
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