(Text and Audio)
Title: Jesus and Jonah
This morning we will pick up where we left off from last week. Jesus is responding to the request from the Scribes and Pharisees that he perform a miracle for them on demand.
How many of you did your homework? How many of you read Jonah?
If you did, that will help a great deal in understanding the gravity of what Jesus teaches this morning. If you didn’t, that’s okay, hang in there, and I’ll explain to the best of my ability why what Jesus says here is so condemning toward the Pharisees and Scribes.
Let’s get started.
(read/pray)
3 O.T. Parallels
Parallel 1: The Resurrection of Jesus
Jesus predicts that, just like Jonah, there will be a period of three days that he spends presumed dead. Only a supernatural force will raise him from his state and have him finish his mission. This is the first, simplest, and most straight-forward of the parallels. It only assumes that you know the most basic plot line of the book of Jonah.
And, like most of us, this was what the Scribes and Pharisees understood about Jonah and his mission.
Far too many people think the theme of the book of Jonah is “You can’t run from God. If you do, a whale will swallow you, and spit you up only after you repent.”
That’s simply not true.
You can run from God. Even we, as Christians, do it all the time.
Sometimes we run from God by knowing he’s calling us to repent of something but we just aren’t ready to let it go. Sometimes we run from God because he’s put a special mission on our lives (like Jonah) but we have our own doubts and fears so we go the other way.
Now, if you are truly saved, you will repent. The longer you wait, the more painful it will be, but you will repent.
And he that never repents, is he that never knew God in the first place.
Parallel 2: The Men of Nineveh
This is where Jesus really pushes the knowledge of the Scribes and Pharisees. And I’m going to test your knowledge of Jonah as we walk through this:
Q: Why was Jonah in the belly of a whale?
A: Because he was thrown overboard to save the ship from God’s wrath.
Q: Why was God mad at Jonah?
A: Because he was running from his appointed mission.
Q: What mission had God given Jonah?
A: To tell Nineveh to repent.
Q: Why didn’t Jonah want to tell Nineveh to repent?
A: THEY WERE GENTILE.
There it is. Jesus refers to himself and his ministry as a parallel with Jonah. He tells them: you want a sign? I’m Jonah. How does Jonah’s story end? With the repentance of the Gentiles and the favor of God upon them.
Wow.
Let’s go over that one more time.
Wow.
But it’s not over! Now that we understand the reference, we have to turn back to what Jesus says in verse 41!
As if what Jesus just said to the Jewish leadership wasn’t offensive enough, he follows it with a more staggering teaching.
The men of Nineveh (Gentiles) will judge this generation (the unbelieving Jews) and condemn it (find it guilty).
Those for whom the messiah was not originally intended, will receive God’s grace because those who should have seen Jesus as the Messiah will reject him, and, in turn, it is those people who will see God’s wrath.
In other words, Jesus tells them: you know who the real Jews are? The real Jews are the ones that recognize their own king. If you don’t see me, you aren’t really Jewish.
You want a sign? Think of Jonah. What did he do? He obeyed God, brought God’s message to a Gentile world, and they repented and were blessed by God. And I stand before you, even greater than Jonah.
I understand fully why the Scribes and Pharisees plotted to kill Jesus.
It makes perfect sense. You can’t have a powerful messianic figure roaming around Judea teaching this kind of message. It would be disastrous.
And, if that weren’t enough of prediction, Jesus hammers it home AGAIN, with a third parallel!
Parallel 3: The Queen of Sheeba
In the final parallel, Jesus refers to the story in 1 Kings where the Queen of Sheeba visits Solomon and is blown away by the scope, power, and majesty of his kingdom. But even more than than, she is most impressed with Solomon’s wisdom; his governance, and the way that his people follow him. She exclaims in 1 Kings 10:8 “Happy are your men and happy are your servants, who stand continually before you and hear your wisdom!”
And Jesus draws another parallel here.
The Queen of Sheeba, who is no slouch in her own right, heres from afar this story of Solomon, this wise, powerful, Jewish king, who is renown for his wisdom. So she goes to investigate. Maybe to scout out his military power, maybe to make an alliance.
But in the end, she winds up humbling herself and her entire kingdom and exclaiming the greatness of Solomon. She realizes that Solomon is blessed and favored directly by God, and wants only to bless him further with her riches.
She is foreigner.
She doesn’t know who Yahweh is.
Yet she recognized what is clearly obvious: This man is blessed by God.
Though she was not originally born into the favored kingdom, she recognized true wisdom and sought after it, and was therefore blessed by God.
And now Jesus tells these Scribes and Pharisees that this foreign nation, this nation that was not originally born of God, but has recognized and submitted to the greatness of that which clearly is God, and now God has found favor in them, and will use them to judge those who won’t recognize the King!
Wow.
This echoes perfectly what Paul reminds us of in Romans 9:25 when he quotes Hosea: “As he says also in Hosea, I will call them my people, who were not my people; and her beloved, who was not beloved.”
By this time, I think it’s safe to say that Jesus had done a pretty good job explaining this to the Scribes and Pharisees and there reaction was simple: we must kill him, or he’ll ruin everything about our way of life.
Close: Application
- When Jesus (or any N.T. figure) quotes from the O.T. we MUST dig for the deep meaning. The book of Jonah isn’t about a whale, it’s about salvation for the Gentiles.
- We have been called to judge this generation.
Why? Because we know Truth.
How? As Jesus did: with patience, love, and compassion…but also without wavering at all in the full presentation of the Truth.