Last week we thought a bit
about the need to “come to rest” in God in the midst of our busyness, to stop
struggling to prove ourselves, at least to God, even if we are constantly
facing targets and pressures elsewhere. This week’s readings remind us that
that not every “coming to rest” is freely chosen. We can be forced to a
standstill by our circumstances too.
Jonah comes to rest in the
belly of a big fish in the first reading we heard tonight. He had been called
by God to go to the Assyrian capital city of Ninevah to preach a message of
repentance to them. Frankly this was a big ask. Assyria was the mightiest
empire the Middle East had ever seen, and it was very brutal. Israel had been
hammered by the Assyrians, and many of their people taken into exile, scattered
around the empire. Telling Jonah to go and preach there was a bit like
expecting a Jewish person to go to the heart of Nazi Germany and tell Hitler to
repent. It was that frightening. But Jonah isn’t just frightened that the
Assyrians will harm him. In fact, he is far more frightened that they won’t,
that they will heed God’s call, and that God will then forgive them. That would
just add insult to the real injury the Jewish people had sustained at the hands
of Assyria. He really couldn’t bear that at all.
So instead of going to
Ninevah, to the north-east of Israel, he gets onto the first boat he can find
going in the opposite direction, westwards across the Mediterranean towards
Tarshish which was probably either in Spain or Sardinia. He wants to put as
much distance as he can between himself and the work God wants him to do. But,
according to the story – and it is just a story, probably based on an ancient
folk tale – God sends a storm. Jonah, convinced it is his fault that this is
happening, persuades the crew to throw him overboard. Presumably he expects to
drown – but even that would be better than going to Ninevah. But God hasn’t
finished with him, and, as we all know, a big fish comes and swallows him up.
The words we heard were Jonah’s prayer from the belly of that fish. It’s very
reminiscent of some of the Psalms in its language, but when Jonah talks about
the waters closing in above him, when he talks about sinking down to the
underworld, he means it quite literally. He has hit rock bottom, quite
literally – the ocean floor – but the fish has saved him, and Jonah realises
that he has been given a second chance.
In the parable Jesus tells,
we see the contrast between the self-righteous Pharisee and the tax-collector
who knows that he is in a mess. The Pharisee appears to think he can float
himself up to heaven on the hot air of his boasting – in fact he probably
suspects he is more than half-way there already - but the tax-collector knows
he has nothing to offer but his sorrow. The burdens of guilt he carries drag
him downwards like Jonah sinking beneath the waves. Which one goes home having received God’s
blessing of peace? Not the one who
thought he had earned it, but the one who knew from bitter experience that he
never could. The tax-collector comes to
rest, at rock bottom, but finds that God is perfectly present with him there.
Advent is a penitential
season, a time for taking a long hard look at ourselves and being aware of what
needs to change. That sounds like a rather negative thing to do, but actually
it is the first step to finding true joy. At Christmas, we celebrate the light
that shines in the darkness, which the darkness could not overcome, but if we
don’t acknowledge that darkness, the darkness in us and around us, we will
never really see and appreciate the light either. We will live instead in a
permanent half-light, a gloom by which we can just about get by, but never
really live with the fullness of life God wants for us. So tonight, let’s be
honest with ourselves and with God. It isn’t all fine in our lives, but it
doesn’t have to be. We can fall as far as we need to, but we will always come
to rest in the merciful hands of God. Amen
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