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A continuing exploration of the story of Jonah and its relevance for our lives today.  Texts for this message include Jonah 1:17 – 2:10 and Mark 10:46-52.  This message was preached in the Crafton Heights Church on January 22, 2012.

This image of Jonah being thrown into the sea is found in the Catacomb of Saint Peter and Saint Marcellino in Rome, Italy and dates from about the 4th century

Last week, we began to explore the story of Jonah.  This man is a real paradox.  He’s a prophet, meaning he’s received the Word of the Lord – but he won’t prophesy.  Chapter one of the book that bears his name narrates how he hears the call from God to “Arise, and go to Nineveh”, but how instead he goes down to Joppa, down to the shipyard, and eventually, down into the sea.  The last thing we saw last week was the big splash that Jonah made when the sailors, following orders from both God and Jonah, threw the prophet overboard.

Today we see where the Lord provided a great fish that swallowed Jonah, and he survived in the belly of this fish for three days and three nights.

Detail from a relief showing the story of Jonah from a tomb at the Saints Peter and Paul church in Köngen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. About 1615.

That might stretch your credulity, but the claim that a man survived for three days inside a fish is not the thing that gets me about today’s reading.  What really catches my attention is the beginning of chapter 2. “Then Jonah prayed…”

You see, it begs that age-old question: what is the appropriate amount of time one should wait between getting tossed overboard into a raging storm, sinking down into the sea, being swallowed by a ginormous fish…AND prayer.  I realize that there are really no instruction books for this kind of thing, but is there a protocol involved?  You know, like you’re supposed to wait half an hour after eating before swimming, or wait 24 hours after you color your hair before you wash it…  What is the appropriate time to wait?  You get thrown overboard, the fish swallows you…how long until you pray?

Jonah waited three days.  Why would he do that?

Maybe he was angry with God.  God gave him a task, and he didn’t want to do it, and so for three days he sat quietly, thinking, “Fine!  You want to kill me?  Be my guest. Go ahead, Lord.”

Or maybe, as we discussed last week, he was hopeless.  He was resigned to the fact that it was merely a matter of time for him, and when he felt the fish swallow him, he just hunkered down and waited for the end, never thinking to pray.

And I suppose that it could be that he was simply out of practice – we didn’t see Jonah pray at all in chapter 1, so maybe it just didn’t occur to him to open his heart to the Lord.

How long would you wait?

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Pastor Dave!  What a stupid question.  There may be a lot of things that will happen in my life, but I’m going to go ahead and say that I will not be eaten alive by a giant fish.”

You’re probably right…as far as that goes.  But I can just about guarantee that you will be swallowed by something.  It may not be a disaster at sea, but you will face shipwrecks and storms in the days to come.  There will be crises of health, in your family, at your work; you will be shaken to the core of your being.  And when those things engulf you, how long will you wait to pray?

It seems to me that Jonah chapter two has a word for anyone who has been, is, or will be flailing in the darkness or gasping for breath.  This is the prayer of one who has absolutely hit bottom.  Did you hear what Jonah said?  He cried to the Lord in distress…when the waters closed in over him…and the deep surrounded him…the bars closed in forever…in fact, he says, his very soul fainted.  The life was ebbing from him.

This is not the prayer of a man in a position of strength.

In Jonah 1, the storm rages on, and what does he care?  He’s a man who knows where he’s going, he’s got a plan…the sailors are fighting for their lives and he’s down below sleeping like a baby in the belly of the ship.

But here, in the belly of the whale, well, things are a little bit different.  He comes to God in brokenness and emptiness.  He says, “I have nothing…I am nothing…apart from you, God.”

Jonah cast out by the Fish; 14th century stained glass window; from a temple in Mulhouse, France

This is prayer, beloved.  So often we come to God in our strength and our capability, surrounded with our success and secure in our ability.  What passes for prayer on those days is something like this, “Lord, yes, it’s me.  Look, I’ve got a couple of things that I’m working on and, well, I thought I’d run them past you – you know, as a kind of a courtesy, really.  Just let you know what I’m up to, you know, so you can bless me all right.  I’ve got some plans, and I thought you’d want to know about them as soon as possible so you’d get on board with me…”

That’s not prayer.  True prayer is the realization that God, and God alone, is able.  God does not need Jonah’s – or my – approval.  God does not need Jonah’s – or my – resume.  God is God, sufficient in and unto himself.  He’s not waiting around to give the ok to any swell ideas that I might have.

What God is waiting around for – to the extent that God actually waits around for anything – is to hear Jonah, or me, or you, say “OK, God.  I’m ready now.”  And when Jonah says that, the fish spits him up onto the beach.  It’s not particularly his finest hour (although I suppose that the whale is not entirely upset about the whole experience…).  Jonah’s prayer ends with a statement of faith: Deliverance belongs to the Lord!

In our Hebrew Bible, that sounds like this: yeshuata leyahweh.  Deliverance belongs to the Lord.

Archaeologists have unearthed this rare find from the ruins of the synagogue in Nazareth. OK, not really. But what if???

Let me remind you about the Hebrew that you’ve learned.  What does Yahweh mean?  It’s God’s name, right?  God is Yahweh.  The other word, then, yeshuata, must mean deliverance or salvation.  You know this word, or a part of it.  Yeshua.  Remember in Matthew 1, when the angel told Joseph what to name the baby?  Yeshua.  When Joseph and Mary’s boy went down to coffee hour at the synagogue, he wore a little nametag that said, “Hello.  My Name Is Yeshua”.

I think it’s impossible for a Christian to read the end of Jonah’s prayer and not think of Jesus.  Deliverance comes from the Lord.  That is, essentially, Old Testament Prophet talk for “Jesus saves.”

And that leads me to consideration of the Gospel passage that you’ve heard today, because it, too, is an apt model for prayer.

Eustache Le Sueur, "Christ Healing the Blind Man", 17th Century

Bartimaeus is a blind man who is apparently alone in the world.  He has no resources, and his world is empty and dark.  He’s huddled in his cloak by the side of the road, and he hears Yeshua.  So he cries out.  “Save me!  Deliver me!”  He could have even said “Yeshua me!”

Those around him try to hush him, but what does he have to lose?  He cries out louder.  And then, when Yeshua calls to him, what does Bartimaeus do?  He sprang up.  How often do you see a blind person move quickly?  That’s a recipe for danger, isn’t it? Better to be cautious…but not Bartimaeus.  He springs up and tosses aside his cloak.  Another rash decision.  How is he going to find that once this Yeshua character is gone?  But he throws it away – his only place to hide, the only protection he has from the wind and the sand and the spittle and who knows what else – and he tells Yeshua what he wants more than anything else in the world.  He does not ask for money, although that’s apparently what he’s always done.  He does not ask for food or safety, or a nicer cloak.

“I want to see.”

And he is healed.  And then, Bartimaeus is faced with the same choice as old Jonah laying on the beach.  Where should he go?

Bartimaeus followed Yeshua.  Jonah started walking towards Nineveh.  Each of them cried out in the darkness, and then followed the voice that had called to them.

One of the holiest aspects of my calling is sharing prayer with people who are crying out to God in the darkness.  My phone is hardly ever turned off…partly because I’m such an extreme extrovert, but mostly because I can’t sleep if I think that you might be alone in the dark.

It is a sacred trust and privilege to wait with you in the hospital, or at the prison, or by the grave.  It is a holy responsibility to sit with you in places of emptiness and death.  And I do not for one second want to discourage you from crying out to Yeshua or to your pastor from those places.

But I wonder in what ways you and I might empty ourselves and come to God before the deeps close in around us?  After all, if Jonah had been in contact with God from the beginning, then he wouldn’t have been thrown overboard – he couldn’t have been thrown overboard, because he’d be nowhere near the water as he hiked across the desert from Israel to Nineveh.

And I am not speaking for anyone but myself here – but I know that there has been a lot of pain and isolation that I could have avoided in my own life if I’d have simply turned to God in my emptiness and brokenness, rather than resting on my strengths and pretending that I had it all under control.

Now listen: I am most certainly not saying that as long as I pray – even from my emptiness – that nothing bad will happen.  I promise you that the storms will come and the deeps will close in around you.  What I am saying is that if we develop a lifestyle of prayer and a willingness to come to God as empty-handed as Bartimaeus and Jonah, then when we get tossed from the boat or voted off the island or pushed into the sea, it won’t take us three days to find our voices.  The dark and the deep will come – but they will have no power to overwhelm or defeat us.  If we face each day remembering that we stand naked before God, empty except for what he puts into us, then yeshuata leyahweh is never three days away.

The bad news is that your deliverance, your salvation, does not come from you.  You cannot tread water forever.

The good news is that you do not have to.  Come to God in your emptiness and in the darkness, and ask him to change you.

And he will.

Yeshuata leyahweh.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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