Every day of Lent, Bishop Edward Malesic writes a Scripture reflection for the faithful. Follow the bishop on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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I love reading the Book of Jonah. It’s about a man of faith who tried to run away from God’s will. Who of us can’t say that we have done the same from time to time?
God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah did not want to go. Instead, Jonah took a ship that would sail in the opposite direction. The hand of God was at work, however. A storm came. The seas were tossed. Jonah was thrown overboard. And a whale of a fish swallowed him whole. For three days and three nights Jonah was in the belly of that creature being guided by God’s GPS system. On the third day, you guessed it, Jonah was thrown up onto the shore of Nineveh. He ends up just where God wanted him to be all along.
Now, God wanted Jonah in Nineveh to proclaim a message of repentance. Jonah, on the other hand, wanted Nineveh to be destroyed. The Ninevites were the enemies of the Jewish people. With probably lackluster preaching, Jonah went about saying, “Forty days more and Nineveh will be destroyed.” He was hoping that nobody was listening to him. It was a three-day journey from one end of the city to another, but after only one day, the Ninevite king was converted and all of Nineveh with him. They repented, and God spared them.
Jonah was disheartened and went to sulk under a tree. You can read about it in the rest of the Book of Jonah, which is a quick and easy read, by the way.
What do we make of this? God’s will cannot be thwarted by human unwillingness. If God wants a message preached, it will be preached. And, more than that, it is not the strength of the preacher’s voice that changes hearts, but people lives are changed by the strength of God’s message that the preacher proclaims.
And now to the Gospel. The people were looking for a sign from Jesus to prove that he was who he said he was: the Son of God. Jesus says to them: “No sign will be given, except the sign of Jonah.”
What is the sign of Jonah? Two things really. First, just as Jonah was reclaimed from the sea after three days, Jesus will be reclaimed from the grave after three days. Second, when Jonah preached, the people repented. Jesus is much greater than Jonah. Jonah preached God’s message. Jesus is God’s message. Things will change when people listen to Jesus and follow him. There is power in the Word.
May the Word of God make us want to repent of anything that keeps us from him and make us want to live our lives for Jesus, the Son of God, who rose from the dead, despite the attempts of many to keep him in the grave.