January 25, 2009 — Jonah 3: 1-5 & 10 — Announcing Judgment and Grace — Pastor Jerome Teichmiller
Teichmiller Comments OffAnnouncing Judgment and Grace
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this mornings meditation is recorded in the Old Testament lesson of Jonah, chapter 3, verses 1 through 5, particularly these words: “Jonah proclaimed; ‘forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.’ The Ninevites believed God. They put on sackcloth. When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had promised.” This is our text.
In the name of our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, dear Christian friends. We all know the story of Jonah. God told him to go to the East, across the desert, to Nineveh — and instead he took a Mediterranean cruise to the West. But the errant prophet couldn’t get away from God. After a bad storm, and after being thrown overboard, being swallowed by a big fish, and spending three days in the stomach of that fish — Jonah is finally released on shore. And then our text tells us, “The Word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’” And even though we learn a lot about God’s persistence in calling Jonah, and God’s presence where ever Jonah might have been — the Epiphany lesson that we have to learn from today’s text deals with God and not with Jonah. The question we must ask ourselves each Sunday during Epiphany is, “What does this Scripture lesson reveal to me about God?”
In today’s Old Testament lesson, we are shown TWO very important aspects of God’s character — first we learn of God’s judgment, and secondly, we learn of God’s grace.
First of all, we learn of God’s judgment. Some might call it God’s law — but it really goes a step beyond the law as God hands out the warning of just what the results will be for violating or breaking his law. The warning is not only in the Old Testament lesson for today — but it is in the Epistle and the Gospel lessons as well.
In the Epistle, the Apostle Paul warns Christians in Corinth, “Brethren, what I mean is that the time is short. For this world in its present form is passing away.” And in the Gospel lesson for today, Jesus is handing out the warning about the coming judgment of God, “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”
From the beginning of time, man has known that there would come a final judging for the sins that had been committed. Mankind knew that there was a price that had to be paid for sin. In the Garden of Eden, Eve told the serpent that she could not eat the forbidden fruit, or she would die.
The knowledge of sin comes natural to mankind. God made it a part of our very being — we call it our conscious. Even those who have never read the Bible know the difference between what is right and what is wrong. Even little babies, who cannot read or talk or understand — know the difference between what is right and what is wrong — that’s why they get very quiet when they are into something that they are not supposed to be. That’s the reason Paul tells the Romans that no one has an excuse for doing evil — “Because God’s law is written on the hearts of men.”
But God still reaches out. God gives another chance. God wanted to give Nineveh another chance, so he sent Jonah to give them a warning, “Forty more days, and Nineveh will be destroyed.” That wasn’t the whole message, but that pretty well summed up what God wanted to tell Nineveh. God told them through Jonah that He was not satisfied with their life style. That they were living totally against His Holy Will. And that there was a day of reckoning coming. And for them, God gave a dead line — 40 days was all they had — to accept God’s way, to turn from their sins, and to change their evil ways.
God’s judgment spoken to Nineveh, could just as well be spoken to our world of today. Each day through the news reports we are reminded of just how sinful our world has become. And NOT JUST OUR WORLD — We too are sinful. We too fall short of God’s plan for our lives. We do not always live up to the high standards of being a child of God. You and I are not the perfect people that God wants us to be. That is why Luther reminds us that each and every day we have to drown the Old Adam that lives with in us — and each day we must repent of our sins, and ask God’s forgiveness and strength to change that sinful life.
And that is why the second lesson in our text is so comforting, because it tells us about the grace of God.
The city of Nineveh deserved to be destroyed. The death penalty would have been a fair and just reward for their evil. But when they heard the message which Jonah presented to them, our text tells us, “The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.” And then the comforting words which tells us of God’s forgiving grace, “When God saw what they did, and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.”
The Ninevites believed God, turned from their evil, and were forgiven. Jonah must have told the Ninevites about God’s great love for them. He must have told them about God’s plan to send a Messiah who would deliver them from death and the Devil. He must have told them about God’s grace and forgiveness — because the Bible says, “They believed God and God had Compassion.”
The same is still true today. Our wicked world — yes even ourselves — need to hear of God’s love. We need to hear of God’s Messiah. We need to hear of God’s grace and forgiveness. The righteous judgment of God demands the death penalty for sin — and we are all guilty of sin — but God in his mercy and his love provided another way for that debt to be paid. God sent his only Son, “Who knew no sin, to be sin for us.” The guilt, the punishment, that was rightly ours was placed upon him. The death which was rightly ours, he suffered on the cross for us. The message of God’s love and compassion belongs to you and to me and to all sinners — because Christ died for all.
When that message is heard, the Holy Spirit is there to work faith, and repentance, forgiveness, life, and salvation, just as he did for the Ninevites did. Through the Holy Spirit, we too believe God’s message. By the guidance and with the strength of the Holy Spirit, we can turn our lives around. As God forgives us freely and completely for Jesus’ sake — with God’s grace and strength, we turn from our evil ways to serve Him and give glory to his name.
From this passage in Jonah, let us learn of God’s judgment against sin. But let us also learn of God’s love and God’s forgiveness. Let us learn that God does forgive — not because we earn that right — but because he loves us, and because He gave his son to die for us. And all this he did so that we might be His own, live under him in his kingdom, and serve Him. This is most certainly true. Amen.
May the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.
