Wednesday March 12, 2014 (Luke 11:29-32) Todays Gospel refers back to the Biblical character Jonah. Jesus says “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Now most of us think of Jonah and think Oh yeah, the guy who got eaten by a whale. But theres actually some pretty significant parallels that can be drawn between the story of Jonah and the story of Christ. The word of the Lord came to Jonah, telling Jonah to set out for...Nineveh, and preach against it. Whats Jonahs reaction? Jonah made ready to flee...He...found a ship...and went aboard to journey...away from the Lord. (As a quick side-note, does this sound like any of us? Running away from what we feel like God has called us to do?) When a violent storm hits the seas, the men throw Jonah overboard and Jonah is swallowed by a whale and remained in its belly for three days. Eventually Jonah has a great realization and is ready to fulfill the duty that the Lord had commanded of him (and to think all it took was to be swallowed by a whale to get this guy to listen). The story goes on to describe Jonahs time in Nineveh which you can read on your own if you so choose (it will give you better context for the rest of todays Gospel reading). From just that small snippet we can already begin to make some parallels to Christ. The Paschal Mystery of Christ involves his death, resurrection, and ascension. He dies on the cross and descends into Hell, is raised on the third day, and after forty days ascends into heaven. Jonah was swallowed by the whale, is vomited out on the third day, and goes forth to Nineveh to proclaim that Forty days more and Nineveh will be destroyed. Though their stories are remarkably similar, they are also contrasting in noteworthy ways. Where Jonah tries to escape the will of God, Jesus embraces his Fathers will even unto death. Where Jonah gets angry and questions God as he preaches in Nineveh, Jesus never waivers in his faith in the Lord as he preaches to those who reject him. To me, it seems as though Christ is the projection of who we ought to be, how we ought to go about carrying out Gods will for our life, whereas Jonah is the projection of who most of us have been and our attitudes towards Gods will for our lives. Perhaps we all need to be swallowed by a whale (die to ourselves) in order to understand the full extent of Gods loving will for our lives.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 15:52:27 +0000
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