Oh, you're going to Ninevah like you were supposed to! Good Job!
Wait, what? Ninevah actually repented?!? For realz? That's awesome! Way to go!
Huh? Oh... you're a bit ticked that they didn't get the Sodom-n-Gomorrah-brimstone treatment? That whole merciful God thing was a bit over the top?
Annnnnnnnd your plant died... that was the last straw of this whole trip. So now you wanna die. Uh-huh. Yeah I get it. Sometimes it's just that one small thing that serves as the trigger.
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| It really is the small things |
I really feel for poor Jonah. We know nothing about him except everything he did wrong. Imagine your children write your biography, but it only includes everything you did wrong. Now imagine that this story of your screw-ups was included in Scripture for peopleeverywhere to read for all time. Yikes!
It doesn't help either that the dramatic arc of Jonah's story is incomplete. It ends at the climax! There's no falling action, no resolution! The reader is left wondering what Jonah's response will be. Does he ever make it back home? If he does make it back home, do his friends and family stone him for saving the enemy? Does God grant his wish and just kill him there? Does he re-enter Ninevah, set up a little toy-making shop and spend the rest of his days happily and quietly crafting little trinkets for the children of a repentant city? We don't know. That drives me slightly crazy.
But I can look forward to the fact that one day I will know what happened. Jesus said that "just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matthew 12:40) He was signifying that as Jonah didn't stay in the fish, so He wouldn't stay dead. So because Jesus resurrected, we too, who believe on Him, will be resurrected as well. And I've got some questions that can then be answered, and a story which will be finished!
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