Saving what's valuable
This week is on Jonah 4:
These verses came after Jonah delivered God's message to Nineveh, which caused them to repent, and who God then forgave. Jonah was angry, because he wanted them to be punished. He was so angry he wanted to die. He'd even placed himself on a hilltop overlooking the city, so he could watch God's wrath pour out on them, but what he got was God's grace instead. It was a major let-down.
God provided a plant for shade and then killed it, and Jonah was upset about that too. But then God explains that he likes to preserve his creation. He doesn't delight in destroying things. Just as the plant was pleasant for Jonah to have around, the Ninevites were pleasant to God. He'd much rather redeem them than punish them, no matter how evil they were to his people.
Do we forget people's value to God sometimes? Are there certain people or classes of people who we see as beyond his redemption? If we get angry at seeing people escape punishment, sometimes it may be because we don't see them as valuable and beloved of God.
If justice had been served, a hundred and twenty thousand people would have died. That could even have turned into a hundred and twenty thousand people we'd never get the chance to hang out with eternally! Some of them were probably really cool people. Would you want to miss out on really cool new friends because Jonah wanted to see a revenge bloodbath?
God values redemption over condemnation. He proves it time and time again. That's not to say that there isn't a time of his judgment, or that we should take a soft stance on serious problems. But if God moves to pardon someone of their transgressions, we should be happy those hundred and twenty thousand sheep are returned to the flock, not angry that justice wasn't served.
Ask God to make you a person of redemption, not of condemnation. Instead of "when will they be punished for their sins" be able to ask "what can I do to help rescue them from those sins and their consequences?" That was the task God sent Jonah to do: to retrieve something valuable to him from certain doom. And that's the task he has for us today too.
But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”
But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”
“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”
But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”
These verses came after Jonah delivered God's message to Nineveh, which caused them to repent, and who God then forgave. Jonah was angry, because he wanted them to be punished. He was so angry he wanted to die. He'd even placed himself on a hilltop overlooking the city, so he could watch God's wrath pour out on them, but what he got was God's grace instead. It was a major let-down.
God provided a plant for shade and then killed it, and Jonah was upset about that too. But then God explains that he likes to preserve his creation. He doesn't delight in destroying things. Just as the plant was pleasant for Jonah to have around, the Ninevites were pleasant to God. He'd much rather redeem them than punish them, no matter how evil they were to his people.
Do we forget people's value to God sometimes? Are there certain people or classes of people who we see as beyond his redemption? If we get angry at seeing people escape punishment, sometimes it may be because we don't see them as valuable and beloved of God.
If justice had been served, a hundred and twenty thousand people would have died. That could even have turned into a hundred and twenty thousand people we'd never get the chance to hang out with eternally! Some of them were probably really cool people. Would you want to miss out on really cool new friends because Jonah wanted to see a revenge bloodbath?
God values redemption over condemnation. He proves it time and time again. That's not to say that there isn't a time of his judgment, or that we should take a soft stance on serious problems. But if God moves to pardon someone of their transgressions, we should be happy those hundred and twenty thousand sheep are returned to the flock, not angry that justice wasn't served.
Ask God to make you a person of redemption, not of condemnation. Instead of "when will they be punished for their sins" be able to ask "what can I do to help rescue them from those sins and their consequences?" That was the task God sent Jonah to do: to retrieve something valuable to him from certain doom. And that's the task he has for us today too.
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