Jonah doesn’t see himself up to what God asks of him, the scripture story says. Frightened, he doesn’t want to preach to the great city of Nineveh.  When the sailors threw him from the boat because they thought he cursed their ship, he doesn’t stop them. If the whale didn’t swallow him and vomit him up on the shore at Nineveh he would have ended it all.

But God would not have it. Jonah’s arrival caught the attention of the Ninevites. Who wouldn’t listen to a man come  from the belly of a whale? They begged God for forgiveness when he spoke. Someone snatched from the jaws of sure death had to be a sign of life.

Luke’s gospel emphasizes Jonah’s preaching at Nineveh, a big city at earth’s end. Jesus has to be proclaimed to all peoples, everywhere, a theme Luke repeats again and again. But is that possible in a world like ours that’s putting up walls rather than bridges? I don’t know what Jonah said, but God used what poor words came to him, and Nineveh heard his message.

Have we lost confidence in the power of Jesus Christ and his message of death and resurrection to bring hope to the world and bring it together? Are we like Jonah, afraid? Could it be that we are being swallowed up into the belly of the whale for another mission we hardly envision? 

Lent is the time to think about the sign of Jonah. The early church thought about him, as this picture from the catacombs attests. He makes you think.

Readings here