NOTES for Jon 1:17; Jon 2:1-9

The translation familiar to us says that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, although in the original language the text mentions dag gadol, a great fish. Taking the translation literally provoked unfounded but persistent ridicule from opponents of religion, who liked to point to the size of a whale's gullet, unable to swallow a human being. Yet cases of people being swallowed by certain large predatory fish are known. Even so, the species of the creature mentioned in the Book of Jonah is less important than the meaning of the account.

We see Jonah calm, trusting in God. Looking back now, we can see even in Jonah's calm deep inside the ship during the storm a pledge of his calm inside the fish. But inside the ship, Jonah himself was trying to withdraw from God; inside the fish, he received what he had been seeking, for the Lord gave him that opportunity. Each of us, by turning away from Him, may find ourselves swallowed by a similar fish. It can take any form and appear amid any outward circumstances. It then depends on us whether we cry out to God through the barriers separating us from Him, barriers that have arisen from our own actions and desires.

Jonah's prayer from the depths is an inspired psalm expressing the hope not only of an ancient prophet, but of any of us who fall, often sinking into a state of rejection and abandonment, yet not abandoned by God even then. He is with us everywhere and is ready to lead us out of despair and black darkness, just as He brought Jonah out onto dry land.

…Centuries would pass, and Christ, comparing His time in the tomb with Jonah's time in the whale's belly, would reveal to His listeners that no other sign would be given them ‘except the sign of the prophet Jonah’ (Matt. 12:39–40). Would it be stretching the point to note that Jonah's willingness to sacrifice himself for his fellow voyagers also resembled the coming self-sacrifice of the Son of Man?

It is not often in our lives that we know exactly what God’s will is for us, the path on which He Himself has set us and on which He will help us. But sometimes this does happen. Such understanding comes at least once in every person’s life. Sometimes we do not dare to follow this path. The reasons may differ, and in one person’s life all these different reasons may be intertwined. We may not love ourselves, and out of this lack of love sink into false humility and conclude, ‘I am too sinful,’ ‘not good enough to fulfill this will of God for me.’ It may be fear of other people, fear that they will not accept this path. But beneath all these reasons for indecision there is, in fact, one problem: unbelief.

It turns out that we do not believe God created us good enough to do His will, or that He created other people good enough to accept our path, even a very unusual one. Nor do we believe that even if we encounter serious difficulties and trials, including those arising from clashes with other people, this too is part of the path. Ultimately, we do not believe that God will sustain us in a difficult moment, that He will be with us in these trials. He is always near, but if we follow the path He has prepared especially for us, it is easier to sense His presence and help. Sometimes, however, unbelief, fears, and doubts become so deafening that, like Jonah, we choose to flee. Then God has no option but to send us into the belly of a whale. This is not punishment. It is the only way to get through to us. Inside the ‘whale’ there are no external influences: it is dark and quiet, there is no one but oneself, and even God seems very far away. Yet one cannot perish inside the ‘whale’ either: one will not drown, the whale swims well, and it is warm and secure… Such a ‘whale’ may be a serious and prolonged, but not fatal, illness, or depression. In short, a situation in which we feel very little, are extremely lonely, and have to look honestly at ourselves and our lives.

Then we can see that we have lost our way, understand that the loving Lord was waiting on the path we abandoned, call on Him for help as Jonah did, find the resolve to follow Him—and become free.

At first glance, hardly the God of Abraham and Moses will seem to somebody, merciful, especially if we focus on His image of the Old Testament. But do we understand correctly what is this mercy, about which speaks the prophet? By mercy we imply mostly a certain indulgence, the readiness to forgive to somebody his weaknesses not by love for him, but from indifference to the sins that he committed, maybe in the secret hope that one day our sins and our weaknesses shall also be indulgently "forgiven" to us. The God of Israel is not like that: He is demanding and, according to the word of the Holy Scriptures, "jealous", not because He needs the worship of whoever it maybe, but because otherwise, if the man does not surrender into His hands completely, without reserve and without looking behind, He cannot purify and sanctify such a person, and therefore cannot also join him to the new life, to the life of His Kingdom.

This task is of course incompatible with mercy, as we understand it quite often. But in this sense, in which the word "mercy" is used in the biblical books, our understanding of the mercy has nothing common. The mercy in the Bible is the readiness to do to someone more than what requires the law or the contract, more than what is required to do. Such readiness is also possible when it comes to relations between men; it was often for those receiving the help a real salvation in difficult and sometimes critical situations. When it concerns God, His mercy is for man the only hope.

The only because after the fall man lost any rights for any future strictly human, being much closer to the animal kingdom, than to the God, in Whose image he was created. In the less global scale, having in mind only the history of the people of God, we could say that these people lost the right on all that was due to them according to the alliance concluded on Sinai: because the conditions of the union concluded in that period were violated by the people more than once.

One could only hope that God will forgive His people and will still give them a chance to start everything if it is not from the beginning, then at least, on a white leaf. This God's readiness to forgive and to give again another chance is His mercy. Of course, the gods of the heathen could also be sometimes merciful to their fans, but merciful in particular in the human sense of the word. There is nothing surprising here: because these gods were created by man for himself in his image. Here is only, in a critical situation, when help was needed, they couldn’t help at all. Quite as cannot help a man the "mercy" pushing him to his sins and vices.

For what man could leave the one who behaves towards him with mercy? And what in such case this person would lose? If we speak about relationships between God and His people, the scale of the loss becomes immediately visible. It is no more and no less about salvation, about the possibility of entering the Kingdom of God, which the people can receive only in the case if God shows manifests to him His mercy. Mercy means, above all, the will to do to someone more than he deserves, more than what he is entitled according to the law or the concluded agreement.

All the prophets of Israel testify unanimously that the union-covenant concluded with God on the Mount Sinai was violated by the people more than once, and each of these violations, in fact, became its break. The torn union deprived the people of all these possibilities, which had appeared to them on Sinai. It remained only to hope on God's mercy, that God will all the same achieve the promise made to the people on Sinai. In such a situation any refusal of God's mercy looks like a real madness. Why do many decide so easily on it? Perhaps, because they do not simply realize all the depth of the problem and all the gravity of the situation. But other thing is possible: the people want a quiet life.

Indeed, even a merciful God remains demanding or, expressing in the biblical language "jealous". He is ready to give His people another chance, but His exactingness as regards the commandments, the way of righteousness and generally all that is connected to the spiritual life, is the same. The heathen gods are mostly created by people in their image, and it is not surprising that man is more comfortable with such gods: the religious feeling (and it exists to everyone) is satisfied, seen that no uncomfortable requirement the gods created by the man, will not present of course to their creator. Only that in a critical situation these gods will not help and will not open the Kingdom.

Today's reading describes a real pattern of behaviour in someone who suddenly realises what God wants of them. If this is the very first time you have become aware of the reality of God's presence and realised just how clearly His wishes are expressed, your flight may be even more serious than Jonah's. On the other hand, even if it is not the first or second time you have understood that the road takes a sharp turn and that you thoroughly dislike the place it will lead you to, however devoted and obedient you may be, you will try to turn off in any possible direction. It is not even a refusal—you cannot refuse, because you understand that God has said so—but an attempt to avoid doing God's will without saying ‘no’. Yet any such human refusal, understandable and always possible though it is, has the same effect on creation as an earthquake of seven or eight points on the intensity scale. You turn off the path, board the first ship you find, and the world around you shakes, threatening death to everyone who has not the faintest idea where you are fleeing or from what. Once you have understood the cause of all cataclysms of this kind, there are two ways to act. First, you can remain living inside the whale, in complete isolation, in a disgusting, rotting rubbish heap. Or you can say, ‘What I have promised, I will fulfil’, and the whale will spit you out where you did not want to go.

Today's reading describes a real pattern of behaviour in someone who suddenly realises what God wants of them. If this is the very first time you have become aware of the reality of God's presence and realised just how clearly His wishes are expressed, your flight may be even more serious than Jonah's. On the other hand, even if it is not the first or second time you have understood that the road takes a sharp turn and that you thoroughly dislike the place it will lead you to, however devoted and obedient you may be, you will try to turn off in any possible direction. It is not even a refusal—you cannot refuse, because you understand that God has said so—but an attempt to avoid doing God's will without saying ‘no’. Yet any such human refusal, understandable and always possible though it is, has the same effect on creation as an earthquake of seven or eight points on the intensity scale. You turn off the path, board the first ship you find, and the world around you shakes, threatening death to everyone who has not the faintest idea where you are fleeing or from what. Once you have understood the cause of all cataclysms of this kind, there are two ways to act. First, you can remain living inside the whale, in complete isolation, in a disgusting, rotting rubbish heap. Or you can say, ‘What I have promised, I will fulfil’, and the whale will spit you out where you did not want to go.