the cross in the light of the old testament

Engaging with contemporary debates about the cross of Jesus, Chris Wright makes this very astute observation (emphasis mine):

Please bear with me, then, as we step back and think about the Old Testament for a moment. I shouldn't have to apologise for asking you to do that, but so few people seem to bother! It will take a little time, but it will really help us when we come back to the question of the human and divine aspects of the cross. You see, part of the problem with so many theories of the atonement through the centuries is that they try to explain the death of Christ in terms of other stories or worldviews where it does not really fit, while ignoring the one story in which it is actually set - the biblical story of God's dealings with Israel and of God's mission through Israel to bring salvation and blessing to the world.

(Chris Wright, The God I Don't Understand, p.145)

It would take a very long post to summarise how he then works this out in detail (which post this isn't). But his basic premise is worth pondering by all who have encountered the debate.

canaanites

Chris Wright has a very fine chapter on the issue of the extermination of the Cannanites in his book The God I Don't Understand. In chapter 4 he details various inadequate explanations for the command of God for Israel to slaughter the Canaanites. Then in chapter 5 he gives 3 frameworks for understanding what God was doing in that horrific command.

He firstly notes that it appears within the framework of the Old Testament as a whole, and as such we need to keep the following in mind: the culture and rhetoric of ancient warfare, the possibility of God accomodating himself to the fallen reality of warfare at that time and the conquest of Canaan as a unique and limted event. His points are valid and helpful and worthy of ongoing reflection.

The second framework is that of God's sovereign justice - under which he refers to the wickedness of Canaanite culture and religion, the fact that the conquest did not mean Israel was righteous and then, lastly, that God threatened to do the same to Israel and did, in fact, do so. All of this is, again, helpful and proportioning.

His third framework is to situate the conquest within the framework of God's plan of salvation. Here we are treated to material that is not just helpful for the issue at hand but stimulating for a whole approach to grappling with scripture. He notes the Bible's vision of peace, the blessing of the nations, care for foreigners in Old Testament law and, finally, the praise of the nations to Yahweh. The conquest of Canaan has to be seen as one step allong the road that leads to Calvary and to the blessing of all nations by the one true God of all the earth.

Wright correctly notes that he isn't giving a definitive answer to the problem of the conquest of Canaan and its apparent brutality. But his way of handling the issue is a model in sustained biblical reflection that leads to a maturing gladness in the God whose character is revealed in scripture and history.

Chris Wright on Noah & Mission

Although we live on a cursed earth, we also live on a covenanted earth.

This is God's earth, and God is covenantally committed to its survival, just as later revelation will show us that God is also covenantally committed to its ultimate redemption.

Our mission takes place within the framework of God's universal promise to the created order.

The rainbow promise spans whatever horizon we can ever see.

Christopher J H Wright, The Mission of God, IVP 2006, pp.326,7

Leah: pain and praise

Genesis 29:31-35 records the birth and naming of Jacob's first four sons by Leah. Interestingly, it is she who names the children, not Jacob (is he really that disinterested?) and the names, along with the reasoning behind them, seem to give some insight into Leah's handling of the pain of her situation.

When the first son is born, she names him Reuben because she believes YHWH has seen her misery, being relatively unloved by her husband. Her hope is that Jacob will love her now.

But that seems not to be the case. When her second son is born, she names him Simeon because YHWH has heard she is (still) not loved. The fond hopes that surrounded the birth of Reuben were clearly not fulfilled.

Leah's pain evidently continues; when her third son is born she names him Levi, ardently hoping that now at last his birth will cause her husband to be attached to her. It seems a forlorn hope. She has been placed in an intolerable situation and not by her own choice. She is deeply pained at Jacob's rejection of her and longs for him to have a change of heart in order to heal the pain in hers. But it seems Jacob is unmoved by the kindness of YHWH in giving sons to he and Leah and blind to the favour of YHWH towards Leah.

Yet when her fourth son is born, she names him Judah saying, "This time I will praise YHWH". No mention this time of her husband, nor of her desperate desire to be loved and accepted by him (an entirely understandable and legitimate desire).

But Leah, so slighted and demeaned, is not abandoned in her misery and with the birth of Judah she recognises this. No doubt the pain remains but she is able now to praise YHWH out of her pain. Reconciled to her situation, she is able to rejoice in the God who is ever-loving and ever-loyal to his people. "This time" her focus is higher than her husband and her joy greater than he could arouse or sustain. To be loved and accepted by YHWH and to know his favour means more than anything else could.

Maybe it's no coincidence that at this point "she stopped having children".

the psalms & us

The attempt to recover and renew psalmody in our time must not be undertaken merely as an embellishment of liturgical practice. Crucial possibilities for the theological, liturgical, and pastoral life of the church are involved. The liveliness and actuality of the language of the reign of God supply an organizing milieu for all the principal topics of the Christian faith. It constitutes the basis and medium of the three primary functions of our religion - praise, prayer, and the practice of piety. It provides a way of thinking and understanding that holds the individual and corporate relation to God together. Said and sung as Christian liturgy, the language of the psalms discloses the unity of the canon of scripture. It articulates a polemic against the polytheism and paganism that go unnoticed in our culture. It establishes a critical resistance to the domination of any human politics and the apotheosizing of any ideology, including democracy. The language of the psalms puts all who use them in the role of servants to the LORD God, and so lays a basis for an ethic of trust and obedience. It opens up a realm for existence in which the dying may take hope, the afflicted find strength, and the faithful encouragement.

Mere recitation of the psalms will lay hold on none of these possibilities. If, however, in the use of psalms as our praise and prayer and scripture we are led to feel and think and decide as those who live in the kingdom of God in hope of the kingdom of God, then we might begin to grasp some of them. We might be better able to trust ourselves to the One who comes saying, "The kingdom of God is at hand." That would be the right reason for the renewal of psalmody today.

James L. Mays, The LORD Reigns - A Theological Handbook to the Psalms, p.11

augustine & the psalms

In his Confessions, Augustine tells how he used the psalms in a period of retreat between his conversion and baptism. "What utterances sent I unto Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs and sounds of devotion.... What utterances I used to send up unto Thee in those Psalms, and how was I inflamed toward Thee by them" (IX, 4).

For Augustine it was a time of preparation for a different life, of initiation into a new existence, a period in which habits of thought, customs of practice, and feelings about self and others and the world had to be reconstituted. As part of the transformation, he was learning a new language.

He spoke the psalms to and before the Christian God, who was now source and subject of his faith and life. He took their vocabulary and sentences as his own. He identified himself with the speaker of the psalms. He said the psalms as his words, let his feelings be evoked and led by their language, spoke the words that resonated in his own consciousness in concord with those of the psalms. He was acquiring a language world that went with his new identity as a Christian. It was the vocabulary of prayer and praise, the "first order" language that expressed the sense of self and world that comes with faith in the God to whom, of whom, and for whom the psalms speak.

James L. Mays, The LORD Reigns - A Theological Handbook to the Psalms, p.3

Yahweh's mercy

let me fall into the hands of Yahweh,
for his mercy is very great;
and let me not fall into the hands of men
(1 Chron. 21:13)

David was offered 3 choices as punishment for numbering Israel: three years of famine; three months of war or three days of the Angel of Yahweh bringing death on the people. Three years seems a long time but they might just be able to eke things out; three months against military enemies for a seasoned warrior might not seem too long; but who knows how much damage the omnipotent God could do in just three days?

David opts for the three days, yet only on this basis: Yahweh's mercy is very great. Unlike fallen humanity, in wrath he remembers mercy. And his mercy is very great. It is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God but faced with the choice between Yahweh's merciful judgement and human cruelty, David chose the former.

Because Yahweh's mercy is very great.

Election and Covenant

"The Sinai event is a kind of axle for holding together two basic realities: one, everything God does involves me (election); and two, everything I do is therefore significant (covenant). Because I am chosen, I have consequence. Election creates a unique identity; covenant describes a responsible relationship. Election is the declaration that God has designs upon me; covenant is the description of how the things I do fit into those designs."

Eugene H. Peterson
Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work

Ruth

"is the inconsequential outsider whose life is essential for telling the complete story of salvation."

"is the instance of a person uprooted, obscure, alienated who learned to understand her story as a modest but nevertheless essential part of the vast epic whose plot is designed by God's salvation."

Eugene H. Peterson
Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work

Life as an Adolescent (Fretheim)

The wilderness wanderings, or at least their length and breadth, were a surprise to Israel. Instead of a land of milk and honey, they get a desert. The promise falls short. Deliverance at the sea leads into the godforsaken wilderness. Dancers and singers are stopped dead in their tracks. Salvation from one kind of death leads into the teeth of another. The sea crossing seems but a point of unreal exhilaration between one kind of trouble and another, only the last is certainly worse than the first. Bondage with security and resources seems preferable to freedom and living from one oasis to another. The wilderness is a place betwixt and between...

And the wilderness seems permanent. Forty years is a long time in the old sandbox. Even that grand mountain-top experience at Sinai looks like a one-time thing: it is out of the wilderness only to be led right back in. The wilderness is beginning to look a lot like home. What does it mean for God to create a people out of those who are no people, the grandest of all creative acts, only to leave the rest of their world in chaos? The experience of order leads immediately into disorder, freedom becomes anarchy. Into the jaws of the wilderness, where demons howl and messiahs are tempted, where familiar resources are taken away....Lifelessness seems to be the only order on which one can depend. The journey from the Red Sea to the promised land is littered with freshly dug graves, and not a single birth is recorded.

Wilderness is life beyond redemption but short of consummation; but the former seems ineffective and the latter only a mirage. The promise has been spoken, but who can live by words alone? The hope has been proclaimed, but the horizon keeps disappearing in the sandstorms. And so trust in God often turns to recalcitrance and resentment. Faith erodes with the dunes. Commandments collapse into the disorder that shapes daily life. And judgment is invited in to share one's tattered tent.

Yet even in the wilderness God is responsive to the needs of these complaining people. God provides what the context cannot. The protests are answered, the cries are heard, quite undeservedly. Deliverance comes, but not in being removed from the wilderness. A table is spread in the very presence of the enemy (cf. Ps. 23:5). There is a gift of food where the resources are only ephemeral. There is a gift of water where only rocks abound. There is a gift of healing where the pain never ends. The movement from death to life occurs within the very experience of godforsakenness. Death is transformed into life from within a death-filled context. A sanctuary is provided, but in the wilderness.

Deuteronomy 2:7 proclaims: "These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing." Surely this is a delusion, a late pious endeavor to cover up the realities of that meandering trek through the desert. The desert in such a view is not only painted, it is whitewashed. The disciples of such poppycock are legion. Or are they? Only if they neglect the fact that the complaints from the wilderness are genuine indeed. Only if they neglect the fact that true life must always be shaped by the wilderness, even for those who are living in the promised land. Only if they neglect the fact that God's own life has been decisively shaped by that same wilderness.

Hence, although the people are often ungrateful and disloyal, the divine blessing and graciousness pervade the narrative. Israel's time in the wilderness is finally shaped by God's incredible patience and mercy and the divine will to stay with Israel in this time of their adolescence as children of God. Coping with “teenagers” is no easy task, even if the parent is God (cf. Hos. 6:4). No divine flick of the wrist is capable of straightening them out without compromising their freedom. If God wants a mature child, the possibility of defiance must be risked. Parent and child even do a certain amount of "testing" of each other. God will not compromise in holding Israel to high standards – for the sake of the creation. And so God works through their feelings of abandonment and helplessness, their words of complaint and acts of rebelliousness, and their need for reassurance, protection, a new self-identity, and non-oppressive life structures. God sticks by them through it all. God has made promises to this people, and God is a promise-keeper. Only in Numbers will it become clear that the process of maturation takes longer than a single generation.

(Terence E. Fretheim, Exodus, Interpretation Bible Commentary, John Knox Press, pp.171-173)

More

wise words from Peter Enns:

It remains an inescapable fact that our world today is no more receptive to God's will than the Egypt of Pharaoh's day. Our reaction to opposition should not be outrage, as if we are the ones offended, or surprise, as if American hearts are somehow less rebellious toward God. Rather, our reaction should be one of godliness and patience, knowing that the message belongs to the Lord and he will set things aright. We must rise above the fray, the plans and schemes of humanity, with a godly confidence that comes only from knowing God and being known by him. (Exodus, NIVAC p.167f)

The LORD is Righteous

Is God's righteousness an ethical quality or his faithfulness to his covenant? That question is at the heart of a considerable debate. Without wishing to engage that debate in all its contours, it strikes me that Psalm 129 is of some merit.


The psalm laments the fact in vv.1-3 that, since their youth, Israel has been persecuted by the nations. Yet, as v.4 makes plain, they have not been abandoned:

But the LORD is righteous;
he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.

Notice that it is YHWH who is declared to be righteous and that in the context of rescuing his people, Israel. Whilst the term 'covenant' fails to put in an appearance here, the whole context is so clearly covenantal. And YHWH's righteousness is seen in his acting to rescue his people as the outworking of that covenant.

Is he also being ethically righteous in rescuing the oppressed? Without doubt; but the emphasis, in terms of salvation-history, is on covenant faithfulness. Righteous is what righteous does - and YHWH in righeousness delivers his own, for the sake of the world.

Wise words

Commenting on the interplay of divine sovereignty and human responsibility in Exodus 4:18ff, Peter Enns makes the following salient points:

(1) We must remember that election, or sovereignty, is never an abstract notion. Common arguments against election that I have heard include, 'I guess God predestined what kind of tie I would put on today,' or, 'Are you trying to tell me that God predestined that crack in the sidewalk and that I would trip over that crack!?' As the old joke goes: What did the Calvinist say after he fell down the stairs? 'I'm glad that's over with!' Of course, most of these objections are not meant to be taken wholly seriously, but the basic thrust remains: How does God's sovereignty actually, practically, play out in the details of our lives?

This is a question that the Bible does not address. The Bible is not concerned to reveal fully the mysteries of God's dealings with his creation. The notion of God's sovereignty in the Bible is always connected specifically to one issue: the deliverance of God's people. Although this raises a host of other concerns (e.g., are we saved by God's choice without any input on our own?), understanding the salvation context of sovereignty at least puts us on the proper starting point for discussing the issue and how it might affect our lives. Burdening our hearts and minds with abstract implications of sovereignty, something the Bible itself does not entertain, will unnecessarily detract us from the focus the Bible gives to the issue.

(2) However uncomfortable we all feel from time to time with election and its implications, we must remember that the biblical writers do not seem to share that feeling of discomfort. Though the issue is mysterious, it is not presented as a burden in the Bible. This is not to say that it is easily accepted. Paul's protracted argument in Romans 9 may indicate that not only his readers but perhaps Paul himself felt the need to engage the issue more closely. For Paul, the end result of any such internal struggle with sovereignty results in praise (11:33-36). For Job, it ends in humility (Job 42:1-6). Sovereignty is a blessing rather than a hindrance. I am not saying that understanding how sovereignty works is a blessing, but that it is a blessing regardless of how little we understand.

The Lord holds us in his arms. He is the truly loving Father who cares for us, his children in Christ. Can we really hope for anything better than this? What recourse do we have? Partial sovereignty? It is good to be under the Lord's care. What such an understanding of sovereignty engenders in us is actually a sense of freedom, the knowledge that we are God's children and that we are somehow under his sovereign gaze - no matter what. Sovereignty means that in our everyday lives, we can go forth and act boldly without fear that our constant missteps or imperfections will catch the Lord by surprise and tear us away from him.

(3) However much we try to make sense of sovereignty and incorporate it into our theological systems (as I have just tried to do!), we must remember that it is ultimately a great and humbling mystery. To understand how it works is to peer into the heart of God. I remember so little of my college years, which is no one's fault but my own, but one conversation stands out in my mind. An older classmate and I were discussing the issue of sovereignty and free will and I said, "At the very least we have to accept the basic notion that either one or the other is true. Both cannot be right." My wiser friend responded, "Why?" I blurted out a comment or two about God needing to be logically consistent, or something like that, but that response seemed as shallow then as it does now. We should not forget the tension that Exodus and other portions of Scripture set up. We should not assume that God conforms to our ways of thinking.

Is this not a recurring theme in the Bible that God's ways are not our ways? Perhaps part of the value of the tension between predestination and free will is not found in solving the problem, as if it is a riddle God put in Scripture to occupy our intellectual energy, but in our standing back in awe of a God who is so much greater than we can understand. The hope is that we would go forth with this knowledge (or better, lack of knowledge) and live humble lives, trusting in the Lord all the more because of the depth of the riches of his wisdom and knowledge.
(Peter Enns, Exodus, NIVAC, p.148f)

So who's to blame?

When Israel sent 12 leaders to spy out the land, 2 brought back a favourable report; 10 did not. The upshot was that Israel refused to try to enter the land and incurred God's wrath. So who was to blame?

Clearly, the 10 who talked up the issues involved with entering the land and making it their own -

But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are." And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. (Numbers 13:31ff; TNIV)

Leaders within the church have a solemn duty to exercise faith and to encourage faith in others. It is so easy to discourage, to dampen and to damage. And it is no refuge to say 'I'm a natural pessimist and it's just how I am'; unbelief needs to be named for what it is.

But the account in Deuteronomy shows that the people as a whole were also at fault for listening to the bad report and refusing to act on the advice of Joshua and Caleb, for failing to believe God:

But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You grumbled in your tents and said, "The LORD hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt in fear. They say, 'The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there.' " (Deuteronomy 1:26ff; TNIV)

Interestingly, it had been their idea in the first place to send the spies, a suggestion that Moses recognised as God-given (cf. Dt. 1:22f & Num 13:1). But, sadly, that doesn't guarantee a faithful response.

The community needs to evaluate what it hears and follow advice that is both wise and faithful.

Mid-stream

Psalm 78 is a recital of the history of Israel and their yo-yo relationship with YHWH. Some days they were up, some days they were down; and when they were down, they were almost out. Their obedience was flimsy and their love vapid. Yet the Lord persevered with them, alternately disciplining them through their enemies then rescuing them from their enemies.

The psalm ends on a positive note:

He chose David his servant...to be the shepherd of his people Jacob...And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skilful hands he led them. (v.71f; TNIV)

So, all's well that ends well. Except it doesn't. The psalm only goes so far; it cuts off the history mid-stream. Knowing the rest of the story makes for depressing reading: even David was mired in sin and shame. Is there no answer? Is there no deliverer? Is the story destined to always remain the same? Is there no hope?

Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Rom. 7:25 TNIV)

Pharaoh's daughter

Commenting on the role played by Pharaoh's daughter in the raising and forming of Moses (and, so, in the redemption of Israel) Peter Enns writes,

What is our proper posture toward an unbeliever? There is more than one biblical model. The model of "opposition" is certainly well known and has ample biblical precedent. This model, however, is not deserving of universal application. We share with others the love of Christ, who was a friend to sinners. In doing so, we bring the good news to them in many different ways, which is something that God's people are called to do. But do not be surprised if in the process the Lord uses these same people to change you. Our neighbors, coworkers, and relatives are not so much projects to be won, notches on our salvation belt, but people who are created in God's image and whose lives are in God's hands. They, too, may be his instruments for purposes we cannot fathom. It is his will to employ many facets of his creation for his sake and for his glory. (Exodus, NIVAC, p.76)

Ready to forgive

The perspective of Joseph on his sufferings at the hands of his brothers is quite stunning. When he reveals himself to them they are - well, gobsmacked might not be too much of a paraphrase. And terrified. But Jospeh immediately says to them,

"Do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you." (Gen. 45:5)

And, again, a moment or two later, he again affirms,

"God sent me ahead of you to preserve a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So, then, it was not you who sent me here, but God." (Gen. 45:7-8)

After all the years in which bitterness could have made his heart an acrid, barren place, Joseph displays a breathtaking grasp of God's sovereign ways and a humble willingness to embrace God's purposes through his suffering and so to embrace his brothers in forgiving grace. And his readiness to forgive carved out for his brothers an opportunity to demonstrate repentance and so to receive that forgiveness.

All of which leads us, of course and with great power, to see afresh the glory of the submission and humility of our Lord Jesus on the cross. How deeply and joyously glad we can be for the words of Jesus, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing."

Make me, too, O Lord, a channel of your peace.

More Jonah

Jonah. Somehow he seems to have ended up a bit of a hero but in truth he was much more a villain. Called to preach a message of judgement, he ran for cover - not out of cowardice but out of callousness. He wasn't scared by what the Ninevites might do to him but by what they might do with God's Word - believe it, repent and live. So he did a bunk.

We know the story very well. Jonah, the once-faithful prophet runs at the sound of God's voice and manages to sleep soundly when that same voice booms in the storm at sea. Hardened in his sin, he is even shown up by pagan sailors who have more sense of God than he seems to have. Finally, he owns up to his sin and is cast overboard. Chased and chastened.

It seems like he learns his lesson. Inside the great fish, sent by God not to punish but to deliver him, he prays with a full heart, acknowledging that "salvation comes from the Lord". And when he lands on shore, he responds with obedience when God's Word comes to him a second time and makes his way to Nineveh. Maybe he's not such a bad guy after all.

But wait. The job's not done yet. He goes to Nineveh, speaks God's Word and, instead of having him for dinner, they proclaim a fast and repent of their sins. A cause for great rejoicing - but not for this still-wayward prophet. He was where he should be in terms of geography but he is still miles away in terms of compassion and mercy. Instead he is wrapped up in his own small world of bitter complaint and anger against God. A real villain - still.

But are we really that different? Maybe not. We too easily run, too quickly argue, too often sulk. We may pray for opportunities to witness but are we really looking for them? Do we marginalise some people as being somehow unworthy of the gospel because of their blatant sin? Are we expecting the Lord to march to our tune instead of being captive to his will and purpose? I hang my head.

The book ends without really ending - and that is entirely intentional. How did he respond to the Lord's last word to him, which so powerfully disclosed the Lord's merciful heart? We aren't told. The really crucial thing now is not Jonah but us, the readers, us, the church. The book challenges our complacency, our bigotry, our lack of genuine love. "Look at the world, pleads the author, at God's world. See it through God's eyes. And let your new vision overcome your natural bitterness, your hardness of soul. Let the divine compassion flood your own hearts." (Leslie Allen)

Three Lessons from Jonah

1. The refusal to do mission brings calamity upon us and our neighbours. The church cannot expect to live in a comfortable relationship with God whilst ignoring his agenda for mission. Jonah quite deliberately turned his back on the Lord’s call and headed west. But the Lord’s heart for both Jonah and mission is such that he cannot allow Jonah to just go his way. And so he goes after him, bringing a storm upon the ship, endangering not only Jonah’s life but those of the sailors too.

If we refuse to follow God’s agenda for mission, we will know his discipline and our neighbours may well be caught in the crossfire as the church struggles to come to terms with what God is doing. Is some of the distress that we see around us not simply a wake-up call to the church to greater urgency in mission but also the by-product of our failure to do so? It’s a sobering thought.

2. The LORD God will do whatever is necessary to engage his people in mission. One of the most sobering aspects of this scene is the way the sailors and the captain show more spiritual awareness than Jonah. He is happy to sleep through the storm and has to be goaded into prayer. And when he finally owns his sin and tells them to throw him overboard, they initially refuse and only do so at last with the greatest reluctance.

The Lord shames his prophet through the compassion and spiritual awareness of pagans and then saves him from death by a giant fish. How unusual his ways can be! But such is his commitment to mission that he will do whatever is necessary to awaken his people, shaming us by the compassion of others, getting our attention by unusual circumstances. Do we hear his voice or are we asleep in the light?

3. It is possible to do mission successfully yet without genuine compassion. Is Jonah a hero by the end of the book, the repentant runaway who now preaches with passion and compassion? I think not. Yes, he goes to Nineveh, obeying the word of the Lord, but his heart isn’t in it. That is more than obvious from his reaction to the way the Ninevites respond to the message. Here is a servant who is angry with his Master; here is a messenger who finds the message repugnant. And his reaction to the death of the vine shows that he is self-centred to the point of wilful obstinacy.

We are perhaps more like Jonah than we care to concede. His story shows how perverse our hearts can be and how gracious our God is. Despite his people’s disdain and reluctance, he will ensure his mission succeeds, with or without our hearts’ consent. The only loser in this story is Jonah himself. He is the villain of the piece. To know that the LORD is “a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” and not to rejoice in it, and even to oppose it, is the sign of a very sick heart.

The telling history of Jonah closes, as Jesus’ parable of the lost son does, with a question that searches both Jonah and the hearer. Does Jonah have a right to be angry? Will he go on excluding himself from a true enjoyment of the amazing grace of God? The Ninevites turned, the younger brother turned, people today are turning. Does that delight our hearts? Do we preach and yet refuse to party? Is our commitment to mission more than skin deep? Is our obedience grudging or grateful?

Apart from

the obvious instances where Jesus speaks about Jonah, the example of the OT prophet seems to cast its shadow in other ways across Jesus' ministry.

Take the elder brother in Luke 15 - his mean-spirited response to the return of his brother is very much akin to Jonah's response to the repentance of Nineveh. And, just as the book of Jonah ends with the Creator's question, so too the parable ends with the Father's question.

And then there's the small matter of sleeping through a storm (Jonah 1:4ff; Mark 4:35ff). One slept in open defiance of his God, the other in secure trust in his Father and in glad submission to his calling.

Wonder if this same pattern emerges anywhere else?