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March 10, 2010

Praying in the Belly of the Great Big Fish

Preacher: Rev. Jack Meehan Series: Lenten midweek 2010 - The Sign of Jonah Category: Biblical Scripture: Jonah 2:1–2:10

Midweek Lenten Service
March 10, 2010
Jonah 2:1-10

 “The Sign of Jonah: Praying in the Belly of the Great Big Fish”

So, just what was this “great fish” that swallowed Jonah and then spit him out on dry land? We’ve come to identify this “fish” as a whale (think “Jonah and the whale”), but as we all know a whale isn’t a fish at all, but a mammal. There have been many attempts to identify the species of this “great fish,” but without success. There are indeed any one of a number of different ocean fish that could accommodate a person in their gullet, but the account found here in Jonah 2 is not specific. This is one of those questions that we’ll have to wait for an answer until we get to heaven. Jonah is by no means the only person recorded in history who was swallowed alive by large fish. There are other stories. There is an account from 1758 when a man fell overboard from a frigate in the Mediterranean Sea and disappeared into shark’s mouth. A gun was fired at the shark, which immediately spit out the man, who was visibly shaken but otherwise unharmed. The shark was killed and preserved, and the man toured all over Europe with it. There is another more recent account from 1987 of a Japanese fisherman who was swallowed alive by a shark. The man, Mikado Nakamura, gave an interview from his hospital bed in Kanazaw, Japan (see Jonah: Concordia Commentary, R. Reed Lessing, p. 187).  If there is any doubt about the validity of the Biblical account of Jonah being swallowed such a “great fish,” these documented stories ought to lay our uncertainties to rest.

In God’s divine providence, He appointed this great fish to rescue Jonah from a watery grave there in the depths of the sea. Even after Jonah had stubbornly refused to accept the mission God had given him to do, and had run in the opposite direction, even then God didn’t shut the door on his reluctant prophet. And there, deep beneath the wind and waves in the belly of the great big fish, Jonah prayed to God. It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes. In the hour of deepest need, when we find ourselves in life-threatening situations, we cry out to God in all our need because there is nowhere else to turn. Sadly, we often do not cry out to God except as a last resort, when every other avenue and possibility has been exhausted, and there are no other resources left at our disposal. Only then, in sheer desperation, do we finally turn to God. Perhaps Jonah had already been fervently praying to God for deliverance. If so, Scripture does not record this. But it does record this: “Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, ‘In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry” (Jonah 1:1-2).  The most important thing here is that when Jonah prayed, God listened. And as God listened to Jonah’s prayer then, so does He listen to our prayers today. And in listening, God also answers prayer. He makes a way where there is no way, as He did with Jonah.

We are told that Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights (Jonah 2:1) – this should point us to Jesus right here! In time of need, Jonah’s prayers wandered over familiar passages from Scriptures: Psalm 42, but also phrases from Psalms 18, 66, 16, 30, 22 and others as well. There is wisdom here for us to commit to memory passages from God’s Word for our lives today. Who knows when we, like Jonah, may be in a situation that cuts us off from other people, when we don’t have access to anything – even a Bible? Here is a word of encouragement to “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” God’s Word – and I would add memorization to that list!

Jonah addressed his prayer to God’s holy temple (Jonah 2:4), when he prayed: “I said, I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.” In that holy temple at Jerusalem was the mercy seat of the Lord God, located in the holy of holies at the place where God met man – the ark of the covenant. We also address our prayers to the mercy seat of God, but it’s no longer found in a place but a Person – Jesus. In him and him alone do we have access to the Lord God, and in him alone do our prayers find acceptance. Unlike Jonah, Jesus did not run away from the mission the Father had given him. In contrast to our running away – from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to Jonah to each one of us today – Jesus did not run away. He came to fulfill all righteousness; to do for us what we could not. His blood was poured out there on the cross of Calvary. Each year, blood of a sacrificed animal had to be sprinkled on the mercy seat (Leviticus 16:14) to atone for the sins of the people, but with Jesus’ sacrifice of himself upon the cross such sacrifice is no longer needed, as Scripture makes clear: “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14), and “the blood of Jesus [God’s] Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). He was obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:8). And when his bruised, bloody, and broken body was taken down from the cross, Jesus – like Jonah – rested in the deep for three days – not the depths of the sea, but the depths of the earth. And like Jonah, Jesus was raised up to new life by the glory of the Father.

Jonah’s experience in the belly of that great fish points us ahead to Jesus’ own suffering, death, and resurrection. And it is in Jesus and all that He has done for us that we are delivered in our own time of need. May God turn our hearts and minds to the Lord Jesus now during these Lenten days. Amen.

other sermons in this series