What is Your Nineveh? 

Jonah 3: 1-5, 10

Epiphany 3 

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen.  The sermon text for the third Sunday after Epiphany is the Old Testament reading Jonah 3.  Most of us are very familiar with the story of Jonah.  It is a really good story about a prophet named Jonah called by God to go to the city of Nineveh to call the people to repentance.  The problem is that Jonah does not want to do this, so he heads in the opposite direction.  He gets on a boat to get as far from Nineveh as possible.  You know what happens.  The sailors on the boat throw Jonah in the water, he is swallowed by a huge fish, and then he is spit out on to the shore.  Jonah is given another chance to go to Nineveh.  That outline of the Biblical account of Jonah shows us a very reluctant prophet.  He does not choose to be called to that vocation.  He was a weak and sinful person, very much like the rest of us. When he was called by God, he wanted desperately to avoid it.  It is after the first failed mission and the business with the fish that we pick up the story of Jonah in chapter three.  He is called to the vocation of prophet a second time, and this time He goes off to Nineveh, that city he wanted to avoid.  Jonah goes to the great city, and He does preach to them.  He calls the people to turn from their sins. 

So, let me ask you this question.  In your vocation, are there things you need to do because God’s Word tells you to do them? I ask myself, and now also you this second question.  Have you avoided that Christian duty?  In other words, what is your Nineveh? 

Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh because it was a frightening place to go.  Nineveh was the capital of the ancient Assyrian Empire. That empire was one of the most violent and cruel empires in the history of the world.  When Assyria conquered territories, there always followed a slaughter of many and the enslavement of the rest.  Assyrian Kings gained and held the throne by threats, destruction, and oppression.  Preaching in this corrupt and evil capital would not exactly be a vacation.  Yet it is in this corrupt culture that Jonah was to go and proclaim the destruction of the city. 

Nineveh was a huge city, and there would be no easy exit.  This presented a challenge to Jonah in proclaiming God’s message throughout the city.  Everywhere Jonah preached the Lord’s message, he knew that he was putting himself into the hands of angry Assyrians.  This meant Jonah would for days be exposed to danger.  The message that Jonah had to proclaim would not be a popular one. “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”  His progress would have to be slow as he stopped to warn each part of the city.  There would be no quick exit if the inhabitants attacked him.  Jonah’s preaching was certain to offend the powerful who might well seek to silence him. His life was in true peril, and he could no longer run away. 

Yet our Lord will work His purpose even in Nineveh.  Jonah preached the Lord’s message and not his own.  So what happened in Nineveh through Jonah’s word of warning?  We have no record of Jonah's words beyond his warning, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”  But that was enough.  The people of Nineveh “believed God” and “called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least.”  Even the king joined in.  The fasting and sackcloth would be meaningless without true repentance.  God guarded Jonah from danger and His Word brought the people of Nineveh to repentance. 

Our Lord is merciful and does not desire the death of a sinner.  Yet, like Jonah, we can easily write off people and turn away from those we consider to be unredeemable.  But God does not.  The miracle of Divine grace is more powerful than the worst of human sin.  “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that He had said He would do.” 

Jonah was a prophet, but he was also a sinful human being.  He had been given a second chance to go to Nineveh after he ran from his first call.  He himself had to be forgiven and restored.  The Lord worked through his preaching to bring Nineveh to repentance. So what is your Nineveh?  We have been called by God to confess Christ.  We are called by God to confess the truth of His Word and to live a Christian life in a very dark and sinful world.  Yet, we can be fearful.  We are living in a time when people are openly rebelling against God. Our world is filled with places that can be called Nineveh. 

The Assyrians were truly a frightening empire, and Nineveh was the center of it.  That same evil has permeated all of human history.  From Cain who murdered his brother Abel to this moment.  Human hate and violence have brought a Divine sentence of wrath and condemnation on all. Make no mistake about it, though God is the world’s Creator, he is also our Judge.  And that judgment is pure and perfect justice.  Yet, that Lord is also merciful.  The Lord sent Jonah into the midst of ancient Nineveh to bring them to repentance.  The Lord calls all people to repentance and faith.

Jonah was foreshadowing the much larger mission of our Savior Jesus Christ.  It was the Lord Jesus who came down from heaven in order to come to this dark and sinful world.  Everything would change that day when the Father sent His own Son into our world.  He, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, would be the great and final prophet whose sacrifice and proclaimed Word would redeem our fallen and hurting world.  The Lord Jesus Christ is the One who has defeated sin, death, and hell by dying and rising. 

The Lord’s mercy is yours. God’s judgment is perfect but so is His mercy.  What changed eternity for Assyria, for Jonah, for Israel, and for you came not through destruction but upon all sins being placed upon Jesus.  Salvation was won when the Lord Jesus faced the wrath of God in our place and gave to us His righteousness.  It is the shed blood of Jesus that brings for us the forgiveness of our sins. Human sin must be met with Divine justice.  But the love of Jesus Christ compelled Him to offer Himself as the bearer of all human sin. The center point in history is found in the death of Jesus at the cross and in His glorious resurrection.  That is the heart of all things.  The redemption of the world through Christ Jesus our Lord.

As we wait for the return of Christ, we still live in this fallen world.  And in this world, there are places to which we might not want to go and times we would rather not speak the precious Gospel.  No matter what our vocation might be, the Lord will lead us through a world with many places as rebellious and broken as Nineveh.  But nothing can take us from God’s hand.  Our Lord who created us and redeemed us will never leave us.

Children of God, know who He is and who you are.  Never fear the word or satanic powers, no matter where your vocation might take you. You belong to the Lord.  Your life is found in His resurrection, and nothing can take that away from you.  That means that even death cannot hold you on the day of the resurrection of all flesh. Jesus lives, and you too, shall live! Amen.