Jump Start # 404 

Jonah 2:5-6 “Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, weeds were wrapped around my head. I descended to the roots of the mountains, the earth with its  bars was around me forever, but You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.”

  The second chapter of Jonah is the prophets prayer to God. He prays from a most unusual place, the belly of a whale. It is a humble prayer of a man in trouble. He understands that he is receiving the punishment of God. He promises to keep his vow to the Lord.

  We need to see the Lord’s activity in all of these pages. It was the Lord who caused the severe storm upon the sea. It was the Lord who kept Jonah alive when he was cast overboard during the violent storm. It was the Lord who appointed or prepared a giant fish to swallow Jonah. Our verse today is the prayer from the belly of that creature. It wasn’t roomy and nice, nor was he sitting in a rowboat with a lit candle like Disney’s take on this. One can only imagine the goo, the smell, the confinement, the darkness and being tossed as the creature swam in the sea. This went on for three days. Why wasn’t Jonah digested? Why didn’t Jonah die? God’s hand was in this. The miracles that are taking place are numerous. God wasn’t done with Jonah. The chapter ends with the whale throwing Jonah up on dry land. He had traveled a distance inside the whale.

  This was Jonah’s tomb for three days. The Lord would make reference to this in the gospel concerning his own burial. Same time period, three days. Jonah was “resurrected” and the Lord was literally resurrected.

  What do we learn from our runaway prophet with sea weed wrapped around his head, being tossed about in the belly of a whale?

1. It is interesting that he now turns to God in prayer. He didn’t pray in the first chapter. He didn’t pray during the storms. But he’s praying now. He’s scared. He knows that he will likely die. Why is it that we can talk on the cell phone to so many people, every day but we can’t talk to God? It’s very common for us to spend thirty minutes talking about “nothing.” I see people driving talking—I do that. I see people in the airport on the phone. As they sit down in the airplane, they call somebody and say, “I’ve just gotten on the plane.” As soon as we land, they are on the phone again, “Well, we just landed.” It’s like a play by play of the flight. Why do we find it so hard to talk to God? Mostly, we don’t know what to say? Could it be that we don’t know God?

2. It is also interesting that we sometimes don’t take what God says very seriously until we disobey or mess things up. Jonah is very serious about his promise to God –who wouldn’t be if they were inside a whale’s belly. That seems to change the importance of things. Is it much different when the red lights of a police car pulls us over or our mate says that they are thinking about moving out because we don’t act like we love them anymore. Then we take things serious. Then we make promises to drive the speed limit, to stay home more and turn the tv off…then, when the sea weeds have wrapped around our heads we see the importance. The rich man in Luke 16 who died when Lazarus died, he saw how important spiritual things were—he saw that after he died and no longer was in the position to do things and was suffering for his stingy and selfish ways. He was concerned about his brothers winding up in the same place he was. They were all alike. No time for God, no time for the spiritual. But you put some sea weed around the rich man’s head, and now he’s begging for someone to talk to them.

  Promises made to God…vows made during a marriage…these are important to God. Jonah just didn’t take God seriously. Sea weed around his head changed that. It’ll do the same for us, but often it can be too late. Too late because the kids are grown and out of the house and no longer willing to listen to you about God. Too late because the opportunity to help a Lazarus has past. Too late because the marriage ended. Too late…

  I’ve eaten sea weed before. It was in a salad. Some like it. I thought it was disgusting. But sea weed around the head…that can be a good thing if it causes me to wake up and get about doing what God wants me to do. How about you? Been a while since you really talked to God? Try it today—the car is a good place. Got some things you know God wants you to do, but you just don’t feel like it? Better do it.

  Sea weed has a way of changing our perspective, especially when we are all tangled up in it.

Roger