The Supplication of the Ninevites

Jonah and the Whale

We tend to run away when God calls us to give up our lives. This makes sense; no one wants to lose their life, at least not until they understand what they are losing it for. It is the knowledge that we are called to be an extension of God’s image on earth, that is, to be a self-gift to others, that will set us free from our burdens in this life and grant us the peace we desire. This, in short, is the story of the prophet Jonah. As we approach the mini-season of Bautha, we fast and remember how Jonah was called by God to go and preach words of repentance to the Ninevites, lest they be destroyed because of their sins, even at the expense of himself.

Initially, Jonah refuses to do the will of God. He gets on a boat at Joppa and chooses to travel in

exactly the opposite direction from where God was commanding him to go. We too run into sin,

despair, frustration, bitterness, resentment, or anger, simply to avoid undergoing the difficult

change that God demands of us. Jonah is then thrown into the sea and swallowed by a great

fish, wherein he dies, and his corpse is vomited onto the shore three days later. God raises him

from the dead, and now, having died to his old self, Jonah begins to preach. Nineveh listens, fasts, and repents of its sins against God.

Yet, like most of us, when we are called by God to do good to our enemies (Nineveh was an

enemy of the Jews, and thus of Jonah), we often fall into bitterness because of the change required for us to love those who cause us pain. Near the end of the book, Jonah laments the day he was born and complains in anger against God for sending him to Nineveh (Jonah 4:1). God responds to him, “Should I not have pity on the people of Nineveh?” (Jonah 4:11).

So, our Lord asks us, will you not have pity on those I have entrusted to you? You, like Jonah, cannot use your pain as a way to run from or refuse to be present to those whom God has called you to give up your life for, so that they too may encounter the healing mercy of God. Do not escape your life. If God wants you to feel as though you are in hell for a time, remain there, doing His will. Rest, and let it bring you peace, knowing that you are in His presence and that He has a plan to make your life a place of freedom and hope, for you and for many that is a life worth sacrificing and losing everything for.