Day 29

Yesterday we learned the full story of Jonah who, because of his unwillingness to follow God’s command, finds himself in the belly of a whale. The book of Jonah tells us that from the belly of the whale, Jonah prayed. (Jonah 2) This is not the most unusual place that prayer has been said, We just saw how the Three Holy Youths prayed from the depths of a fiery furnace. However, it certainly is unique! Let us look at this prayer and talk about a few parts of it:

2And from the belly of the sea creature, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God, 3and said: “I cried out in my affliction to the Lord, my God, And He heard my voice; Out of the belly of Hades, You heard the cry of my voice. 4You cast me into the depths of the heart of the sea, And rivers encompassed me; All Your surging waters and Your waves passed over me. 5And I said, ‘I have been driven away from Your sight; Shall I again look with favor toward Your holy temple?’ 6Water is poured over me to my soul; The lowest depth encircled me; My head plunged into the clefts of the mountains. 7I descended into the earth, The bars of which are everlasting barriers; Yet let my life ascend from corruption, O Lord, my God. 8When my soul was failing from me, I remembered the Lord. May my prayer be brought to You, into Your holy temple. 9Those who follow vanity and lies forsake their own mercy. 10But with a voice of thanksgiving and praise, I will sacrifice to You. As much as I vowed, I shall offer up to You, To You, the Lord of Deliverance.” 11Then the Lord commanded the sea creature, and it cast up Jonah onto the dry land.

“I cried out in my affliction to the Lord, my God, And He heard my voice  – Jonah understood that God was always near. He always knew this. Even though he knew this, he chose to run when God commanded him. It is this knowledge, in part, that he fled to Tarshish instead of doing what God commanded.

When my soul was failing from me, I remembered the Lord. May my prayer be brought to You, into Your holy temple. – Even as he is in the belly of the whale and his life is fading away, he cries out to God. Why? Because he recognizes his sinfulness and knows that God is a God of mercy and compassion

Those who follow vanity and lies forsake their own mercy – Jonah knows that the only true way is to follow the Will of God. He begins to understand that no matter how hard we try to run away, God stays with us. And if we continue to run away and follow worthless things, we forsake the mercy of God.

10But with a voice of thanksgiving and praise, I will sacrifice to You. As much as I vowed, I shall offer up to You, To You, the Lord of Deliverance. – His repentance complete, Jonah recognizes that the only way to salvation (for him, out of the belly of the whale, for us, the kingdom of heaven) is to follow God and to give thanks to Him, offering our lives to Him.

Certainly, this story of Jonah foreshadows the Resurrection of Christ, it shows the way of His birth from an undefiled womb. But it also shows us the way to repentance and the mercy of God. The Nativity of Christ is God calling us to salvation. We can choose to run in the other direction, like Jonah, or we can choose to listen to the call of God and embrace the miracle that we will witness. A miracle that comes out of God’s mercy and compassion for His creation.

We often find ourselves in the belly of the whale of this world. A world of death and decay. Let us have the courage to cry out to God for deliverance that we may be delivered from the depths of this world to the kingdom of heaven.

In Christ

Fr. David