St. Matthew’s Ev. Lutheran Church + Benton Harbor, Michigan

The 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany, January 23, 2000

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

“It’s a Tough Job, But Somebody’s Got to Do It”

By Pastor Timothy H. Buelow

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: ² “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” ³ Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days. ⁴ On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” ⁵ The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth… ¹⁰ When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

Dear Friends in Christ,

Psychologists speak of the order of basic needs that people feel. For example, the need for food and shelter and the need for love are at the top of that list. But we also have a need to be significant, to be needed. God knows that. He made us that way. And he has met that need by choosing to give us Christians a special job here on earth—something that no one else, not even angels can do. He’s called us to be his witnesses to the truth. It’s “A Tough Job, But Somebody’s Got to Do It” and we are those somebodies.

1. Jonah’s Call

Jonah was one of those somebodies. God could have sent angels to Nineveh. He could have appeared himself in a blaze of glory and power. But God doesn’t work that way. When God has a message to get out, he calls on his followers to do the work. In the case of the ancient Ninevites, the person he called on was Jonah. God called Jonah because he was concerned about people—in particular the people of the great city Nineveh in the heart of the ancient Assyrian empire.

It wasn’t because the Ninevites were good people, that God cared about them. Not at all. The Assyrians were one of the most dreaded peoples in the history of the planet. They were the most powerful empire of their day, and they didn’t get that way by being nice. They scared the dickens out of everybody. They were particularly adept at torture. And when they tortured their foes, they did it in full sight of everyone, just to scare people. They would impale their captives on large poles, dip them in tar and set them ablaze to serve as torches. That was just one of their methods of getting people to submit to their rule. When they captured a nation they would plunder all its wealth and eat, drink and be merry. If terrified nations gave up without a fight, they would force them to pay huge sums of extortion money, just to stay alive. And if some nation thought to skip a payment or rebel against them, they would march in and kill and maim and torture at will. These were not nice people. No Jew in his right mind would be comfortable going to Nineveh even in disguise, much less marching down the main street proclaiming a call for repentance.

Nevertheless, God still cared about those Ninevites. He didn’t want to send a whole metropolis of people to hell, no matter how guilty they were—not if there were a chance of bringing them to repentance.

The Bible tells us that God is love, and that he wants to save everybody. Yet at the same time, the Bible tells us that nobody is good enough to deserve God’s love. The Apostle Paul put it very bluntly when he wrote in Romans “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” (Ro 3:10-12) Despite that sad fact, God is still “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Pet 3:9)

So God called Jonah to the very difficult task of going to Nineveh as a missionary and leveling with them. Jonah wasn’t too eager to go, to say the least. Quite the contrary, when God first called him he went in the exact opposite direction. He bought himself a very expensive ticket on a ship heading due West, when he should have been traveling East. But God saw to it he wouldn’t get off that easy. God had work to be done. He sent such a storm that finally Jonah had to fess up and admit it was his fault for trying to run away from God. That’s when they threw him overboard and he wound up as fish food for three days, where he had time to think things over. When he finally got vomited up on the shore, God called him again, and this time he went. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: ² “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” ³ Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh.

God still cares about people today—all people. He still wants his disciples to tell the world what they need to hear. And so God’s still calls people today into his service of proclaiming his word.

God calls pastors and teachers into various situations. Some he sends to big cities. Some he sends into little old-fashioned towns in the countryside. Some he sends to Central Africa, others he sends to cities teeming with people in Asia: the rich in Tokyo or the poor in India. God cares about everyone. After all, he made us all, and he wants us all to be saved and come to heaven.

God hasn’t called everyone to be a full time missionary or pastor or Christian school teacher. But he has called each and every Christian to share the truth of his Word wherever he has placed us—with our relatives, with our friends, with our coworkers. God has called all of us to spread his message of Law and Gospel…

2. Jonah’s Message

Just what is the message God has called us to proclaim? What did God call Jonah to preach? Well, the first thing he obviously needed to tell them was the bad news—the Law. We’ve already mentioned what the Assyrians were like as a people. They worshiped false gods. In so doing they dishonored the name of the true God. They respected only those they feared, and they didn’t fear anybody but their own king and his ruthless soldiers. They had no respect for life at all. They fornicated with anyone they chose. They stole from everybody. Right on down the line, they were living in opposition to every one of God’s commandments. What did they need to hear? They needed to hear that there is only one true God and that he is a righteous Judge before whom every man, woman and child will need to give answer for his deeds. They needed to hear that they were headed straight for hell, where Satan has tortures even the Assyrians had never dreamed up—and that his tortures, unlike theirs, don’t ever end. They needed to hear that God was not about to keep putting up with them, that his patience was rapidly drawing to a close. On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.”

But the Law wasn’t all they needed to hear. They needed to hear some God News. They needed to hear that God is a merciful God who wanted them to repent so he could save them. And, yes, there was Gospel even in the hard message that Jonah proclaimed. “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” God could have simply rained down fire and brimstone and been done with them. But Jonah’s message said “There still is time.” God is mercifully giving you time to repent. God still cares about you and wants you. He doesn’t really want to have to destroy you. God once said through his prophet Ezekiel to an equally wicked people: “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why do you want to die?” (Ez. 33:11)

Jonah went throughout the streets of that huge, wicked city Nineveh proclaiming God’s Law and Gospel message—and, of all things, the people listened! Without so much as an argument! The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth… ¹⁰ When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

And it was real, genuine repentance and faith that the Law and the Gospel brought about among these frightful heathen people. No less than Jesus himself commended the Ninevites to us as examples worth following. To the unbelieving Jews who wouldn’t repent, Jesus said The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. (Mt 12:41)

Jonah was surprised, even angry that it actually worked! Unlike God, he would have preferred to see his enemies get toasted. He’d even made himself a seat on a hill overlooking the city to see the fireworks, but they never came because of God’s mercy and his powerful Word.

We live in a wicked society too. It may not be as nasty as Nineveh, but our world is filled with people who flaunt God’s holy Law. This weekend especially, as we commemorate the sad and horrible decision of the Supreme Court of our Land to legalize the killing of innocent, helpless, little children, we need to remember how unchristian our country really is. What do our fellow citizens need to hear? The very same message that Jonah proclaimed: The Law of God—that God will come again to judge the living and the dead, and every man, woman and child will be brought before him to give answer for his deeds. People need to hear that hell is real, no matter how “politically incorrect” talking about it may be nowadays. God really will send people there—lots of them—all those who refuse to repent of their wicked ways and turn to him.

But our neighbors and friends and that cousin who doesn’t go to church any more also need to hear the Gospel—that our God is a merciful God who sent his Son to die for their sins and ours, and that he will mercifully forgive all sins—no matter how terrible or how great—to everyone who calls on him in faith.

And don’t be surprised when it has the desired effect. If we faithfully speak God’s Word without changing it, without softening it, without “improving it,” God will do the rest. It won’t always bring people to faith. So be it. God’s promise is still true: “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Is. 55:10-11) Especially on this anniversary of Roe v. Wade, somebody’s got to stand up for the truth and not be ashamed to say what has to be said. And that someone is you, and me.

God hasn’t called everyone into the public ministry as a pastor or teacher. He hasn’t made every public minister a missionary to Nineveh. But he’s called all of us to be his disciples, and part of being a disciple is sharing the truth, both Law and Gospel—right here where God has put us. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. And God’s has called you to be one of those someones. Together, we can make a big difference for God, because God’s Word works miracles. God help us speak up. Amen.