Imagine a nation so evil and treacherous that they skin people alive and leave them to be, they toss your children in the air and catch them on spears, and they impale you through the groin and stake you to the ground. And they did this over and over again.
Then imagine that God tells you to go preach to them so that he might show his mercy and compassion upon them if they repented.
“No way!” was basically Jonah’s response. Although I’m sure it was much more forceful than that. It’s why he ran away. As far away as he could get.
But God wasn’t done with Assyria. Nor Jonah.
So Jonah declared their judgment. They repented. And Jonah was so angry he told God he would rather be dead. Perhaps God would still rain down on them fire and brimstone. The message was of 40 days that the judgment would happen. So Jonah waited and hoped to see them all die. Somehow that they would suffer the same kind of suffering that they had inflicted.
The LORD had to send him an illustration because he wasn’t getting. It was miserably hot during the days as Jonah waited so the LORD provided shade for him that Jonah was most grateful about. But then the LORD had a worm eat the shade bush and Jonah was furious.
God basically said to him you care more about vine than you do about the people of Assyria. Yet should I not care about them?
This strikes on so many levels. When we’ve been hurt, really hurt, let’s be real. We want people to suffer in the same way they have inflicted suffering upon us. Or worse. We want them to feel the effects of the things they themselves do.
It’s called bitterness. And hate.
And then there’s the other part of this story. How great must God’s love and compassion be that he would actually want to forgive people like this? And that he was relentless about giving them an opportunity to forgive, to the point he had to take drastic action with Jonah, his prophet, to get him there.
If God can love the Assyrians this way, then certainly he can love you.
