Pastor Tim Patoka He Lives: To Take Me from Death to Life
April 9, 2023
Salvation Belongs to the LORD Jonah 2:2-9 How hard is it for you to offer healing and help when someone has hurt you? I’m guessing it’s not too easy. When we get hurt, our first reaction is to hurt them back or avoid them. If they haven’t done anything to deserve our forgiveness, then why would we take the first step? Maybe we’re reluctant to heal and help because we crave to blame or complain about someone. The Old Testament prophet Jonah struggled to offer healing and help to those who had hurt him. The LORD had commanded Jonah to go to Israel’s enemy, the capital of Nineveh, and preach repentance so her inhabitants would be saved from the LORD’S righteous wrath. That was the last thing Jonah wanted for his enemies! So he ran away and refused until the LORD provided Jonah with salvation from a watery death. Jesus used this salvation to Jonah as a sign to his coming death on Good Friday and resurrection from the grave. By fulfilling this sign on Easter Sunday, Jesus shows how correct Jonah is when he says: salvation belongs to the LORD! And for we who worship our risen Savior today, we can burst in praise and thanks as Jonah did so long ago. For the LORD’S salvation is now our salvation. In case you’re not familiar with how the LORD saved Jonah, let’s briefly review. The LORD’S command to preach repentance to Nineveh was a tall order. Relations between Israel and Nineveh were as fraught as today’s relations between Russia and Ukraine. Jonah did not want any mercy shown to Israel’s enemies. He wanted them to suffer God’s wrath. So he boarded a ship and sailed as far away as possible. Along the way, the LORD raised up a horrible storm that threatened to capsize the boat and drown everyone on board. Jonah knew he was to blame for all this. So he had the sailors throw him overboard rather than have everyone die. Jonah sunk beneath the waters, down to the roots of the mountains with seaweed wrapped around his head. As his life ebbed away, he cried out to the LORD for salvation. And what did the LORD do? He sent salvation through a big fish who swallowed him, kept him safe in its belly for three days, and spat him out onto dry land. It was during his three-day stay in the fish’ belly that Jonah prayed the words from our First Reading. Jesus used Jonah’s three-day stay in the fish’s belly and later safe exit as a sign to his own three-day stay in the grave and later resurrection. We hear how in Matthew chapter 12(:40 EHV), “For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be three days and three 1