Trending in Nineveh--Sackcloth

 Read Jonah 3

Jonah was on the shore.  He had his toes in the water…

Actually, chapter 3 begins with business.  The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.  Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim the message I give you.

His time in the belly of a great fish reconciled Jonah, at least in mind, to God’s purpose for him.  He went to Nineveh.

It was a big city.  It took 3 days to cover all of it.  Jonah went around the city proclaiming, “You guys have 40 days to repent of your evil ways or you're done for.”

The people believed Jonah and started fasting and wearing sackcloth.  These were not God’s Chosen People but somehow, they knew to wear sackcloth when they were repenting.  They may not have been God’s Chosen People but they knew of God’s ways.

They knew that they had gone way off course.  God could not be happy with them.  Numbering them with Sodom or Gomorrah seemed like the logical thing for God to do.  The people repented by fasting and wearing sackcloth.

Sackcloth would not be a standard wardrobe item for these gentile people.  That was something that the Israelites did.  Wouldn’t you like to go back in time and invest in burlap bags when you heard that Jonah was running away from God?

What difference would selling a few burlap bags make?  Probably not much but selling 125,000 or more would turn a tidy profit.  That would be every person in Nineveh. How would that be possible?

When Jonah’s words reached the king of Nineveh, he decreed that everyone would fast and everyone would wear sackcloth.  This was not just for the people but for their livestock as well.  Perhaps this gives us insight into what it is for the whole creation to groan in hopes of reconciliation that we know today in Christ Jesus.

You just don’t see a lot of cattle or sheep adorned in sackcloth, unless you were in Nineveh when Jonah was.  Wow!  That’s going all out on the participation.

The king thought that if God saw this, maybe he would relent.  We repent and God relents.

He did!  Destruction was not delivered to Nineveh, at least for another hundred years or so.  Eventually, the Medes and Babylonians would lay waste to the city, but for this time, God had spared them.

God sent Jonah.  Jonah delivered God’s message.  God had mercy on Nineveh and forgave them.  God has always been a God who desires none to perish.

That’s chapter 3.  Jonah was reconciled to the will of God at least in his mind while he was in the belly of the great fish.  We will get a glimpse into Jonah’s heart in the next chapter.

For now, let’s just celebrate that Nineveh repented and was not destroyed.

You might think, yeah, but it didn’t last.  It didn’t.  The great city of Nineveh would be gone in little more than a century.  So did it make a difference?

I look at our country today and what do I see?

Hatred. 

Division.

Orwell’s ministry of truth is no longer fiction.

Denying history in favor of the narrative to be advanced.

Contempt for anything godly. 

Movements to declare multiple genders.

Killing children in the womb and killing those who make it out of the womb but succumb to senseless violence.

The sanctity of life has been forgotten.

Platitudes for the most profane music.

Death of dialogue.

And of course, the ubiquitous misuse of your and you’re.  Some of you were ok with the first few examples but offended by my grammar Nazi example.

The world that you know does not worship God.  Evil abounds.  The stench of this nation’s wickedness has risen to God.

We would be well served to fast and put on sackcloth—every one of us, including our animals.  We have something better than sackcloth.  We are called to confess.  We have already repented, but still miss the mark on a recurring basis.

Many of us do confess daily or weekly, but we are surrounded by a culture that would not hear Jonah’s words but surely needs to repent.

But Nineveh was eventually destroyed.  So, what’s the point?

I would take a 100-year reprieve in this country right now.  I would covet a century of godliness. I would sing Hallelujah for this nation to return to God, even just to get my children’s children through their lives in a godly land.

I would love to see my children’s children pass the godliness baton to their own children.

I know that eternity with God is promised to me, but I would rejoice beyond measure in the wholesale repentance of my nation.

Imagine being the king of a wicked people and deciding that everyone would repent.  They would at least do the outwards signs of repentance.  Imagine wholesale repentance.

What would we repent of?

Not being white.

Not being black.

Not being born male or female.

Not of having a job.

Not of paying your bills.

Not of trying to make a living and support your family.

Not of any of the things that the world would tell us to discharge.

We must all repent of rebelling against God.  We must all repent of a me-first culture.  We must repent of unclean hearts and minds.

We must repent of our sin.  Many have but so many more have rejected God and the stench of that rejection has risen to heaven.

The twin gods of Apathy and Ambivalence rule in this country. 

We have hope for ourselves and our families.  We are people of hope.  We believe and we confess and we get back in our race of faith, but our country is in peril. 

I long for wholesale repentance, but perhaps it must come at the loss of luxury and liberty.  I like being able to go where I want and have a vehicle to get me there.

I love to go to the store and complain that out of the 40 different types of bread, they didn’t have my favorite.

I love to complain about the heat or the cold from the comfort of my sheltered abode, then complain about my gas or electric bill.

Jonah is not coming to America, but we are charged—commissioned—to take the good news to the world.  Most of that ministry will take place in America.

I am thankful for eternity with my loving God.  I would love another 100 years in a country that loved God and served him.

If the pagan, evil king of Nineveh can call all of his people to repent, I have hope that America could do the same.

As we draw nearer the time when God’s Spirit is poured out upon this sinful world, I pray that his Spirit is irresistible.

I also pray that people repent of the ways of the world now and come to God.

So many people pray that God will bless America again.  I pray that people will repent for repentance must precede God’s forgiveness and his blessings.

I pray that we as a nation can repent better than Nineveh.  Maybe I should invest in burlap. 

I will read something directed at God’s Chosen People, but I pray it applies to us.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Amen

Are Ash Wednesday and Lent for me?

 

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a period to focus on turning away from the ways of the world and seeking the ways of Christ.

Ash Wednesday has only been a common practice of the church for a millennium and widespread in this nation for half a century.  Ashes are traditionally associated with repentance and sometimes with mourning.  But we have repented and seek to draw closer to God.  Why should I participate?

It has nothing to do with your salvation.  It’s about that ongoing battle with the old self and focusing on living as the new creation you are meant to be.

Jesus never participated in an Ash Wednesday service.  He had no need to repent or to model repentance as he had modeled servanthood.  Realize, it’s an old but modern tradition as far as the church goes.  It should remind us to cast off everything that hinders and seek the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

If it doesn’t seem right to you, then don’t participate but do not disparage others who are trying to grow closer to God. 

All should seek to grow closer to God and Lent offers a special time to do this just as you worship at a specific time in the assembly with other believers, so too is there a special time to make a surge effort to turn away from the evil in the world and seek God, his kingdom, and his righteousness above all thins.

Some fast during this period.  We are counseled not to fast as the Pharisees did, with long faces announcing to the world that they were obeying God.

Some seek to lift burdens and oppression from others who are worse off than we are.

Some partake of a form of sacrifice usually by giving up a food item or something that gratifies us.

Some just pray more, give more, or judge less.

It is a shared time with individual worship and service as people are led to participate.

For this year, I suggest the following three things over and beyond your current service and worship.

Give up half an hour each day of things that are usually not fruitful—television, Facebook, watching videos, and the like.  You might want to give up things not so easily measured in time:  complaining, disparaging others, insistence on your own way. 

Give a food offering every time you enter the church building. 

Give an offering to the Goat and Two Chickens offering.

You may choose something else or nothing at all but these are three things that we could do together. Because during Lent we suspend our weekly offerings to support Martha, you may want to make a special offering for her.

At the end of this period, we will have a special day to celebrate the resurrection.  We should celebrate the resurrection of the Lord and our life eternal every day, but will have a special celebration on Sunday, 4 April 2021.