Week 5: into the shade
In tonight’s text we hear that Jonah is very angry.
Why?
God had rescued Jonah, forgiven him, and granted him a second chance to preach the message he had given him to the city of Nineveh. And what a spectacular, miraculous outcome it was! Everyone in the city, from the greatest to the least repented! They heard and called on the name of the Lord! God had done a mighty, miraculous work at Nineveh, and Jonah was a part of it. How wonderful! What an occasion to rejoice and be glad, and give thanks and praise to God!
But not Jonah. But Jonah is angry and resentful.
A few weeks ago we heard how Jonah is like the prodigal son in Jesus’ famous parable. Just as the younger son in that parable shamed his father, demanded things on his terms, and ran away from home to a distant land, before descending to his lowest point in the confines of a pig pen, so too Jonah shamed his Father in heaven, demanded things on his terms, and ran away to the distant land of Tarshish, before descending to his lowest point in the confines of a fish. Just as the Prodigal Son came to his senses and repented, so too Jonah came to his senses and repented, confessing to God in the depths of the fish and making vows to him.
Those were the similarities between Jonah and the Prodigal son. In tonight’s text, Jonah is now like the eldest son in that parable—the angry, bitter son, resentful of his father’s compassion to his sibling, and his extravagant celebration of his homecoming. He is furious that his father should treat this ingrate; this black sheep who brought such shame on the family. If he were the younger son’s father, he’d show this good-for-nothing the door! He didn’t want any part of his father’s celebration of welcoming back his lost son.
In the same way, Jonah did not want any part of his Heavenly Father’s extending compassion to the Ninevites. Why is Jonah angry? He is angry at God—angry that God should be showing grace and compassion to people who least deserved it. Jonah protests: “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” Jonah knew what God was like—after all, that’s what he pinned hope on for his own rescue from the belly of the fish. But Jonah uses these words of grace against God, throwing them back at him like an insult: ‘Look now, God. I told you so. You’ve gone too far. You can’t love everyone. You can’t love people who don’t deserve it. You can’t love those people.’
Jonah says that this is why he fled—to stall God’s plans of showing compassion to the Ninevites. He didn’t want them to have the opportunity to repent. Jonah wanted God to conform to his wishes. He believes that God should be operating by law and punishment instead. Jonah wanted to see them obliterated, so he couldn’t bear the thought of God showing them grace, so much so that he wanted to die: “Now Lord, take away my life for it is better for me to die than to live.”
But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
Jonah doesn’t answer God. He ignores God. As he waits for God to come around to his line of thinking, he went out and made himself a shelter, and sat in its shade. From this vantage point, Jonah waited to see what would happen to the city. There in the booth, it’s popcorn time. Jonah waits for the show to start. How will destruction come? Plagues? Lightning? Burning sulphur?
God shows his compassion further on Jonah. While Jonah waits, God provides a leafy plant to give Jonah shade to ease his discomfort. Jonah is very happy about the plant, while he waits to see what God will do.
What does God do?
Instead of destroying the city of Nineveh, God destroys the plant. At dawn, God provided a worm which chewed through the plant so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die and said: “It would be better for me to die, than to live”—the second time he says this.
But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” Jonah did nothing to cause the plant to grow, so why should he be so angry when it is gone? He is not entitled to it. He laments the plant’s destruction and disappearance, yet would gladly see a city be destroyed and disappear. The resentment he has towards the Ninevites shows where his heart is with God. It is not a heart that loves like God loves. It is not a heart that rejoices in the ways of God or seeks to follow them. It’s a heart that compares what they have got to what he has, and Jonah thinks they deserve less—they deserve nothing. He is more worthy than they are! They don’t deserve God’s favour! They don’t deserve anything…not like he does.
God is teaching Jonah a lesson. He does not have a right to the plant. He has not caused it to grow, or tended it. The plant is God’s. He has provided it for Jonah. And now he takes it away Everything God has provided for Jonah is to teach him to lay aside his will and trust God’s own—the storm, the fish, the plant, the worm, the wind. All of these are intended to humble Jonah’s heart. God is teaching him that he is sovereign. Human beings cannot coerce their Maker to conform to their will. He must work with God, not against him.
The Book of Jonah ends with God posing a question, and the end of Jesus’ parable ends similarly too. Both stories are left unfinished. They are left unfinished, because God intends his audience to see ourselves in them. In what ways are we like Jonah, and the eldest son? What is our response to God’s demonstration of grace? Are we ready for it to be applied to ourselves, but for it to be withheld from others, especially those who have hurt and wronged us? Do we have a sense of entitlement to God’s favour and provision? Do we desire those who have hurt us to fall? Are we more ready to pass sentence rather than pardon? Can we see clearly to take the speck out of our brother or sister’s eye because we have first removed the log from our own? Do we gladly submit to God’s will…or are we expecting him to conform to ours?
The one thing God does not provide in the story of Jonah is an ending. What is the ending we will write with how we will live out our lives from this point, in response to God’s grace and compassion to us?
For, like the Ninevites, we too were once enemies of God, hostile to him. We once were objects of wrath and deserved God’s fury. We deserved nothing from God and still deserve nothing from God. We are not entitled to anything, apart from Jesus. But God showed his love for us in this while we were sinners Christ died for us. In this, we see a glimpse of Christ in today’s text. Where?
In the plant that suddenly grows. Isaiah 53 says of Jesus: He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground” (Isaiah 53:2) And:
“Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities” (v4-5)
The plant springs up but then is brought low, put to death. This is where we see most clearly that God is a gracious and compassionate God. Not in Nineveh, but on the Cross. God shows his underserved favour for us for Jesus’ sake. It was when we weren’t ready, when we weren’t good, when we had separated ourselves far from God that he came to earth in the Person of Jesus to draw people from all nations to his loving embrace, an embrace stretched out wide on a Cross, shedding his precious blood to ransom us from sin, death and hell. We didn’t deserve it. We couldn’t measure up. But God did not pour out his anger on us, but on his own Son, and he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.
in the Person of Jesus God did not come to get even with us, but to become one with us. In the Person of Jesus God did not come to close the door on us, but be the narrow gate for you to access his Heavenly Father’s grace and favour. In the Person of Jesus, God did not come to punish you, or others, but punished the wrongdoing of the world in his one and only Son. In the Person of Jesus, God did not come to write you off, but write your names in heaven. In the Person of Jesus, God stepped into this world to seek and save the lost. By his holy and precious blood he has redeemed you to belong to him alone, and at the font he found you and claimed you to serve him in his kingdom in everlasting innocence, righteousness and blessedness forever.
As we turn the corner into Holy Week, beginning with shouts of ‘Hosanna’ – Lord save now!’– may we learn from Jonah that it is much easier to live with forgiving hearts than resentful ones. May we learn that vengeance does not overcome evil, but only worsens it. It is compassion that triumphs. That is how God won us over. We can never conform God’s will to ours, but he has come to conform us to the image of Christ. And even when we turn aside from him at every turn God pursues us, and provides in our life the things needed for us to run headlong into grace. Amen.
Pastor Tim Ebbs
St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Glenelg
Lent, 2026
