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Read Jonah 1:17-2:10

It couldn’t have been comfortable to be in the fish. And no level of isolation felt by stay-at-home directives could parallel to a point of understanding the experience of isolation Jonah must have felt while in the fish. I’d imagine it was an ongoing stressor every time the fish swallowed to think of an inrushing of water that would have ended his piscine hotel stay in a moment. But then, he was still alive …. It is an odd story on the pages of the Hebrew scriptures.

This is certainly an odd year to try to celebrate Easter on its date. And the oddness didn’t start and doesn’t end with a virus of disruption, although the disruption seems to be providing an ongoing context. This year’s dated 4-9-2020 Maundy Thursday here in Pickett appeared to have been a continuation of that context with clouds on and off trading places with the sun’s on and off. Then it was snow on, snow off. Then, first snow with the clouds, then snow with the sun. It was as if God was trying to get our attention in the midst of His withdrawal of the privilege of worshiping together, gathering together to hear His Word, on this highest festival of the Christian church year. So an odd story for an odd time, but still a fitting story for a timeless message of hope.

If there’s one message the Lord does want to get through to us on this church-less (not churchless, rather less than what we’re used to), then Jonah 2:9b is it. “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” After all, what was Jonah going to do to get out of that living tomb?

But it took so much for the Lord to get Jonah’s attention, didn’t it? He had tried to run away from the responsibility to which the Lord had called him. By his own efforts he was going to thwart the will of the almighty God. So, to get His will done, God turned away from the moral, responsible-to-Him-our-Creator, body and soul creatures He made us to be and used a fish to get Jonah’s attention. Jonah’s only four chapters long, so, since there isn’t corporate church today, use the ‘free’ time to read the whole thing. Then, when you get to its end, reflect on the message and pray Jonah’s prayer for yourselves.

God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach repentance to them. At the end of the book Jonah’s mad at God because He turned from His promised destroying wrath like Jonah knew He would. But God’s question at the end of Jonah 4, “should I not be concerned for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand people who do not know the difference between their right hand and their left …?”, is really no different than Jonah’s statement in his prayer. “Salvation belongs to the Lord.”

That’s the real point of Easter. We try to run away from the responsibilities to which the Lord has called us. It isn’t out and out gross immorality that flouts God’s will in His face that is just sin. It’s anything that we set up as more important than all that God wants us to do. When we do that, then that thing, that person, that task, that plan, those free-for-us-to-decide-what-we’re-going-to-do hours of retirement, or those long hours of work that we put in to get to that retirement, that we set up as a first priority in our life before God and His priorities breaks the First Commandment: You shall have no other gods. And, as our Luther’s catechism defines that commandment, “we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” We break it by painting ourselves into a corner with our more important person, thing, task, job, plan that spiritually leaves us stewing like Jonah, with a few days of nothing to do.

But as He reflected with three days and three nights free time, we see Jonah, in his prayer, thinking of how miraculous his escape from certain drowning was. But, of course, it wasn’t his escape. It was the Lord’s. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Again, that’s the real point of Easter.

Because our Savior, who often drove Himself so tired doing His Father’s will He fell asleep in a storm in a wooden boat on a sea, well, His body rested in a rock tomb rather than a fleshy, fishy one like Jonah. He rested in a tomb until the third day from when He began suffering for our sins. Overwhelmed with the guilt of all people’s sins,—ours, too,—until from sorrow He began to shed blood through His sweat, He walked the path of His Father’s will. Not His Father’s will of keeping His commands so righteously perfectly which He’d done His whole life, but also His Father’s will that He be the substitute punishee. For those our sins He felt not just guilt, but the fists and the lashing and the nails, and the wrath that we deserve for putting God second in our life, or third, or fourth or wherever we place Him. And why did He do this? Because salvation belongs to the Lord.

He took on the debt we owe God for our sinning against Him. He took off from Himself His holiness like His clothes at His crucifixion and put it on us so that our Father doesn’t see our unrighteousness any more. And lash by lash, wound by wound, nail by nail, and worse, moment by moment of the solitary-confining hellfire of our God’s wrath for every wound we inflict on others by our deeds, words, or thoughts, or neglect of others in our deeds, words, or thought, He took the punishment in full. In doing this, of course, He not only made His Father’s will His number one priority, but because His Father wants all to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, He made us His number one priority. He loved His neighbor as Himself. There was no running away to thwart God’s will by Him. Salvation belongs to the Lord.

That may just sound like words merely. But what breathes life into those words is what happened today almost two thousand years ago. Today, we celebrate Easter. I asked before what was Jonah going to do to get out of that living tomb. The answer was nothing. Even if he had tried to do something, he had no idea how deep in the water that fish was. So the Lord had to command the fish when to set Jonah free. It was after three days and three nights, the sign of the prophet Jonah. Today we celebrate what Jesus did to get out of His rock-dead tomb. It was the one sign He said He’d give to His enemies to prove that He really is God and that they should believe Him. He raised Himself from the dead. There’s power behind those words. Salvation belongs to the Lord—because there was nothing we could do to get out of the trouble of our sin.

I imagine Jonah was filled with joy despite being awash in whatever else the fish regurgitated. After all, he was still alive. And we are, too! And we have a far cleaner baptism that struck to life the spark of our faith, being awash in our Savior’s forgiveness. That brings joy. But it’s joy crowned off with certain hope. Our Savior rose from the dead to prove His Word is living and active. And it’s a resurrection of joy like kids discovering their Easter baskets, leaving nothing but a thrilling smile on the face. He IS risen! Salvation belongs to the Lord.

All those thoughts God wants you to take time and reflect on this odd celebration of Easter Sunday this year–and every Sunday of every year, indeed, every day of every year. Salvation does belong to our Lord.