Ash Wednesday

“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time …” (Jonah 3:1)

There is a lot of theology in just that one phrase, maybe even enough to take us all the way through Lent. And if you know the story of Jonah it pretty much sums up the whole thing. If you don’t know the story, then a great way to begin Lent is to read it in its entirety, which takes hardly more time than reading to a child at bedtime. In fact, read it in that way: as a good fishing story that no one has yet told you is in the Bible.

So the reason that the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time is because the first time that happened, Jonah ran in precisely the opposite direction from Nineveh. He fled to Tarshish, apparently never having read (or having forgotten) Psalm 139 of The Runaway Bunny. This is why Jonah was the prophet who never really got it; sad, but true.

Jonah did not get the point. But what Jonah and the readers of his story discover is that our God is a God of second (and third and fourth) chances. God will not take away our free will. But God will do what it takes to keep finding us and keep calling us. There is no escaping God, not even at the uttermost parts of the sea. (Psalm 139:8). So the Word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time.

Lent gives you and me an opportunity to “get the point.” Which is what, exactly? That our God is a God of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. This is the point of Jonah (the story) and that is the point of the forty days of Lent. And in spite of what Jonah thinks, this really is good news, not just for pagan sailors or the people of Nineveh, but for God’s own people, too. 

Rich Simpson