Articles

Jonah hated the people of Nineveh, and he had reason: they were legitimately a nation filled
with cruel and evil people. There are people in our world today, both near and far, who give us
reason to hate them. To deny this is to rob the message of Jonah of its power and its gospel
witness. It is also to soften the piercing command of Jesus in Matthew 5:44 “I say to you, love
your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Jesus isn’t being hyperbolic — at times we
will all have real enemies, just as Jesus did (see John 15:18-20) — but Jesus’ point is that we
can’t use that as an excuse to hate them back.

Let’s be honest, sometimes we like to hate. The command to love our enemies is hard because
we like to hate them. It satisfies our selfishness; hate prioritizes “us” over “them” and it never
asks us to love and serve “them.” Our hatred also satisfies our own internal sense of justice. But
this is precisely what Jesus takes aim at in Matthew 5:43-48.

Jesus attacks the principle ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemies,’ not by denying that
there is such a thing as fairness and justice, but by showing that we don’t get to use the Old
Testament law as a way to justify our own personal hatred. In other words, we don’t get to use
passages that speak against racism, for instance, as an excuse to justify our personal hatred of
racists. We don’t get to use passages that speak against murder to deny grace to murderers.
We simply don’t have the right to deny people the gospel of grace simply because we don’t like
the way they need the Savior. The reality is: we all need saving.

This is the heart of Jonah’s problem. Jonah likes hating the Ninevites, because they were his
enemies and the enemy of Israel. Do you love your enemies, great and small? Friends and
family can be enemies. Revolting relatives, rude coworkers, business rivals, proud teachers or
students, insecure people who resent your competence, those who lust for power, the bitter ex,
the angry spouse, and far more – all can be our enemies. In 2020 we face an election; for many
people in our country, politics has become a religion. We measure moral character and define
our allies and enemies according to political affiliation.

The command of Jesus to love, exemplified in the call of Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, is a
call to love all of our enemies. In the book Love in Hard Places, D.A. Carson recounts “Karl
Barth was once asked, ‘Is it true that one day in heaven we will see again our loved ones?’ He
replied, ‘Not only the loved ones.’”

Who are you being called to love today?

Jonah is a fascinating story! God asks the prophet Jonah to go preach to the city of Nineveh; which is in Assyria – a terrorist nation known for its brutality, and an enemy of Israel. Jonah does not want God to grant mercy to his enemies and so he is reluctant to go. Jonah wishes judgment would fall on his enemies. If there had been no hope for Nineveh, God would not have sent Jonah; just as if there had been no hope for Jonah as he fell into the ocean, there would have been no point to his prayer for deliverance. But God is “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.” (Exodus 34:6-7a) God is not unjust, but he is also slow to anger and forgiving. He relents of the judgment on Nineveh, and in this we learn something about God. 

God forgives those who ask for it. God sees the repentance of the Ninevites and changes his mind. “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.” (Jonah 3:10) It is this merciful nature of God that invites a response. In a closely related passage, Joel 2:12-14, God invites stubborn Israel to repent of their own sin: “Yet even now… return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful… Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him?” (cf. Jeremiah 18:7-10) 

Our actions, our repentance, our prayers – these things really matter to God. He is the ruler of all creation and accomplishes his purposes, yet passages like this remind us that our actions really do matter to him. This text in Jonah shows us that it is the actions of the Ninevites, their prayers and fasting and repentance, that move God to have compassion on them and “relent of the disaster” that was coming their way. 

The nature of our merciful God, and stories about the repentance of Nineveh, are facts which make us ask: are we right to hate our enemies? To think they cannot be reconciled to us, or worse, to God? To, by our stubborn hatred, deny them a chance to come to know this God who delights in showing them grace and forgiveness and love in Christ?

We celebrate the four weeks of Advent with four themes: Hope, Peace, Love, and Joy. We have to remind ourselves of these themes because we live in a world filled with their opposites: despair, conflict, hate, and dissatisfaction. As we walk in the world these qualities can fill us up; we must displace them again with the qualities of Christ. When we do, we become like ships, sailing in the waters of the world yet dry and snug in Christ. The hope, peace, love and joy we find in Christ displace the qualities of sin, shame and darkness within us, and we are re-filled with the righteousness and life of Christ. We also become a refuge on the waters of the world; calling others to come and sail with us as we set our eyes on Christ and sail toward heaven.

May you be filled with the love, joy, peace & hope of Christ this Advent season.