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We come now to the 3rd Sunday in the season of Lent. Just 18 days ago on Ash Wednesday, we received the ashes on our forehead as the sign of our repentance and heard the prophet Joel cry out to us, “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, 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, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.” (Joel 2:12-13)

Just 18 days ago, we heard the apostle Paul plead with us, “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (2 Cor. 5:20).

By now, the ashes have long since been washed away and the words that we heard on that night have been forgotten. Which explains tells us why Lent can never be just a one-night-stand. The Church has always insisted on a prolonged period time for the call to repent to be sounded. 40 days and 40 nights is not too long a period of time either.

For the truth of the matter is, we being who we are, are never finished with repenting. Repentance is not something you do once and then get on with your life now that you’ve got that messy little business taken care of. Turning from the death of our sins and idolatry and being raised up to new life by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ is a continual process for the Christian. It only stops if you stop following Christ or when you die in Christ. In the meantime, we always need to hear the call to repent and turn from our sin and to the steadfast love of God in Jesus Christ.

I. The Call To Repent Today, the call to repent comes from the lips of Jesus. He was teaching the crowds when some who were present in the crowd “told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices.” Luke doesn’t tell us who “the Galileans” were and frankly, there’s no historical record that this ever actually happened. But it’s the kind of thing, knowing Pilate and those Romans, wouldn’t surprise us a bit.

What were their motives for raising such an issue with Jesus? It would have helped if Luke had told us who the “some” were. If they were Pharisees and Scribes, then we may suspect that their motives were to set a trap for Jesus. Seems they had never gotten Jesus to make a clear statement about which side of the aisle He was on. Was He for the nation of Israel or was He for the Romans? Such an emotionally charged issue like this one, even if it weren’t true, would certainly provoke a response. Would He speak out against Pilate and the Romans? Or would He defend the government and their abuse of power, which would certainly turn this adoring crowd against Him? Either way, they had Him trapped. Or so they thought.

(If it was indeed some Pharisees or Scribes, the irony here is too precious to pass up. They were outraged that Pilate would shed the innocent blood of the Galileans. Yet before long, they themselves would pressure Pilate to shed the truly innocent blood of one Galilean.)

But maybe the “some who were present” weren’t Pharisees or Scribes. Maybe they were ’seekers’ who were asking Jesus to help them work out a theological view of divine justice. Was God behind this massacre? Why these Galileans? Why not others? Did they do something to deserve such a violent death?

Whatever the motive might have been, Jesus gives the unexpected response. “No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

And then Jesus ups the ante. On top of acts of terrorism, He adds acts of mass destruction or natural disaster. “Or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?”

The situation and circumstances may be different but the result is the same. “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Let’s be sure to get this straight. “To perish” is not the same thing “to die.” Inevitably, we will all “die,” but hopefully, we will not all “perish.” All of those Galileans whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices died. But hopefully they did not all perish. But unless you repent, you will perish. All 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell, died. But hopefully they did not all perish. But unless you repent, you will perish.

To “perish” means that after you died and faced the judgment of your life before almighty God, you failed because all your sins were counted against you, and you were cut down and thrown into the fire.

To “not perish” means that after you die and face the judgment of your life before almighty God, you passed, because your sins were not counted again you, and you were raised up to eternal life in heaven.

And Jesus says that the thing that makes the difference is “repentance.” He doesn’t say, unless you are innocent, unless you are good, unless you improve your behavior. He doesn’t even say, unless you believe. He says, “Unless you repent, you too will perish.”

St. Paul wants to add his two cents to this. You think your religion will save you? You think just because you’re baptized you’re free to live according to your sinful nature? Do you think that just because God has made you His own and called you by name and said, “I will be your God,” that you will not perish even if you live as though, “I will not be your people”?

Paul says, let Israel be an example to you. If ever there were a people who were religious and of whom God said, ‘these are my people,’ it was Israel. “They were all under the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual drink. But with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.”

But please understand this, it is God’s fervent desire that you “not perish.” “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways…” (Ez.33:11). Or don’t you know that “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall NOT PERISH”? (John 3:16). “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting our sins against us” so that we would not perish. (2Cor.5:19).

“But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

II. The Lesson About God’s Mercy and Patience. “And He told this parable.” This is a very short parable, but a brilliant parable, that not only teaches us the truth about God, but also tests our beliefs about God, and hopefully, ultimately causes us to repent of them.

It’s a simple story about a man who has a vineyard which has a fig tree planted in it, which is not as strange as it sounds. Every year, year after year, the owner of the vineyard comes to pick some figs from this tree, and every year the tree is fruitless. He tells the ‘vinedresser,’ whom He has appointed to manger His vineyard, “cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?”

So, here’s the test. When the man says, “cut it down, Why should it use up the ground,” what is the tone of His voice when He says this? What is the look in His eye? With what emotion are these words spoken to the vinedresser? Is He angry or is He sad? Is this just business or is this personal to Him? How do you hear this man say, “cut it down, why should it use up the ground”?

Do you hear the man in this parable, who is God the Father, give orders to the vinedresser who is His own dear Son, like a big boss who demands a certain quota or else? Is the man angry with this disappointing investment of his, and in his anger, demands that it be uprooted and burned in order to free up some capital for other, more productive investments. You know, better to do away with one for the sake of the many.

But then, how do you hear the response of the vinedresser, who is Jesus, the Father’s Son, who says, “Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure”? Is the Son disagreeing with the Father? Is this the loving Son protecting us from the grouchy, demanding Father whom we must constantly work to please so that He won’t be angry with us and cut us down and throw us into the fire? Is this the “Trinity in unity and the Unity in Trinity,” that we confess in the Athanasian Creed?

But now, try this on for size. When the man says, “cut it down, why should it use up the ground,” there are tears in His eyes and He speaks the words so slowly that they’re painful to hear. And there is a sorrow in His voice so deep that the angels in heaven weep at the sound of it.

And now, hear the reply of the vinedresser, who in perfect sympathy and agreement with the man, and for His sake says, “Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure.”

Oh, doesn’t that change everything about this story when we hear it this way? Doesn’t that sound much more like the Jesus we heard last Sunday who speaks on behalf of His Father, with tears in His eyes saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood.”

Here is the real damage that the fall of Adam has done to us. All of our sinful deeds are nothing compared to this. Our whole attitude about God and toward God has been changed. The first words out of Adam’s mouth after his fall into sin were these, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid…”

All Adam could see in God was His terrible demands weighing heavy on him. Because we have been born in Adam’s image, we do not, by nature, see a loving and merciful God. That is the great gift of the Holy Spirit. Apart from Him, we only see a demanding, impossible to please God.

But here, in this simple little parable, Jesus shows us a God that is foreign and strange to us. Jesus portrays a loving Father who is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and who relents over disaster.” Who gladly and willingly gives more time and provides more attention for this tree so that it may “not perish.”

Isn’t this the ‘repentance’ that Jesus is calling us to when He says, “unless you repent you will perish?” A complete and total change of heart and mind about the God whom we call ‘our God’ and who calls us, ‘my people.’ For if He is indeed the loving, patient, longsuffering Father whom Jesus portrays here, then every life is precious in His sight.

Then I am not just a wooden tree, whose purpose is life is to produce a certain quota of fruit or else. Or an investment, which must produce an adequate return or else. Or a nameless worker in the factory who must do his share for the ‘almighty company’ or else.

No, if this is the way Jesus told the story and meant us to hear it, then I, fruitless and barren tree that I am, am His beloved. And my loving Father has given me time, time for His Son to work in me, to transform me.

The fruit that the Father is looking for is the fruit of His Son, for it is only Jesus with whom the Father is well pleased. We are no more capable of producing this kind of fruit in our lives than a fig tree is. It is the work of the Holy Spirit alone.

So, in the perfect unity of the Trinity, the Father tells His Son to tend to us. And the Son uses the Holy Spirit to dig around us with His Word. And when He loosens the unrepentant, hard-packed soil around our heart, He fertilizes it with the holy manure of Christ’s body and blood until we say, thanks be to God that the same Pilate who mixed the blood of “the Galileans” in their sacrifice, also mixed the blood of that One Galilean with the one sacrifice for all of our sins. For by His blood we are reconciled to God, and have become “fruitful trees.”

So repent! And enjoy your life in the vineyard.

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I. Review of Scene 1 / 2

A. Scene 1 - “God Calls Jonah” 1. God called Jonah to go to Nineveh and speak against it because it’s evil had come before God.

1. Jonah fled to Tarshish by way of a ship out of Joppa in order to “flee from the presence of the Lord.” Repeated 2 times.

B. Scene 2 - “Onboard Ship” 1. Onboard ship at sea, Jonah realizes that he cannot hide from God. God causes a fierce storm and the ship threatens to break up. God Word comes to him through the pagan ship captain and sailors. The sailors try to appease the angry god by throwing the cargo into the sea. When that doesn’t appease him, Jonah says that he’s the reason that the LORD (Yahweh) is angry. The only way He’ll be appeased is if they throw him overboard. Which they do.

1. As Jonah goes overboard, he doesn’t know what we know. He doesn’t know about a great fish or being saved from downing. He sees only death by drowning at sea.

II. Scene 3 - Jonah Swallowed Up

A. 2:10 - Jonah on dry land. 1. That brings us to scene 3. Scene 3 concludes with Jonah, safe and sound, on dry land, catching his breath, gasping for fresh air, sitting in fish vomit, surrounded by chunks, and he’s one of them.

1. What if there had been people on the beach when Jonah was vomited up onto it? What if they were there vacationing and sunbathe and suddenly, up comes this fish, vomits a human being onto the sand, and then slips back into the sea. “What happened to you?” they ask.

2. Jonah tells them his story. “It was the perfect storm and I was thrown overboard. As I was drowning and the terrors of death surrounded me, from out of nowhere, this dark shadow came over me. I saw fins and a tail and then a mouth open wide. And suddenly, I was inside of the belly of the fish, gasping for air but able to breathe. It was foul, smelly, never enough air, every breath a struggle. Slimy walls closing in on me then releasing me, over and over. For three days. Three of the longest days of my life.”

B. We know more than Jonah

1. Keep in mind; even from the belly of this fish, Jonah didn’t know what we know. If only he had known that the fish was appointed by the Lord to deliver him safely onto dry land, then Jonah would have enjoyed the ride. But Jonah didn’t know this.

2. So, let’s not glamorize this and make it sound like a Mediterranean vacation cruise for Jonah. Sometimes I think that we picture Jonah in the belly of the fish, resting on a padded lounge chair that the fish had also swallowed, munching on crab legs and lobster tails as they drifted by him, just waiting for this strange ship to arrive safely on shore.

3. This was absolute chaos and utter panic and near suffocation for Jonah the whole three days. Jonah doesn’t say he was in the belly of paradise. He says, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, out of the belly of Sheol…” That is, from hell. This is pure hell that Jonah is experiencing.

4. And this is the way Jonah records his experience in the water and in the belly of the fish.

C. 2:3 - “You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me.”

1. As Jonah recalls the experience, notice how he leaves out all of that part about his being disobedient and unfaithful to the call of God. He begins with the splash that his body makes as it hits the water.

2. Remember that Jonah went into the sea with a guilty conscience before God. Like the sailors, He believes that God is angry with him. Unlike the sailors, he knows why God is angry with him. And so, Jonah sees God behind all of this.

3. He says, “YOU cast me into the deep.” “All YOUR waves and YOUR billows passed over me.”

D. 2:4 - “Then I said, I am driven away from your sight, and I will never again look upon your holy temple.” (”Yet I shall look upon your holy temple.” - ESV)

1. Jonah realizes that he’s getting what he asked for. Jonah wanted to “flee from the presence of the Lord.” 1:3 x 2. Now, he’s terrified that he’s done just that and the Lord can’t see him in his distress.

2. How many books and movies have been written about people stranded on the ocean in a raft or in a jungle or forest, and when the plane passes over, their heart is full of hope, maybe they’ll be seen. But when it keeps on going and doesn’t circle back, they know that they were not seen and they loose all hope. They weren’t seen. No chance of being rescued.

3. I know that our ESV bible translates the second part of verse 4 differently than I have it here. I checked six different reliable English translations and half have it like I’ve got it and the other’s have it like the ESV does. The Hebrew can be read either way.

4. I think that Jonah has lost all hope at this point. Like we said in scene 1, Jonah flees from the presence of the Lord, which means that he is fleeing from the Temple, because that’s where the presence of the Lord is located - behind the holy of holies over the ark of the covenant. Now Jonah laments that he’s getting what he asked for.

E. 2:5-6a - “The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever.”

1. Jonah is describing the sensation of drowning.

2. (Relate rafting experience from this summer.) I think that this is just a bit of what Jonah experienced in the sea.

F. 2:6b. “Yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, My God.”

1. This is the turning point in Jonah’s experience. Everything from here to the end of his prayer focus’ upon his rescue and deliverance.

2. As Jonah thinks about what happened and how things turned out, He realizes that the very thing that he had thought was sent by God to destroy him, that great fish, was actually sent by God to save him.

3. Notice too how Jonah, who had blamed God for casting him into the sea and for Your waves and billows, now credits God for saving him. “YOU brought my life up from the pit.” He sees God at work in his distress - saving him.

G. 2:7 - “When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.”

1. Just when he felt as though this were it for him, his thoughts turned to the Lord. So, just what were those memories that flooded Jonah’s mind? And what did he pray? Did Jonah remember the blessings and promises that God had made to him and put his final trust in them? Or did Jonah remember the Lord’s call and his flagrant disobedience? And what did Jonah pray? Did he pray for rescue from death? Or, did he assume he was going to die and were his prayers appeal for forgiveness and eternal life in heaven?

2. Whatever they were, Jonah now realizes that they “came to you, into your holy temple.” I think that this is an important way for us to understand our thoughts and prayers. Somehow, they come to the Lord.

3. I’m still not at all sure how cell phones work. I can speak to someone who is out of sight and a thousand miles away and its like we were right next to each other. They hear me and I hear them. I know that its all got something to do with satellites in the sky and signals that are sent from my phone to the satellite down to their phone, and then from their phone back to the satellite down to my phone.

4. God doesn’t even need a cell phone or satellites to hear us. Our words and even our thoughts come to Him and He hears them. We don’t even have to speak the words. He knows our thoughts. The mere remembrance of Him, and He’s on the line with us. This is the work of Jesus who is both in us and at the right hand of God the Father, interceding for us.

H. 2:8 - “Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.”

1. Maybe Jonah was remembering those sailors as he prayed these words. They “called out to their gods.” But of course, nothing happened because they didn’t exist. They were nothing but idols.

2. After awhile of never being heard and never getting an answer, you eventually give up any hope of “steadfast love.”

3. But not Jonah. He called to the Lord - Yahweh. “The God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” The one, true God, who hears and answers all our prayers. As long as you have the real God, there’s always hope. He will never forsake you.

I. 2:9 - “But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. ‘Salvation belongs to the Lord.’”

1. “But I,” says Jonah. “I’m not like those idolaters.” He has the right God, the real God, who hears and answers His people when they are in distress. And so Jonah promises to do what everyone who has benefited by the Lord’s steadfast love should do - say thank you. And not just ’say it,’ but do something that shows your gratitude and appreciation - “I will sacrifice to you.”

2. Evidently, while Jonah was in his distress, he must have made a vow, like, ‘if you save me, then I’ll sacrifice to you” So for Jonah, the life of faith is a about quid pro quo. ‘You do your part God and then I’ll do my part.’ ‘If you help me get out of this jam I’m in, I vow, I’ll never do it again.’ Or, ‘I’ll never miss church again.’ Or, ‘I’ll come to all of the Midweek Lent services and volunteer to make the soup one night.’ Or something like that.

3. So what “sacrifice” did Jonah vow he would make if God saved him? Seems like Jonah vowed that would preach the gospel, just as God had called him to do. “Salvation belongs to the Lord.”

4. Interestingly, Jonah sees this as his “payment.” “What I have vowed I will pay.” He set the price for rescue, God delivered; now he needs to pay-up.

5. Seems to me, there’s several problems with the whole business of making vows to the Lord. Let me name just three.

1) We always tend to set the payment price too low. “Here’s what I’ll do for you if you do this for me God.” But no matter what the price we set might be, it always has the effect of cheapening what God has done for us. “So that’s what you think it’s worth.”

2) As we’ll see with Jonah next week, there’s always lots of fine print included in our vows to God. Certain terms and conditions apply. Fulfillment of our vow is carried out under certain circumstances and situations but not under others.

3) Maybe the biggest problem I have with making vows to the Lord is that it tends to confuse the whole issue of grace. God saves us because God desires to save us - for Christ’s sake, period. His ’steadfast love’ doesn’t depend on what we promise to do in return.

III. Jonah Spit Out

A. 2:10 - “And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.”

1. So, we’re right back to where we started. Jonah is safe and sound, on dry land, catching his breath, gasping for fresh air, sitting in fish vomit, surrounded by chunks; and he’s one of them.

2. So what have we learned from Jonah in Scene 3? Three things:

3. First, we’ve learned something about the grace and “steadfast love” of God. Jonah “flees from the presence of the Lord,” but the Lord never gives up on Jonah. He keeps coming after him and saves him ‘even while he is still in his sin.’ Same is true for us.

4. Second, we learn something about the way God works in our lives. He is willing to let us suffer in order that we might turn, call out to Him and acknowledge His deliverance. He’s even able to let us die to show that He can and will raise us up to life. In other words, God is willing to let, even bring, physical pain and suffering to us in order to turn our heart and mind and soul to Him.

5. Third, we learn something about the means that God uses to save us. In Jonah’s case, God “appoints a great fish” to save Jonah. He used a ‘physical, earthly, tangible,’ thing as His means of Grace. In the same way, He continues to “appoint” water, bread and wine, to do for us just what He had the fish do for Jonah.

B. Something troubling

Jonah’s focus on me.

1. There are a few things that still trouble us about Jonah in all of this. Two stand out. And we want to point them out just because, as we’ve said and seen all along, there’s a lot of Jonah in each of us.

2. First, why does Jonah think that God saved him from drowning? Using Jonah’s own words, “Because I remembered the Lord.” “I called out to the Lord.” Jonah puts a lot of the focus on himself. I counted up the first person pronouns, “I,” “me,” or “my,” 25 times in the just 7 verses of this prayer. Jonah likes to point to himself.

3. As Jonah sits on the beach drying out, whom is he most pleased with? Whom does He really credit for his rescue?

No Repentance

1. Second, there is something missing from Jonah’s prayer that we wish were there. Nowhere do we hear any mention of repentance or regret for fleeing the presence of the Lord and disobeying His Word. There’s no indication that Jonah is contrite in heart for his disobedience.

2. Since Jonah was so big on making vows to the Lord, why didn’t we hear a vow saying that if God saved him, he would go to “that great city - Nineveh, and cry out against it,” as God had called him to do?

3. I think that some of our disappointment in Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the great fish will help us to understand what happens next. In the meantime, these are questions that we can certainly apply to our own life of faith.

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Not to put too fine a point on things, but the job of the pastor is essentially this, he is ‘to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.’ We pastors need to be reminded of that from time to time because we are prone to lose sight of what we’re supposed to be doing. It’s much more snazzy and rewarding to be ‘Motivator in chief,’ ‘program coordinator,’ ‘business manager,’ and ‘visionary leader’ than preacher of law and gospel.

Of the two essential tasks of the pastoral office, I prefer “comforting the afflicted.” I like to preach sermons that are predominately gospel, if not entirely. It makes people feel good about themselves. Whenever anyone asks if they may meet to talk about a problem afflicting them, I’m always ready to be of service. Granted, sometimes the comfort that I have to offer isn’t the kind of comfort someone is looking for. But usually, folks know what to expect from a pastor, unless of course the pastor is confused about what it means to be a pastor and thinks he’s a psychiatrist or social worker or fix-it man.

‘Afflicting the comfortable’ may be a part of the job, but frankly, it afflicts me. And so I find myself playing pastor to myself and comforting my affliction by treading lightly. I’ve convinced myself that my congregation is an unusually holy bunch of people, quite unlike those other tax collectors and sinners. They obviously need to be afflicted. My people just need to be comforted.

And besides, I’ve never once had a parishioner come to me and ask if I would meet with them for the purpose of afflicting them because they’re just too comfortable with their life.

People who are comfortable don’t like to be afflicted. We’ve invested too much to get where we are and be whom we have become to hear that we need to change. We’ve made too many commitments and come to too many conclusions to risk discovering that the basic assumptions behind them may be all wrong. Who wants to be told that the house, which they are perfectly comfortable in, is built on sand and will inevitably fall, you better move out before it’s too late?

As we follow the prophet Jonah through this season of Lent, we see a pastor who is called by God to go to Nineveh, “that great nation and call out against it.” Jonah was to go to a FAR AWAY NATION and “afflict the comfortable” because their evil had come up to God. Jonah was to speak against them, SO THAT, they would repent, turn from their evil, and then in their affliction, be comforted with the grace of God by the forgiveness of their sins. As we’ll see, Jonah didn’t want to “afflict the comfortable.” But not for the reasons you mighty think. But you’ll have to come on Wednesday night or Thursday morning to find out why Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord.

This morning, our attention is directed to another prophet, the prophet Jeremiah. He is called by God to “afflict the comfortable.” But not some far away, pagan nation. Jeremiah was called to speak against God’s own people right in Jerusalem, where Jeremiah lived.

I’ve always felt that it’s probably a lot easier to “afflicting the comfortable” in someone else’s congregation than your own. A guest preacher from out of town can come into a congregation and really lay it on about tithing, adultery, greed, you name it, and then leave town. But Jeremiah was called to “afflict the comfortable” whom he lived with.

The situation was this. The people of Israel were very comfortable living in their sin and felt no need to repent and turn from their evil. And the reason that they were so comfortable living in their sin was because the clergy refused to “afflict the comfortable.” Jeremiah accuses the priests and the prophets in Jerusalem of sugarcoating the truth with these famous words, “They have cured the wound of my people lightly saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ where there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 6:14; 8:11). They were ‘comforting the comfortable.’ They were using their religion to make them comfortable in their sin.

So, God sent Jeremiah, saying, “Stand in the court of the Lord’s house and speak to all the cities of Judah that come to worship in the house of the Lord ALL THE WORDS that I command you to speak to them; DO NOT HOLD BACK A WORD.” How tempting it is to hold back that word that people don’t want to hear, that word that will surely disturb them, that word that will make them angry with you for speaking it.

But that word must be spoken. Why? So that they may repent, turn from their sin and be saved. “It may be that I may relent of the disaster that I intend to do to them because of their evil deeds.” The purpose of the Law is to bring us to the Gospel. The reason that God tells His servants to afflict us in our sin is so that we will repent and turn from our evil ways, and hear the Gospel, the good news that God is dying to relent of the disaster through His grace and mercy by the forgiveness of our sins.

But know this, “Thus says the Lord: If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law that I have set before you, and to listen to the words of my servants the prophets whom I send to you urgently… then I will make this house like Shiloh.” (Jer.26:2-6).

A little background here might be helpful. After Israel’s 40-year journey through the desert, Joshua led the nation of Israel across the Jordan River into the Promised Land and began to divide Palestine up into parcels for each of the tribes of Israel. As he does so, he established the city of Shiloh as the place where the Tabernacle would be erected in the Promised Land. In other words, Shiloh was the ‘holy city’ of Israel. The Tabernacle housed the Ark of the Covenant where God was present and all of Israel gathered in Shiloh for the four annual festivals and to make their sacrifices to God.

Skipping over all of the history that follows, what we find by the time we get to 1 Samuel, is that the Philistines, that dreaded arch-enemy of Israel, have invaded and destroyed the city of Shiloh, torn down the Tabernacle and stolen the Ark of the Covenant. In other words, the ‘holy city’ was destroyed and God was no longer present with His people.

After much time passes, a new king of Israel who’s name is David, decided to make Jerusalem the capital of Israel. David recovered the Ark of the Covenant and set it up in the Tabernacle. His son Solomon builds the Temple in Jerusalem and Jerusalem becomes the established ‘holy city’ of Israel, where God is present with His people. For a while, Israel had faithful pastors like Nathan who were willing to afflict the comfortable - even king David, so that they might repent and be saved.

But by the time we get to the time of Jeremiah, the priests and the prophets were preaching what the people wanted to hear, “Peace, peace, where there is no peace. Curing their wound lightly.” And God’s people used their religion to remain comfortable in their sin, doing evil in the sight of the Lord.

So Jeremiah is called by God to warn them that if they do not repent and turn from their evil ways, “I will make this house like Shiloh.”

“And when Jeremiah had finished speaking ALL that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people…” So, how will the congregation respond to Jeremiah’s faithful preaching? “Then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, ‘You shall die!’ Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant?” And the people gathered around Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.”

This is why I don’t like to ‘afflict the comfortable?’ The comfortable don’t like it when they’re afflicted. In the U.S. it’s much more civilized. Here, the board of elders have a meeting with the pastor and say something like, ‘pastor, things just aren’t working out. We think it’d be best if you were to take a call to go someplace else.’ But in some countries, Sweden and Canada, if a pastor speaks all the words of the Lord about homosexuality from the pulpit, he can be removed from the clergy roster and put into prison.

So how does Jeremiah respond to this hostility from the congregation? He does what every faithful pastor who has spoken ALL THE WORDS of the Lord should do. He says, “I’m just the messenger. Don’t shoot the messenger.” “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the words you have heard. Now therefore mend your ways and your deeds, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will relent of the disaster that he has pronounced against you.”

If there’s one thing that the Lord loves to do it is to “relent from disaster.” Some think that God can’t relent from disaster because that would mean that God would have to change His mind, and that really challenges their ideas about God. But the truth is, God doesn’t change His mind at all when He relents from the disaster He has pronounced against us. That is His will and desire all along. That is why He has given His Word to His prophet to speak to us, especially those words that afflict us.

So the question is, how will Jerusalem respond to the prophet who speaks every Word of God? Will they hear the truth and repent and turn from their evil ways and live? Or will they kill the prophet sent to them?

The final answer to this most critical question is given by Jesus Christ. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not.”

The sad story of our fallen human nature is that we would prefer to remain comfortable in our sin and live the lie rather than be afflicted by the truth, turn from our sin and be saved. The bondage of our sinful nature is such that we are so set in our ways and we reject the word that tells us that our ways are not God’s ways.

The prophet Jeremiah spoke every word given to him to speak, “This house shall be like Shiloh.” The prophet greater than Jeremiah, Jesus Christ, speaks every word His Father has given Him to speak, “Behold, your house is forsaken.”

Jeremiah was not killed for ‘afflicting the comfortable.’ But Jesus was. The disaster that God promised He would bring against you if you will not repent and turn from your sin - has been brought against Jesus. He was crucified on the cross because “you would not.”

The city of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70A.D. and the Temple was burned to the ground, not one stone left upon another. It was Shiloh all over again.

But on the 3rd day, God raised up a new Temple. And even the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Jesus Christ is the Temple not built with human hands. He is where God is present with us, and we have His Word that comforts us in our affliction, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Jesus is the ‘holy city,’ where the afflicted are gathered together under His grace as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.

God the Father has cured your wounded by wounding His Son deeply. And so I, as a called and ordained servant of the Word, in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, say, “Peace, peace,” where there is real peace for our afflicted soul.

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I. Scene 2: Onboard the ship. - vss. 4-5b

A. “But…”

1. The curtain opened on this incredible story of God and His prophet last Wednesday. Scene 1 was entitled: “God Calls Jonah,” and it read as follows: Read 1:1-3.

2. God called His prophet to go to Nineveh which was to the north and east. Jonah headed for Tarshish which was to the south and west.

3. Jonah’s purpose was to flee from the presence of the Lord - 2x.

4. Scene 2 takes place onboard the ship that Jonah chartered to take him as far from the presence of the Lord as possible. We’re not told how far the ship sails westward across the Mediterranean Sea. All we’re told is that the voyage is suddenly interrupted with a big, loud “But…”

5. That’s the sound of God saying, ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways.’ And ‘My will be done,’ even if it is contrary to your will.

B. The Sailors 1. If you’ve ever seen the movie, “The Perfect Storm” you can picture the scene taking place. “great wind,” “mighty tempest,” “ship threatening to break up.”

• The sailors are “afraid.” That tells you something. If you’re ever out on a whale watch or vacation cruise and the experienced sailors are “afraid,” you know it’s bad.

• Someone once said that there’s no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole. Well, there’s no such thing as an atheist onboard a ship “threatening to break up.”

• “Each cried out to his god.” The word for ‘god’ here is the Hebrew word ‘El.’ It’s the generic word for god. In Genesis 1, we read, “In the beginning, God…” The word there is ‘Elohim.’ It’s the word ‘El’ with a plural ending to it which automatically distinguishes it from every other ‘El’ out there.

• “Each cried out to his god.” That should sound familiar to our 21st century ears. Everyone has their own god, their own idea of god. That’s Luther’s definition of a ‘god,’ ‘El.’ Whatever you believe and put your trust in, that is your god.

• These sailors prove that St. Paul had it right when, writing to the Romans, he said, (Rom.1:19-20), “For what can be known about God is plain to them, (pagan sailors), because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”

• Even these pagan sailors call upon their gods, whom they perceive to be at work through “the things that have been made,” in this case, the wind and the sea.

• There are 2 defects built into this type of knowledge of God however. 1) You can’t tell anything about God’s intentions, will or desires. Is he good and gracious? Does He desire the death of sinners or not? Does He want to relent from bringing disaster or does He delight in destruction? 2) You can’t identify the true God from the false god. Each cried out to his god. Which one was responsible for this storm? Can’t tell.

• The true knowledge of the true God and His desires and intentions and will comes only by the Holy Spirit who reveals the truth to us through God’s Word. This is where the true God reveals Himself and His heart to us.

• Apart from the Holy Spirit, we always get it wrong. We see god in things that are not god and we put our trust and hope in the false gods that cannot help or save us. And we always fail to see the true God and reject Him. Which is exactly what happened with Jesus Christ. Apart from the Holy Spirit, no one recognized that the true God was dwelling amongst us and He was rejected. It’s the same today too.

C. Cargo overboard

1. The fact that they throw the ship’s cargo overboard tells you what they believe about their gods. They believe he’s an angry god who wants to destroy them.

2. This is as much of a spiritual act as it is a practical one. They are trying to appease the angry god by giving it gifts. Cargo now. And as we’ll see, human beings later.

3. The one who knows the true God however knows that His intentions are not to destroy but to save. Not to tear down but to build up. And so the response of faith that trusts that God is love is to wait for the Lord.

4. Psalm 27:14. ” Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

5. Romans 8:23 “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

II. Jonah Asleep - vs.5c - 6

A. “Fast Asleep”

1. The storm continues, the ship continues to threaten to break up. But now the scene shifts to the ships hold where Jonah, the prophet of God, is “fast asleep.”

2. You would think that he’d be on deck lending a hand to the sailors, taking the opportunity to speak the name of the one, true God to them, saying, “fear not.” “God is love.” But no, he went down to his bunk and was “fast asleep.”

3. Jonah is a man who is “fleeing the presence of the Lord.” As we’ll see, he knows why the storm is raging as it is. God has found him. But Jonah is a man with a mission of his own. He will flee the presence of the Lord one way or another. His deep sleep is his escape.

4. St. Matthew records the episode when Jesus was at sea with his disciples and a vicious storm hit. Jesus was asleep in the stern of the boat. But unlike Jonah, Jesus is not asleep because his conscience is burdened with his guilt and he wants to flee from God’s presence. Jesus is asleep because He is at perfect peace with God.

5. There are two ways to cope with a guilty conscience. One is to escape. Flee the presence of the Lord. Some try to do that with drugs, alcohol, sex, work, pleasure. Some with sleep.

6. The second way to cope with a guilty conscience is to confess your sin. This is the way that Jesus is inviting us to take when He says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28-29

7. Jonah is faced with a dilemma. Do I remain in my sin and try to escape the punishment? Or do I confess my sin and accept the punishment? Jesus says, the second way is the only way to find rest for your soul.

B. Captain… Arise… Perhaps

1. The captain of the ship awakens Jonah from his sleep. And “arise.”

2. Interestingly, this is the same word that God spoke to Jonah in verse 1. “Arise.”

3. Jonah can’t even escape from the call of God. It’s just that where God had called Him directly, now He is speaking through the captain of the ship - a pagan at that.

4. “Call out to your god. Perhaps he’ll give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”

5. The irony here is incredible. Here’s a pagan ship captain calling on the prophet of God to pray. Everyone else was praying but Jonah.

6. And the pagan ship captain even confesses that Jonah’s god may have the power to save them from perishing.

7. “Perhaps…” Not exactly the kind of faith and trust you’d like to see. More of a “what’s to loose” sort of faith. But ironic that the call of faith should be coming from this pagan to the man of God instead of vice versa.

III. The Sailors and Jonah in Dialog - vss.7-12

A. Cast lots.

1. Now, the whole crew has come below deck to interrogate Jonah. They “cast lots” to see who among them was the guilty one.

2. “Lots” were usually pieces of broken pottery. Each one would put his name on a piece and they would throw them somehow until there was just one name facing up. That name was “Jonah.”

3. Here again, we notice just how religious these pagan sailors are. They believe that the storm is divine wrath against someone who is guilty of something against god. And they believe that god will identify the guilty one through the casting of lots. After all, if they believe that god has the power to orchestrate the winds and sea, then certainly he can orchestrate a few little pieces of broken pottery.

4. What do you think was going through Jonah’s mind as the lots were being cast? He knew who the guilty one was. Why didn’t he just admit it? Jonah is still holding out hope that he can escape the punishment by withholding his guilt.

5. And what’s even worse - much worse. Jonah is willing to take his chances that the lot just may fall on someone else instead of him. Not that any of the others were ‘innocent.’ But we get a glimpse at the selfishness and self-centeredness of this prophet of God.

B. Jonah on Trial.

1. Having been identified, the crew says, “tell us…” And they fire four questions at him.

2. They already know he’s the guilty one. But they want to hear him say it. This sounds to me like Adam in the Garden of Eden. Adam hid from God. God said, ‘where are you?’ It’s not that God didn’t know right where Adam was crouching behind a tree. He wanted to hear Adam say, “I’m guilty. Have mercy on me.” “Why are you hiding?” says God. God knows exactly why Adam’s hiding, but He wants Adam to confess his sin. “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.” The sailors are the voice of God calling Jonah to confess and ‘find rest for his soul.’

3. “Tell us…” they demand. Listen, when unbelievers come to you and take you by the collar and say, “tell us” about your god and what He’s like and what it’s like to follow Him, you better be ready to give an answer. How ironic that these pagan sailors are begging Jonah to tell them about His God.

4. Maybe that’s the way we ought to see the world we live in too.

C. Jonah’s confession

1. So Jonah spills the secret that he’s kept under lock and key so far. “I am a Hebrew. (We would say, “I am a Christian), and I fear the Lord the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” First words that we hear from Jonah in this whole story - a confession of faith.

2. First of all, we notice that when Jonah confesses faith in God, He doesn’t use the generic word for god but the personal name that God gave to Moses to give to the people of Israel so that they might call upon God by name. “Yahweh.” “I am who I am.” Now in these last days, He has given us the name of Jesus by which we should call upon Him.

3. Jonah identifies “Yahweh” as the God of the sea and the One who is behind this storm. That’s my God, says Jonah.

4. What strikes us hard right here is that Jonah’s confession is such a contrast to Jonah’s life.

5. Jonah’s a religious man who believes in God but doesn’t want to hear God’s Word or do God’s will. He’s got good theology. He knows his doctrine. But he’s a hypocrite and a bad example. He’s a believer and he’s unfaithful. He’s a saint and he’s a sinner. He’s just like us isn’t he? What we know is one thing. What we do is, too often, something different.

6. But he’s God’s prophet. And, even against his will, God is using Jonah to speak His name to these pagan sailors.

7. Then the men were “exceedingly afraid.” They are more afraid at having this guilty man of God on their ship than they are of the storm itself.

8. Interestingly, they ask Jonah to determine what his punishment should be. He ought to know what it will take to appease this God of his. To which Jonah replied, “Throw me into the sea. Then it will calm down. I know it’s because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.”

9. So we wonder, what was Jonah’s motive in this?

10. Was he ready to be honest with himself, these men, with God, confessing his sin, ready to accept his punishment in peace?
11. Or was this an act of sincere love for these men, his neighbors? Was he offering his life to death so that they would not die but live?

12. Or, was this Jonah’s final, desperate act of escape? Assisted suicide.

13. We know that Jesus Christ gave Himself up to death, even death on a cross, so that we would not die but have eternal life. Jesus took even the sin of Jonah upon Himself, and for Jonah’s sake, suffered death that he would not perish. We know what Jesus’ motives were - “for God so loved the world.”

14. But what were Jonah’s? And what would you have done and why?

IV. The Sailors Act - vss. 13-16

1. You’ve got to admire these sailors. They’re faced with a real ethical dilemma. Do they throw Jonah overboard to save themselves or do they try harder to save themselves and Jonah by their own power?

2. “The men rowed hard to try to get back to dry land.” Jonah seemed willing to let the boat sink and everyone drown, but these men do all they can to save Jonah and each other.

3. Or was it that they didn’t want Jonah’s blood on their hands? What was their motive?

4. Whatever their motives might have been, God’s will would be done. “The sea became more tempestuous against them.”

5. They realize that their actions to try to save themselves have only made matters worse. And so, what do they do? “They called out to the Lord.”

6. This is remarkable. Don’t miss this! They prayed. And to whom do they pray? Not “EL.” Not to “their gods.” They pray to “the Lord,” to “Yahweh.” They call upon the God of Jonah.

7. This is the great surprise of the story. These pagans call upon the one true God through the witness and testimony of Jonah - that unfaithful and disobedient prophet of God. God is having His way and His will is being done, even through His sinful and fallen servant.

8. Or as St. Paul puts it, the power of God made known in weakness. The wisdom of God made known in foolishness.

9. So, we want to stop right here and turn our attention to Jonah for a minute. While these sailors are praying as they are, what was Jonah thinking? What was going through his mind?

10. Keep in mind that we know more than Jonah does. We know about the great fish and the vomiting up on dry land and the upcoming trip to Nineveh. But Jonah knows none of this. Jonah doesn’t know that he is going to be saved. The only thing that Jonah sees is his death.

11. Luther says that at this point, Jonah must have felt like his soul was being suspended by a silk thread over hell itself.

12. If only Jonah could have seen his deliverance in the midst of his death. What a difference that would make for him. If only he could see life in the midst of death. If God would just show him the rest of the story of his life and how He’s waiting to meet Jonah on the shore where death will spit him out alive.

13. If Jonah could have only seen that, then he would not have been afraid of dying. Then, death would be nothing more than crossing a shallow stream from one firm bank to the other.

14. What was Jonah thinking about his death? The difference between a peaceful death and a terrible death has nothing to do with the circumstances of our death. Lot’s of men and woman have died violent deaths, much more violent than drowning at sea, and yet have died peacefully.

15. The difference is to be found in the conscience. A conscience that is burdened with sin and guilt before God is afraid to meet God in death. But a conscience that is free of sin because it has confessed it and believed that God in His mercy and for the sake of Jesus Christ has forgiven it all by His death on the cross, that person lives in peace and dies in peace with God.

16. The sailors pick Jonah up and hurl him into the sea. And no sooner does Jonah hit the water than the winds stop and the storm ceased from its raging. Now, notice carefully the sailors reaction.

17. “They feared the Lord exceedingly.” They were more afraid now that the sea had grown calm than they were when the boat was threatening to break apart.

18. Their reaction is much the same as the disciples in the boat with Jesus on the stormy sea. Mark says that after Jesus stilled the sea by His command, the disciples who had been afraid, were “filled with great fear.”

19. Solomon, gifted by God with a special measure of wisdom wrote, “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.” (Proverbs 9:10). These sailors were learning true wisdom.

Conclusion:

1. That brings us to the end of scene 2. The sailors disappear from the scene. We’re not told what happened to them after this. Did they head back to port in Joppa and take other passengers and cargo for another voyage? Did they tell others about what took place in this “perfect storm?”

2. What would you have done?

3. So, let’s conclude with the same two questions we concluded last scene with.

1) What will become of the prophet who flees from the presence of the Lord? I think we’ve been given a hint of that answer in scene 2.

2) What will become of the people of Nineveh if the prophet doesn’t go to them and “call out to them?” Maybe we’ve been given a hint of the answer in the sailors onboard this ship.

1. Next week, the curtain will open on scene 3 - “Jonah In The Belly Of The Fish.”

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The most important thing to understand about the temptation of Jesus is contained in just five little words that we tend to skip right over without even hearing them. “Jesus returned from the Jordan.” It’s even easier to miss this if you read from Matthew and Mark’s account of the temptation. They just say, “then.”

It’s what happened at the Jordan that’s makes what happened in the wilderness so significant. Jesus was baptized by John at the Jordan River. Three things happened at the baptism of Jesus at the Jordan that we need to understand if we’re going to understand the significance of what takes place in the wilderness. And all three are very closely connected to each other.

1. 1st - Jesus is Father’s Son First, when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, “the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven said, ‘You are my Son, whom I love.’” (Luke 3:22). That’s the voice of God the Father speaking. And He is speaking directly to Jesus. His word is meant for Jesus to hear. It’s for Jesus sake that the Father says what He says. It’s important for Jesus to know that He is the Son of God, dearly loved by His Father.

Later on, as we heard last Sunday at His Transfiguration, God the Father would speak from the clouds again and say something very similar. “This is my Son.” Sounds like the same thing doesn’t it? But it’s really much different, because this time the Father is speaking to the three disciples who are on the mountain with Jesus. “THIS is my Son, listen to Him.” He’s not speaking to Jesus but to the disciples. It’s important that THEY know that Jesus is the Son of God, with whom the Father is well pleased.

The point is, as Jesus, “returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,” He does so with the testimony, the Word of God the Father ringing in His ears - “You are my Son, by beloved.” And if God says, “You are my Son,” then frankly, you’ve got nothing to worry about. God will supply all your needs and deliver you from all danger. He will guide you in paths of righteousness and protect you against all enemies. Jesus returned from the Jordan with the Father’s unchangeable and infallible word, He is the Father’s Son and He is loved.

1. 2nd - Jesus is Israel Now, that’s a good thing for Jesus personally, individually, but it really takes on its great significance when we consider the second thing that happened when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan. For quite some time before Jesus came to the Jordan and after, John the Baptist had been calling Israel to come out to the Jordan to be baptized. Matthew, Mark and Luke all agree that “all Israel came out to be baptized.” And then, one day, Jesus came to the Jordan and told John that He wanted to be baptized too.
   Of course, John had a problem with that because “all Israel” needed baptism because of their sin. Jesus had no sin. John said, “I should be baptized by you.” But Jesus said, “Do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Here’s what that means. If you can picture this, “all Israel” went into the Jordan river and were baptized and Jesus was baptized and came out of the Jordan River. Let’s say it another way. When Jesus went into the Jordan River and was baptized, He was united to everyone else who had gone into the Jordan River to be baptized and He took on their identify. He became Israel.

So, just as Israel had spent 40 years in the wilderness, being tested to see if they really believed and trusted that God was their Father, Jesus went into the wilderness and Israel’s whole 40 year time of testing was compressed into 40 days of testing to see how Jesus really believed and trust that God was His Father. But now, He’s not just Jesus. Now, having “returned from the Jordan,” He is Israel. The old Israel failed the test miserably, the new Israel, Jesus Christ, would do it again on their behalf. And if He is faithful and trusts firmly in the Word of God spoken to Him in His baptism, then “all Israel” will be redeemed and reconciled. In Christ, they would all become “My Son, whom I love.”

1. 3rd - Jesus is the Christian Church Now third, just as Jesus was united to the Old Israel by His baptism in the Jordan, He has established Baptism as the place and the way that the New Israel is united to Him. The only difference being, the New Israel no longer goes by the name Israel. Now, it’s called the Christian Church. That means that in your baptism, you were united to Christ and became one with Him, so that His life is accounted as your life just as He is the new Israel for the old Israel. As He is the faithful, obedient, trusting Son of the Father, we are accounted faithful, obedient and trusting children of God.

So, first, Jesus is told by the Father that He is His Son, dearly loved. Second, in His baptism, Jesus is identified as Israel and redoes Israel’s history in the wilderness. And third, in your baptism, you were united to Jesus so that you are known by God the Father, not according to the way you live your life or your faithfulness or unfaithfulness, but by His life and His faithfulness.

All of that is contained in those five little words, “Jesus returned from the Jordan.” And how important it is to understand this much before we follow our Lord into the wilderness. For without this understanding, we might easily make the mistake that many make and think that Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted in order to give us an example of how we are to deal with temptation, and nothing more. Listen, if Jesus is only an example to us, then we are on our own, and doomed to fail. But if He has united Himself to us and we are hidden in Him, then we rightly understand that He enters into the desert to face the tempter for us and our fate depends entirely on what He does. Our hope is based on Him, and Him alone.

I. Doubt And what a relief that is. For right away we are shown just who it is that is behind every temptation that comes our way. “The devil said to him….” Suddenly now we realize who was behind every temptation that Israel faced those 40 years in the wilderness. They weren’t up against flesh and blood, “but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers…against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 6:12).

No wonder Luther has us sing, “No strength of ours can match his might. We would be lost, rejected.”

And notice just where the devil tries to sink his fangs. He goes right for the God’s Word. “If you are the Son of God.” If he can just cause a crack, even a small fissure of doubt in God’s Word, he knows that Jesus will fail. Just like the first man had failed. All it took was a simple question. “Did God really say…?” And once he had sown his seed of doubt in God’s Word, the man and his wife were easy pickings.

Think about it like this. When you were baptized, the heavens opened and God the Father said to you, personally, individually, “You are my son, my daughter, whom I love.” But how many times have we doubted His Word and promise to us? How else can we explain our lack of trust in Him. If God is our Father, then we’ve got nothing to worry about. God will supply all our needs and deliver us from all danger. He will guide us in paths of righteousness and protect us against all enemies.

But we wonder, ‘IF I am a child of God and God really does love me, why do bad things happen to me? Why don’t I have enough money to pay the bills? Why did I suffer that injury or have this disease? Why do I feel such disappointment and pain and heartache and loneliness?’ And because we doubt God’s Word and promise that we are His children and He is our Father, we listen to other words and grab hold of other promises.

But long before we ever ACT contrary to God’s Word and promise to us, our downfall is already complete. All it takes is the slightest bit doubt. The actions will eventually, inevitably follow.

Aren’t you glad that Jesus Christ has united Himself to you and that you are hidden in Christ and that your life before God depends on His performance and not ours, and that He goes into the wilderness to face the devil on behalf of us all?

II. The Temptations Luke makes it very clear that Jesus was tempted throughout the entire 40 days that He was in the wilderness. The three temptations that we’re told about actually happened just as it’s written, but they also are representative all of the temptations that Jesus faced. In fact, as you follow Jesus’ who ministry from His temptation in the wilderness to His death on the cross, what you see is that He is constantly facing one temptation after another, each one a variation of one of these three.

The first temptation is for Jesus to not trust that God will satisfy his physical hunger. He should take matters into His own hands and turn these stones into bread.

The second temptation is to not trust that God will protect and rule His people. He should take matters into His own hands and acquire political authority and prestige to rule over His people.

And the third temptation is to doubt not to trust God’s faithfulness and reliability. He should put God to the test.

Each one of these particular temptations has it’s historical counterpart to Israel in the desert. They suffered physical hunger to see if they would trust to provide them with their daily bread, which He did by raining down Manna and quail.

They had no king to rule over them and protect them. They had to trust that God would rule over them and protect them, which He did when He drowned Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea and delivered Israel safely through the Sea.

They were to trust in God’s Word which He spoke through His servant Moses. But they tested God, demanding that He prove Himself to them, which He did by causing water to gush from a rock.

Israel was tested in exactly the three ways that Jesus was tested. Israel failed miserably but Jesus succeeded perfectly.

I suspect that we could lump every temptation that faces us into one of these three categories as well. And the primary issue in each and every temptation we face is whether or not we believe and trust God’s Word and promise, made to us in our baptism, “you are my son, you are my daughter, whom I love.”

III. His Victory is Our Victory By His success over the devil, Jesus has rewritten history. Every failure to stand against the schemes of the devil has been rewritten with Jesus’ victory. The victory that the devil won over the 1st Adam in the garden has been rewritten by the victory of the 2nd Adam in the wilderness.

Whereas all of Adam’s offspring, right down to you and me were born in his sinful and fallen image, Jesus has given birth to a whole new humanity, born not of the flesh nor the will of man but born of God. A new humanity that is no longer identified as the sons and daughters of Adam, but that is identified as the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ and sons and daughters of God the Father.

“So Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.”

And because He has won the victory, He would have us call upon our heavenly Father with all boldness and confidence saying, “lead us not into temptation,” trusting without doubt, that has “delivered us from all evil.”

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On three, separate occasions, the Pharisees, Scribes and the crowds asked Jesus to give them a sign to convince them of who He is and what He’s up to. On all three occasions, Jesus answers the same way. “No sign will be given to you except the sign of Jonah.” In other words, knowing the story of Jonah is important to knowing the story of Jesus Christ. So our mission this Lenten season is to get to know the story of Jonah. The story unfolds in six different scenes and we’re going to look at each scene in succession over the six Wednesdays and Thursdays during Lent.

Tonight, the curtain opens with scene 1, recorded in chapter 1, verses 1-3. “God calls Jonah.” It reads as follows, “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ‘Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.’ But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.”

I. 1:1 1. Who is Jonah? So, just who is this Jonah? It just so happens, this same Jonah appears in another book of the Old Testament that records the history of Israel during the time of the Kings. II Kings 14:25 says, “[Jeroboam, king of Israel] restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher.”

The only thing that concerns us from this is that the Jonah in II Kings is the same Jonah as the one to whom the word of the Lord came to saying, “arise and go to Nineveh.” Jonah is a real person who lived around 750 B.C. when Jeroboam was king of Israel.

Jonah is a prophet of the Lord. The job of a prophet was to deliver a message from God to people. And there were two types of messages that prophets were to deliver. One was the message of divine judgment, and that began with, “Woe to you…” The other was a message of divine blessing, and it would begin with, “Blessed are you…”

And the prophet had to know when to speak the divine curse of judgment and the divine blessing of mercy. When people were living in sin and doing evil and perfectly content with themselves, they needed to hear God’s word of divine judgment - the law. When people were convicted by the message of God’s judgment and were truly sorry for their sinful life, the prophet was to speak God’s message of mercy and forgiveness - the Gospel.

So, one day while Jonah was busy being a good prophet of the Lord to Jeroboam, king of Israel, the word of the Lord came to him. And what a word it was.

II. 1:2 ‘Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.’

1. Assyrian Evil From Israel, Nineveh was quite a hike about 500 miles to the northeast. Today, Nineveh is the city of Mosel in the country of Iraq, about 220 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The thing about Nineveh that’s important for us to know is that it was the principle city of the nation of Assyria, and the Assyrian’s are known for being the most ruthless, barbaric people in the world. The Assyrians took pride in their brutality. When they conquered foreign nations, they would impale any resisters on a long pole. The Assyrians were the ones who invented the practice of deporting entire populations of people from their homeland to some foreign place. They would force march people into exile by putting a fishhook through their nose and connecting it to a long rope like a stringer of fish. The only people who like the Assyrians were Assyrians, and as we’ll see, even they were nervous about the way they treated others.

This is who Jonah is to go to. Not exactly the bible belt it is it?

1. God sees all At least, the Lord gave Jonah the kindness of explaining why He is sending him to Nineveh. “Their evil has come up before me.” God sees it. Nothing escapes Him. Even pagan nations are not hidden from God’s sight or immune from God’s judgment against their evil deeds.

2. God wants all to be saved He wants Jonah to “call out against it.” He’s sending Jonah to deliver a message of divine curse and divine judgment against them. Jonah is to preach the law. But the preaching of the law always has as its purpose to prepare the way for the preaching of the gospel. Hopefully, if they hear that God sees their evil and that He will punish them for it, they will turn from their evil and cry out for mercy. And this is just what God wants to see happen and what He loves to do.

3. Mission in the Old Testament It might surprise you that God would be interested in foreign, pagan nations even in the Old Testament. Maybe you thought that in the Old Testament God was only interested in the nation of Israel and that His concern for the gentiles didn’t happen until the New Testament. Actually, all throughout the Old Testament, God sends His messengers to go into all nations with the message of His judgment and His love so that they might repent and be saved.

For example, when God saw that everything in the world was evil, He sent His servant Noah. And for 120 while he was building the ark, Peter says that Noah preached the message of divine judgment and divine mercy to all who turned and believed.

God sent Abraham, and his sons, Isaac and Jacob to go to Cana to preach to the Canaanites.

He sent Lot to Sodom and Gomorrah to preach to them in their wickedness.

He sent Moses to arise and go to Egypt and deliver His message of divine judgment and mercy to Pharaoh.

God sent the prophet Elijah to the gentile village of Zarephath in order to reach a single widow and her son who lived there, and they were gentiles.

So, when Jesus sends His disciples to go “to all nations” with the message of His judgment and mercy, and when we St. Paul is commissioned to go be the God’s messenger to the gentiles, this is just God carrying out the same love and compassion for all people as He always has. He truly desires “all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim.2:4.) Always has and always will.

Some people have a problem with this you know. They have this idea that God’s loves His people - the Israelites in the Old Testament and the Christian Church in the New Testament. And if you’re not one these, then God doesn’t care. Or at least, He shouldn’t! He’s got no business warning evildoers to turn from their evil ways so that they’ll live. They think that some evil is just too evil for even God to have mercy on.

I think that the way Jonah reacted to the Lord’s call to go to Nineveh.

III. “But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.”

Remember how we said that Nineveh was northeast from Israel. Well, Tarshish is southwest from Israel. Jonah hopped a boat on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea and told the crew to take him to Tarshish which is a city on the coast of Spain, all the way on the furthest point on the west coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

1. Fleeing the presence of the Lord Actually, a careful reading of the text here says that Jonah didn’t just buy a ticket on this ship, he chartered the whole ship and its crew. This wasn’t a cruise ship that set sail according to schedule. Ships sailed when they had enough cargo and passengers to pay for the journey. Jonah wasn’t about to delay his departure. He would be the ship’s only cargo and only passenger so they could leave immediately.

In order to emphasize the outrageous thing that Jonah is doing here, the author repeats himself two times in this verse saying, “Jonah rose to flee from the presence of the Lord,” “to go away from the presence of the Lord.”

Jonah’s a man trying to hide from God. It’s not simply that Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh. He’s mad at God for even suggesting such a thing. Jonah’s so angry about this, he doesn’t even want to argue with God. It’s not simply that Jonah doesn’t want to talk with God about this. He doesn’t want God to speak to him. That’s what it means to flee from the presence of the Lord.

Jonah knows that God is omnipresent. As we’ll see, Jonah knew the Psalms by heart and so he would have known Psalm 139. “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to the heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.” Jonah knew that there was nowhere where God was not present.

But it is possible to cut yourself off from hearing God’s word. It is possible to block out His voice from reaching you. And that’s the presence of God that Jonah wants to get away from.

Actually, Jonah never stops believing in the Lord. As we’ll see later on, Jonah makes two, very poignant and wonderful confessions of faith in God. But he doesn’t want to hear what God has to say to him.

I think that Jonah helps us understand why a lot of people whom we may know, say that they believe in God and Jesus Christ but don’t want to come to church. They don’t want to hear Him speak to them because they don’t like the things He has to say. And so they block out His voice by staying away from where His Word is spoken.

1. Resisting God’s will So what we have here is a man who is a man of God, a believer in God, a prophet of God. But who is also a man who rejects God’s word and resists God’s will for his life. And here’s where we can all identify with Jonah. God may not be calling us to go to a barbaric nation. But He has called us to speak His message within our own families and communities. And sometimes they can be pretty threatening. Like Jonah, we’re simultaneously saint and sinner. And the two are always fighting against each other. One says, “Here I am, send me.” The other says, “this is ridiculous, absurd, even unfair.” And we run away from God’s presence. We don’t give up on God, we just don’t want to hear His Word.

This is Jonah’s struggle and ours as these ashes on our forehead testify to. It’s why, when Jesus teaches us what we should pray for, He says, “when you pray, say, ‘Our Father who art in heaven, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’”

Luther’s explanation captures Jonah’s experience and our own very well. Luther says, “God’s good and gracious will is done even without our prayer. But we pray in this petition that it would be done among us also.” That we would not run from it but go and speak as God wills us to.

So, let’s conclude with two questions. Since the book of Jonah concludes with a question, I think its okay to conclude a study of the Jonah with questions.

First question is this. What will become of a prophet who refuses God’s calling? And the second question which is, what will become of that great city Nineveh if the prophet does not bring God’s message to them?

The rest of the book of Jonah is the answer to these two questions.

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How many of you have ever attended one of your high school class reunions of 20 years or more? Was it hard to recognize your old classmates? I’ve never attended one of my high school reunions, but I can imagine that it might be hard to recognize the old gang just because they’ve probably changed quite a bit.

One of you drew my attention to an old photo album of members of the congregation the other day and as I looked through it, I was struck by how much some of us have changed over the years. (Not me of course.)

Life happens. And life has its effect on our body. We may do our best to slow the process with makeup and some skin tucks here and there, but you can only do so much. Sooner of later, we start to show our age. If life has been hard and stress runs high, then the lines really start to show up and run deep. Take the face of an American President for example. In just four or eight years all of them look like they’ve aged 20 or 30 years.

When God became man and took on a human body, there was nothing about Him that made Him look any different than anyone else. His body grew and went through all of the stages of development as ours do. And even though He was without sin, sin took its toll on His body. Long days with little rest, the pain of seeing so much suffering and so many so needy, the daily attacks and hassles from people who just don’t get it, the disappointment and frustration of being surrounded by such incompetence. All of this took its toll on Jesus’ body and on His face. “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are…” (Hebrews 4:15). And His face certainly showed it.

The Transfiguration of Jesus Luke says, “The appearance of His face was altered.” Whatever lines and wrinkles and age spots that might have been there were lost in the light. The disciples recognized that it was Jesus, but they saw Him in a way that they had never seen Him before. The three disciples were given a momentary peek at what lies beneath His humanity. They see His divinity exposed, uncovered, unveiled. Even in the miracle of Easter and afterwards, no one sees Jesus like these three saw Him here.

This is the whole point of the Transfiguration event. The Transfiguration happens and is in the Bible to tell us in unmistakable terms that this truly human man is just as truly, the Son of God.

The New Testament wants to be sure that we understand and believe this. When St. Paul writes to the Philippians, he says that Jesus did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped. He didn’t have to reach for divine status or work to attain it, because it is His by His the very nature of His being.

Writing to the Colossians, Paul says, “His is the image of the invisible God.” “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” (Col. 1:15,19; 2:9)

Writing to Timothy, Paul calls God, “unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see,” (1 Tim. 6:16) but Who has made Himself visible and approachable in the person of Jesus Christ. The writer to the Hebrews says it like this, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature.” (Heb.1:3).

All of this is a long way of saying that the light didn’t shine down upon Him, it shown out from Him.

Here, in the Transfiguration of our Lord, we are being told something very important about who this Jesus is. And not based on miracles He performs or anything He does. Even in the miracles He does, which John calls, signs of His glory, we are still left to infer who He is by what He does. But here, at the Transfiguration, we see Him “as He is.” We see “the glory as of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) without inference or assumption.

On Christmas, we celebrate Jesus’ humanity. On Good Friday, we celebrate the full atonement that He made for all of our sins by His innocent suffering and death on the cross. And on Easter, we celebrate the victory over the grave that He has won for us by His resurrection from the dead. But here on this day of the Transfiguration of our Lord, we celebrate the fact that this Jesus, born, suffered, died and raised again, is true God. Here we come face to face with “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2Cor.4:6) and we are confronted with the fact this is no less than God dwelling among us.

People have always had trouble with this. When you trace the history from Jesus Christ right up to our present day, men and women have always had a very difficult time accepting the divinity of this Jesus. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day accused Him of blasphemy because He claimed to be God and they had Him crucified for it.

Some say he’s a very special human, but not divine. Some say He’s divine but of a lesser divinity than God the Father. Some say He’s partly divine but no way does the “fullness of the deity dwell in Him.”

Matthew, Mark and Luke each report that the Transfiguration is the very next thing that happens after Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” They argue about whether it took place six days or eight days later, but the all agree that it is this question that Jesus is answering by taking His disciples up the mountain to see His glory. It’s a question that each of us must be prepared to give an answer to. “Who do you say that Jesus is?”

It’s perfectly understandable that Peter wanted to stay on the mountain. Rarely is Jesus’ divinity as clear and unquestionable as this. In fact, doesn’t it seem a bit odd that this is the only time that Jesus is transfigured before their eyes?

If only He had done this in the Nazareth, His hometown and when He stood before the Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate. Surely they would have been convinced that He is God dwelling among them. Surely, they would never have crucified Him. And just as surely, His divine body would not have been nailed to the cross as the one sacrifice for sin. And just as surely, His divine blood would not have been shed for our transgressions. And just as surely, we would still be in our sins and not reconciled with God. Here is the wonder and awe of His Transfiguration. This is the most-high God who lays down His life and is flogged and beaten, crucified, died and buried - for you.

The challenge of Christian faith is not that in seeing the unveiled glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ we must believe that He is the Son of God and follow Him. The challenge of the Christian faith is that we are only given to see the human face of Jesus, and even that, crowned with thorns and covered in blood, from that alone, we must believe that He is the Son of God and trust in His Word simply on the basis of His Word.

The Christian faith is based solely on what we hear and not on what we see. Even on this majestic mountain, as Peter calls it, the voice of the Father from the cloud doesn’t not say, “This is my Son, my Chosen One, look at Him.” He says, “listen to Him!”

So, the purpose for this and the reason that Jesus brings the three up the mountain to witness this, is not so that they can say to the others, “you’re not going to believe what we saw.” It is so that they may tell the others and themselves, “you really ought to believe what He says.”

When Peter writes to the Church about what took place on the mountain, he says, based on what we saw and heard on that mountain, you ought to really trust and believe His Word. “We were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For we were with him on the holy mountain. And [based on that] we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts…” (2 Peter 1:16-19).

Hearing and believing is something we have lots of trouble with. We’re all a lot like Thomas. We much prefer seeing and believing. “Unless I see with my eyes and touch with my hand, I will not believe.”

St. John, one of the three who witnessed this promises that one-day, “we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2) As a warning to unbelievers and the hope for believers, John writes, “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him” in His Transfiguration glory. (Rev.1:7).

But for now, we live by faith and not by sight. The revelation of Jesus’ divine nature and the glory of God is hidden in the body of Jesus Christ, and nowhere more hidden from our eyes than in His body, crucified on the cross and buried in the tomb.

So even here, on what Peter calls, “the majestic mountain,” what’s the conversation all about? Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus about His “departure, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”

The word “departure” in the Greek is the word, “exodus.” “Ex” means “out.” “Odos” means “road” or “way.” The “exodus” is about the “way out.” And how fitting that Moses and Elijah are the ones talking with Jesus about His exodus.

Moses of course, knew something about exodus. He led the people of God out of Egypt from the slavery and bondage under Pharaoh, through the wilderness and to the Promised Land. But Moses wasn’t able to actually bring the people into the Promised Land. As we heard, the Lord took Moses to the top of a mountain and showed Him the final destination, but another one, whose name in Hebrew is “Yeshua” would lead the people into the Promised Land.

Elijah had gone through an exodus of his own too. He tried to lead God’s people out from under the influence of Baal and the many false gods that they worshipped. He didn’t accomplish everything he had hoped to either.

Now, both of them look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of their faith. It was all up to Him to accomplish the exodus that neither of them was able to. After all, they were only human. And there’s only so much any one man can do.

But the God/Man, Jesus Christ is the greater than Moses and the greater than Elijah. And He is able to lead His people through the ultimate exodus from our slavery and bondage to our sin, death and the devil himself, into the promised-land where the light of His glory shatters the darkness once and for all.

For now, the divinity of Jesus Christ remains hidden from our eyes under the shadow of the cross, in plain water, under an ever so thin piece of bread and sip of wine, in ordinary spoken words. None of this means a thing if Jesus is not God in the flesh. But it means everything if He is.

“This is my Son, my Chosen One,” reverberates in the earthquake that shook the ground and tore the curtain of the temple at His death. “This is my Son, my Chosen One,” gives meaning and power to the water in which we are baptized at His command, the bread and wine that we eat and drink and His invitation, the word of forgiveness and hope and life that He has commissioned to be preached. These words from the Father, “This is my Son, my Chosen One,” are the basis for our hope and confidence that by His departure in Jerusalem, we too will be delivered.

We close with the words of St. Peter to the church, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8-9).

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We get a sense of the kind of attention that Jesus was getting, from St. Luke’s report of “one occasion” when He was standing by the “lake of Gennesaret.” Luke reports, the “crowds were pressing in upon Him to hear the Word of God.”

They had it right. If you want to hear the Word of God, you’ve got to get close to Jesus. Not the stars or the psychics or the god of your choice. You hear the Word of God from Jesus. He is, after all, “the Word of God made flesh.” (John 1:1). “This is my Son, My chosen One. Listen to Him!” (Luke 9:36). The writer to the Hebrews puts it like this, “In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and various ways. But now in these last days, God has spoken to us by His Son…” (Hebrews 1:1).

So, “the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God.” That’s a pretty good picture of the Church right there.

It would have been nice to hear the sermon he preached on this “one occasion” but Luke doesn’t tell us. If what follows however is connected at all to what He had just said, then maybe He had spoken to the crowd about the way God rules over His creation, from all the birds in the air to all the fish in the sea. In the beginning, God gave Adam ‘dominion’ over the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. But after he sinned, Adam had a hard time convincing the fish to swim into the net. But now, Jesus is about to present the 2nd Adam, Himself, who has dominion over creation, even the fish in the sea. God is making everything right again through Jesus Christ.

After the sermon was over, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” This of course was not at all what Peter wanted to do. He and the others were tired. They had been out fishing all night and hadn’t caught a thing. And besides, if you know anything about fishing the Sea of Galilee, you know that you don’t fish during the daytime. You fish at night when the fish come up to the surface where your nets can reach them. But if you’re going to fish during the daytime, then you do so in shallow water where you can see the schools of fish and know where to throw the nets. This is before sonar and fish finders. But Jesus said, “put out into the deep.”

Against all reason and will, Peter said, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.”

Peter’s a great example for us all right here. How many times have we thought that we knew better than the Lord? “You don’t understand things the way the really are Jesus. This is, after all, the 21st century. You can’t expect the bible to apply to our modern times. If I tried to do what you’re asking me to do, and the way you want me to do it, it would never work.”

But Peter works this out much differently. He thinks, “this makes no sense. It’s not at all the way things work. But, I’ve just seen this man cast out demons and heal my mother-in-law of her fever and heal diseases by the touch of His hand.” And so Peter says, “But at your word I will let down the nets.”

That’s the sound of faith talking there. And how pleased Jesus must have been with Peter. He knows the thoughts of our hearts and minds. He knows when our hearts and minds say “no, no, no” and He doesn’t condemn us for that. But how pleased He is when we let His Word overrule all of that and we do what He says just because we trust Him.

And of course, no sooner do the nets hit the water than all the fish in the sea jump into them. I’ve always pictured Jesus with a bit of a smirk on His face as the men struggle to pull the fish into the boats.

But for Peter’s not smiling at all. For a professional fisherman, Peter’s reaction to this tremendous catch of fish is very strange. Peter suddenly realizes that this whole thing has not been a lesson in how to catch fish at all. Jesus had gotten him into the boat and out into the deep where He would have Peter’s undivided attention. No cell phones or text messages or twitters. And there, Jesus opened Peter’s eyes to His true identity - both Peter’s true identity and Jesus’ true identity. This is a crisis on the sea that has nothing to do with the fact the boats were beginning to sink.

What is it that causes this strange reaction to this incredible catch of fish? Peter realizes that if this Jesus can see into the deep blue sea and summon the fish to the surface, then He may also be able to look into the deep black sea of Peter’s life and see some of those things that swimming around down under the surface too that Peter always thought were too deep for anyone to see, let alone summon to the surface.

Each of us has carved out a life for ourselves as best we can. And along the way, we’ve made plenty of mistakes and done some things that we’re ashamed of. And we’ve buried them deep within us so that no one else can see them or expose them. We’ve got our secrets. Secrets that we don’t want anyone else to know. Secrets that we’ve hidden even from ourselves. But they’re as real as those fish in the sea.

But then one day Jesus Christ confronted us. As long as we thought about Jesus as someone who could do stuff for us, we were just fine with Him. But when we realize that He sees us and all of those dirty little secrets we’ve buried down deeply within us, we’re very uncomfortable having Him so close to us.

This is what happened to the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah had his life and career and he had made it to the top of the ladder as far as prophets go. He worked in the King’s palace and he was the royal prophet. But even prophets and clergy can go through all the motions and avoid a confrontation with the Lord. But one day the Lord confronted Isaiah and Isaiah saw the Lord, sitting upon a throne, high and mighty. And you would think that for a prophet this would be the ultimate experience. But for Isaiah it was a shattering experience. “Woe is me! For I am lost. (I am undone.) For I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” Isaiah realizes that the Lord sees his whole life. His secrets are no longer secret. In fact, he realizes that they have never been a secret to God.

Remember how David tried to hide his great sin of murder and adultery and act like everything was just fine, only to be exposed by Nathan the prophet.

Speaking for the Lord, Isaiah writes, “Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel, whose deeds are hidden in the dark, and who say, ‘who sees us? Who knows us?’” (Is.29:15). The writer to the Hebrews answers Isaiah saying, “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (Hebrews 4:13).

Even Moses, the man of God, knows that you can’t hide anything from God. “You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.” (Ps.90:8). Jeremiah knows the same. “Can a man hide himself in the secret places so that I cannot see him? Declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? Declares the Lord.” (Jer.23:24). St. Paul writes that the day will come, when “God will judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” (Rom.2:16).

At his confrontation with the Lord, Isaiah pronounced the divine curse upon himself. “Woe to me. I am lost.” What would Peter do? Peter fell down at Jesus’ knees and said, “depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” And isn’t that our response to Jesus every time He confronts us? Peter realized that Jesus saw right through him. The light shattered the darkness. And Peter preferred the darkness. “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” As if to say, ‘I know who I really am and I know that You have come to expose me. But I would prefer that You would depart from me and let me alone in my sin. I don’t want to be exposed and I don’t want to be changed.’

St. John writes, “And the judgment is this, the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone that does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed.” (John 3:19-22).

You want to know why so many people want nothing to do with Christianity and won’t come to church when you invite them? I think this is why. It’s not that they doubt that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that His Word has authority. It’s because they believe that He is and they don’t want Him interfering with their lifestyle. They don’t want to be exposed. It’s not a pleasant thing. The only honest conclusion is, “I am a man of unclean lips.” “I am a sinful man.”

Like I said, all of this takes place in the deep. In the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the deep, and He still does. And wherever the Holy Spirit hovers, there is the power of God ready to create something out of nothing by the Word of God. And ready to recreate something by the blood of Jesus Christ.

In the beginning, the Spirit took what was formless and void and by the living and active Word, gave it shape and filled it with content. And when He was done His work, He saw all that He had made, nothing was hidden from His sight, and the whole thing was very good. No deep, dark secrets, nothing hidden.

By the same power, the same Spirit of God takes what He created, by the redemption that comes through Jesus Christ, makes it very good again. God is making everything right again through Jesus Christ.

Don’t be afraid to let Jesus take you out into the deep. That’s where the Spirit hovers, and where secrets are revealed, and where sins are exposed and where all is forgiven. Jesus will not depart from you, sinful man that you are. He takes you into the deep so that you may confess your deep dark secrets and hidden sins just like Isaiah and Peter did, that He may tell them to “depart from you” for you are His beloved, His precious, His chosen.

The Spirit carries the authoritative word of Jesus Christ into the deep, into the deep water and it teems with fish, into the deep darkness of our heart and it teems with new life. Empty nets are filled and sinful hearts are emptied and then filled with real meaning and real joy and real life - sometimes, more meaning and joy and life than we know what to do with.

Sound too good to be true? Not at all. It really happened just like it says. The nets were really ripping at the seams and the boats almost sank. And Peter and his partners were really confronted by Jesus Christ. And “when they had brought their boats to land, the left everything and followed Him.”

The season of Christmas tells us that Jesus Christ is fully man, like us in every way, flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones, born of a woman. And He is dwelling among us.

The season of Epiphany tells us that Jesus Christ is fully divine, unlike us in every way, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, unchangeable, almighty, just, good, merciful, gracious. He is God and God is love. And He is dwelling among us men and women.

The seasons of Christmas and Epiphany come as a package deal. One without the one the other will do you no good. We’ve got to have both to get the complete picture of Jesus. And only then are you ready to enter the season of Lent, which tells us that the fully human, fully divine God / Man, is crucified on the cross. You see, without Christmas or without Epiphany, His death on the cross is either not “for us men” or not “for our salvation.”

Which, of course means, that you’ve got to have the season of Christmas and Epiphany and Lent before you’re ready for Easter - which is one, big party.

So with that wonderful lesson that the children have given us regarding the humanity of Jesus Christ, let’s crossover again into Epiphany and consider the divinity of Jesus Christ from the gospel text appointed for this 4th Sunday in Epiphany. The Gospel according to St. Luke, the 4th chapter, verses 31-44. We’ll take this in three parts.

I. Luke 4:31-37 “And [Jesus] went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word, possessed authority. And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are- the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region.”

Last week, we heard that Jesus was in Nazareth, his hometown. He went to church on the Sabbath day where there were lots of old familiar faces in the congregation. When He left Nazareth, He was a young man, a well-respected carpenter. When He returned to Nazareth, He was a “Rabbi,” a teacher. Which means that when and where ever He went to church, He would be asked to read the scriptures and preach a sermon.

The text He chose was Isaiah 61. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And then He rolled up the scroll and sat down. And here comes the sermon. It’s a short one, pay attention. “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

And Luke reports that they all thought it was a marvelous sermon. But that was just because they didn’t realize at first that He was actually referring to Himself, suggesting that that He was the One whom Isaiah was talking about. Once they realized what He was really saying, they hated the sermon. Some people are just fine and dandy with the Christmas story. If Jesus wants to be a man and live among us men and women, that just fine. But they can’t swallow the message of the season of Epiphany.

Now, I know that over the years, I’ve preached some pretty bad sermons, some real stinkers that you didn’t like one bit. But thankfully, you’ve never been so furious that you’ve tried to throw me off the Interstate overpass. But the folks in Nazareth “were filled with wrath and they rose up and drove him out of the town,” and tried to throw Him over a cliff.
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So from Nazareth, Jesus heads over to Capernaum. He’ll come back to Nazareth in time, but for now, they were just not ready to listen.

In Capernaum, He goes to church on the Sabbath day. And naturally, He’s asked to teach. Once again, Jesus runs into trouble from the congregation. Only this time, the trouble comes, not from old friends and neighbors but from ancient enemies and mortal foes. There are demons present in this congregation and they’re all hiding in one of the parishioners.

The demons have a real problem with Jesus’ divinity too. “Have you come to destroy us?” And the answer is “yes!” First, He “rebukes” the demon. They interrupt Him. He’s the teacher. They’re not. They need to shut up. And then He tells them to get lost. ejxejlqe - “Come out!” And after making a real scene, they do what they’re told and depart.

And the parishioners are amazed. This was not just preaching. This was preaching in action. This was not just talk but this talk had real substance to it. “His word possessed authority.” His Word does what it says.

“He proclaimed liberty to the one held captive by demons.” And what He did in the synagogue there He does in this synagogue here. He rebukes your sinful and demonic nature and commands the unclean spirits in you to come out. And His Word has authority. It does what it says. The old sinful nature in you is put to death every time it hears His Word of rebuke and it comes out of you.

But this is not His last Word to you. To you, Jesus speaks another word, not of rebuke but of grace. To you, He “proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor.” “I forgive you all of your sins.” And His Word has authority. It does what it says. “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” _

One more thing needs to be said here in praise of this congregation. Luke writes, “Reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region.” They didn’t keep a secret. They spread the word about Jesus. That’s the way evangelism works. It doesn’t need a program or a catchy slogan. Just tell others about Jesus. His Word has authority. “He rebuked the unclean spirits in me and they came out of me. By His Word, He filled me with His Holy Spirit. He set this captive free.”

II. Luke 4:38-41 “And he arose and left the synagogue and entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf. And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and immediately she rose and began to serve them. Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.

From the Synagogue, Jesus went to Peter’s house to make a house call on Peter’s mother in law who had the flu. Once again, Jesus speaks His rebuke. “He rebuked the fever.” And just as with the demons, so with the fever. “It left her.” There’s that authority again.

Peter’s mother-in-law had no trouble with the divinity of Jesus. She was sick and in need of a physician and Jesus had come to her, just as He promised He would. “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick” sure do. (Luke 5:31) So what does she do? She got up and prepared a meal for them to eat.

“Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” too. Jesus is as interested in your physical body as He is your spiritual soul. The root cause of all bodily illness and disease is sin. So, He rebukes the your sin and casts it out. And before you can get up and prepare a meal for Him, He’s already got one ready for you to eat and drink. “This is my body.” “This is my blood.” Remember, His word has authority. It does what it says. So as you eat the bread, He gives you His own healthy body. As you drink the wine, He gives you His own precious blood.
After dinner, Jesus and the boys got up to leave. By this time, the sun had gone down which, by the way that the Jews kept time meant that the Sabbath day was officially over. People were free to travel again and travel they did. As Jesus opens the door of the house, he was met by a line of people a mile long waiting for Him to heal their body and cast out their demons. And one at time, He laid His hands on them and rebuked their fever, rebuked their demons. And they were healed and the captives were set free.

III. Luke 4:42-43 “And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.”

Small towns always have a hard time getting good doctors. A real good one had come to Capernaum and the people wanted Him to stay. But Jesus insisted that He had to move on. His mission and purpose in life was not just to heal and cleanse the people of Capernaum in the first century AD, but to disinfect the whole world of sin. Not just Capernaum but every nook and cranny on the planet. Not just for a particular point in time but for every moment and point in human history, past, present and future.

And this He would do. But not just by the power of His divinity, but also by the weakness of His humanity. Remember, Christmas and Epiphany are a package deal.

The people were amazed at His authority. But what that means is, they were amazed at His great preaching and miracles and power to cast out demons. They loved the season of Epiphany. But His authority to do these things leads Him to an even greater authority. Jesus said, “I have authority to lay down my life and I have authority to take it up again.” (John 10:18). Apart from the season of Christmas, He could never have said this.

It’s from the cross that Jesus preaches His best sermon. “Father, forgive them.” And we are forgiven. From the cross, He bares all the fevers and diseases of the body in His body, and “by His stripes we are healed.” (Is.53:5) From the cross, He rebukes Satan and all his disgusting germs and casts them all out by rising from the dead. Just as He said He would.

This is the Jesus whom the children confessed so beautifully this morning. This is the Jesus upon whom you’ve pinned all of your hope. Fully man, fully God, who, by His authority, laid down His life for us men and who, by His authority, took His life up again for our salvation.

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If you’ve moved here from a big city like Boston or New York, you know that life is different here than in the big city. But even life in a small town like Waterville is much different than life in a village, like Cana. In Waterville, it’s not uncommon to see people you know at the grocery store or the post office. But in a village, everyone knows everyone and everyone’s life is connected to everyone else’s life. When a baby is born, the whole village celebrates. When someone dies, the whole village mourns. When there’s a wedding, the whole village attends.

A typical Middle Eastern village wedding would take place in the cool of the evening. The bride and groom would wear crowns on their heads. After the ceremony, the couple would be led through the streets of the village with a canopy held over their heads, torches blazing, music playing and lots of singing and dancing. The parade would wind through every street in the village to bear witness to the whole community that the bride had a new name and out of two families, one new family had been created. The whole village looked forward to a wedding because it was a time of great celebration and joy for everyone.

It might have been just such a village wedding that the prophet Isaiah had in mind in our Old Testament reading for this morning. “For Zion’s sake I WILL NOT KEEP SILENT, and for Jerusalem’s sake I WILL NOT BE QUITE, until her righteousness goes forth AS BRIGHTNESS, and her salvation as a BURNING TORCH. The nations shall see your righteousness and all the kings your glory, and YOU SHALL BE CALLED BY A NEW NAME that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be A CROWN OF BEAUTY in the hand of the Lord, and a ROYAL DIADEM in the hand of your God.” It sure sounds like Isaiah is describing a typical village wedding where the Lord God is celebrating the joyous new life of a very special bride and groom.

Once the newly weds arrived at their home, the reception would begin. The reception was hosted by the newly weds and it would be for the whole village. It would last up to seven days.

It was into this happy time that Jesus was invited to join. And He did. I don’t know what you’re image of Jesus is, but He loved to participate and share in the happiness and joy of others. He never counted it a crime to be happy. It’s okay, if you want, to picture Jesus dancing the polka and doing the ‘chicken dance’ and the ‘macherena’ along with everyone else.

Obviously, a lot of planning and preparation went into putting together a weeklong reception. Having enough food and drink on hand was essential. Sometime later, Jesus would tell a parable about a man who had invited his village to his wedding reception and had slaughtered the necessary number of animals for food. But a lot of folks in his village decided they were more interested in other things and didn’t attend. This was not only a terrible insult to the bride and groom, but what are you going to do with all that meat that’s been slaughtered in a day before refrigeration allowed you to make leftovers for weeks to come?

Here, at this wedding reception in the village of Cana in Galilee, the problem is just the opposite. The couple underestimated the amount of wine they would need, and they ran out. Which could have easily been perceived as an insult to the village by the groom and bride who were trying to skimp on the reception.

Mary sees the problem and said to Jesus, “They have no wine.” Was she simply sharing an observation with Jesus? It seems like it was probably more than that. Jesus sure thinks that she’s expecting Him to do something for the sake of the bride and groom. And the servants are all gathered around Mary waiting for her to tell them what they should do. Maybe she had some responsibility for making sure that the food and drink were all taken care of.

Jesus’ response to His mother bothers us a bit. “Woman, what does this have to do with me?” Literally, “what am I to you?” Let’s understand Jesus’ words this way. He was beginning the work for which He came into the world. From this point on, His relationship with His mother would have to change from what it had been. Sometime later, Mary and her other sons would come to Jesus to take Him home. When His disciples told Jesus that His mother and brothers were here, Jesus said, “who is my mother, who are my brothers?” And pointed to the crowd gathered around Him saying, “These are my mother and brothers.” Things were definitely changing.

He said to her, “My hour has not yet come.” We’ll come back to this in a minute. “His mother said to the servants, ‘do whatever he tells you.’”

Let’s stop right here for a minute, because this touches us right where we live. How many times has the wine run out for us? Of course, we’re not talking about wedding banquets here. We have responsibilities to oversee, big ones and little ones. Others have their expectations of us. Sometimes, the time runs out or the energy or the patience or the love runs out. Sometimes, it feels like there’s nothing left inside and all the hope we had is gone. Just like the time the wine ran out in Cana.

Where do you turn when the wine runs out? Mary turned to Jesus. And she didn’t tell Him what He should do. She simply laid her problem on His lap. And before He even answered her, she told the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.” Whatever His response might be, it would be the right one. He will supply all of your needs. “From His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.” (John 1:16). Blessing upon blessing like the waves breaking on the seashore, one after another for a long as you can remember for as long as you can dream.

“Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.” John wants to be sure that we understand that these water jars did not contain drinking water. The water in those jars was for washing. The Jewish law was that every male must wash before every meal. It was definitely more of a ceremonial thing than a sanitary thing. Before the meal, the men would line up at the stone jars and servants would pour water over their wrists and hands and they would be ceremonially clean.

Sometime later, the Pharisees would spot Jesus’ disciples eating but not washing like this and they would ask Him in so many words, ‘what kind of Rabbi are you that you don’t make your disciples wash like everyone else does?’ And Jesus would deliver a POWERFUL SERMON about what makes a person unclean and what cleanses a person from their uncleanness and makes the pure.

Here, He delivers a POWERFUL MIRACLE.

He said, “‘fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, ‘Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.’”

What must the servants have been thinking? “Why on earth would he be concerned about having enough wash water in the jars at a time like this?” And then, “why on earth does He want us to take wash water to the master of the feast?” But of course, as John tells us, “the water had become wine.”

What’s shocking about all of this is that the ‘master of the feast’ doesn’t recognize that a miracle has just taken place. He thinks that the groom has arranged the whole thing to happen this way. So, whereas the bridal party was on the verge of being terribly embarrassed in front of the whole village, now they are lavishly praised in front of all their guests. “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

But His disciples saw something else. They saw a miracle. And His disciples believed in Jesus. As so should we.

John says, “This, the first of His signs…” Matthew, Mark and Luke call these things ‘miracles.’ But John calls them “signs.” And when John says that this is the FIRST of His signs, he means that there’s more to follow. At the end of His gospel, John writes, “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-13).

Signs point beyond themselves. No one sees a sign pointing to Waterville and thinks that the sign is Waterville. This miracle is not about just about water turned into wine, or even that Jesus was able to do this. It’s a miracle, that’s for sure. Don’t deny it. Because you’ll never get what the sign is pointing to if you deny the miracle. But don’t stop at the miracle. You’ve got to see what it’s pointing to.

This episode in Cana is all about being clean and purification and not just ceremonially or symbolically, but really clean, really pure. We are all unclean. We are all soiled with sin. The sin that we do is just the surface dirt. And even that’s just a sign that points beyond itself. We’re dirty on the surface because, as we all confessed, “we are BY NATURE sinful and UNCLEAN.” All the outward purification in the world is just superficial and ceremonial unless there is a real deep cleansing of the heart. A radical transformation of the human heart from “by nature sinful and unclean” to “by redemption holy and righteous and pure.” That’s a transformation as radical as water changed into wine. That is what this sign in Cana points to. Jesus has come to purify us of our sin.

So just what did Jesus mean when He said to His mother, “My hour has not yet come”? Here’s a phrase that’s repeated four more times in John’s gospel. His brothers tell Jesus He should go to Jerusalem for the festival. But Jesus says, “my hour has not yet come.” On two occasions, while He was teaching at the temple, the authorities wanted to arrest Him, “but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come.” (John 7:6,8,30; 8:20).

Just what hour is He referring to? Interestingly, as soon as Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, He begins to sing a different tune. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus begins His high priestly prayer saying, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.” “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ But for this purpose I have come to this hour.” (John 12:23, 17:1).

The hour that had come was the sixth hour when Pontius Pilate handed Him over to be crucified, and the ninth hour when the heavenly bridegroom breathed His last on the cross. Those stone jars at the wedding in Cana? They were just signs too. They pointed to Jesus Christ, who is the stone jar which holds the liquid that purifies us. His precious blood is poured from His body and it cleanses us from all of our sins and purifies us of all unrighteousness.

This village gathers together every Sunday to celebrate the wedding feast that the wedding in Cana only pointed to. Here, the blood of Christ is poured out from His body and onto our lips and it purifies us. And we are amazed that He has saved the best for last. FOR US. And even this wedding feast is a sign, a foretaste of the feast to come.

Our hour has not yet come. It will. But because His hour has come, we may face our hour with confidence and peace. For what could have been our hour of great shame has become our hour to receive the lavish praise of God the Father. And with our purified body and soul, He will invite us to join with Him in the celebration of the wedding feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom, which lasts forever, where the wine never runs out and the joy never ends.