The Sign of the Resurrection

Rev. Mark C. Alvis, Union Congregational Church — Easter, April 8, 2007

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Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” Jesus answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:38-40 NIV).

On Thursday night this auditorium became very dark, because we remembered that at the cross our Lord Jesus Christ willingly bore the full brunt of God’s wrath against our sin (II Corinthians 5:21). It was a dark hour of indescribable torment. This morning, however, we are here to celebrate the rest of the story. Listen to the Apostle Paul’s summary of the good news of the gospel, recorded in I Corinthians 15:1-4:

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain [your belief is not genuine]. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures [the Scriptures Paul is referring are the Old Testament. Where in the Old Testament does it speak about the death of the Christ? In Psalm 22; Isaiah 53], that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

Where in the Old Testament does it speak of Christ’s resurrection? In Psalm 16:9-10; Isaiah 53:10-11. Where in the Old Testament does it indicate that the Messiah would be in the grave three days? Our Lord Jesus tells us of one such passage in Matthew 12:38-40:

Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him [Jesus], “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” [Jesus had already performed many miracles, and the religious leaders claimed he did them by the power of Satan. Why would Jesus do a miracle for people who weren’t interested in truth?] Jesus answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

We will never fully understand the Old Testament if we do not realize that it points to the person and work of Jesus Christ. Listen to what Jesus says to two of His disciples after He rose from the dead: “He said to them, ‘How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things [false accusations and crucifixion] and then enter his glory? [The answer is yes because the Old Testament foretold it would happen] And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:25-27).

This Easter morning we are going to consider some of the insights about Christ’s death and resurrection that are tucked away in the Old Testament book of Jonah. The events of this book took place over seven hundred years before Christ came to earth. Let me tell you how to find the book of Jonah — it comes right after the book of Obadiah. Any Jew who lived at the time of Jonah would have been shocked at what God commanded Jonah to do. Listen to Jonah chapter 1:1-2: “The word of theLORD came to Jonah . . . ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me [like a stench in His nostrils].” Nineveh was a great city of the Assyrians — a people who were growing in power by plundering their neighbors. They were a cruel, savage people and had been conducting raids against the Israelites for years. You would think that Jonah would have been eager to preach against that city. And yet we read in verse 3, “But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish.” Tarshish was in the opposite direction of Nineveh and as far west as most ships traveled in those days. Why didn’t Jonah want to preach to the Ninevites? Because he realized that, by sending him to Nineveh to preach, God was giving them a warning and therefore a chance to repent. And if they repented, Jonah knew that God would spare them. Listen to how Jonah describes God in Jonah 4:2: “You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”

It amazes me when I hear people say that the God of the Old Testament was a God of anger and wrath. Jonah desperately wanted God to be angry and wrathful against the Ninevites because of all the bad things they had done. But when Jonah told the Ninevites that God was going to judge them, they believed his message and sincerely repented of their sins. And when they repented, they found God to be wonderfully gracious, merciful and forgiving.

What I see happening today is that people don’t want to repent of their sins but still expect God to be loving, gracious and merciful. It doesn’t work that way. If Nineveh had refused to repent, they would have been destroyed.

Let’s go back to Jonah running away from the Lord. If you remember, after Jonah boarded the ship heading for Tarshish God sent a terrible storm that threatened to capsize the vessel. Here is an important question: Did God send this storm because he hates people and enjoyed watching the fear and panic of the sailors aboard that ship; or did God send the storm because he wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh so He could spare that city? It was God’s love that prompted Him to send the storm. The thinking of so many today is, “A loving God does not send storms into our lives.” The Bible, however, teaches that God is love and He does send storms. It is up to us to change our thinking about what constitutes love.

At the height of this storm Jonah went below deck and fell asleep. (You have to give Jonah high marks for courage in the face of danger.) Does this event in Jonah’s life remind you of another biblical account? Luke 8:22-25 tells us about a time when Christ was in a boat with his disciples and a violent storm hit. Jesus slept while the disciples panicked and lost hope. When the disciples woke Jesus, He immediately stilled the storm and calmed the water. Listen to what happened to Jonah in chapter 1:7-17. In the midst of this great storm,

the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity” [this was not like any storm they had ever seen] . . . and the lot fell on Jonah. So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” [They asked five questions before Jonah could rub the sleep out of his eyes]. He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” This terrified them [these guys worshiped little wooden gods. They weren’t used to dealing with the Almighty God of the Universe] and they asked, “What have you done . . . What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?” “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you” [let’s also give Jonah high marks for honesty. Jonah understood that his rebellion against God could end up hurting other people — not just himself. Friend, if you are living in disobedience to God, don’t think that you are only hurting yourself]. Instead [of throwing Jonah in the sea], the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried to the LORD, “O LORD, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life” . . . Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him. But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.

As far as these sailors knew, Jonah met his death that day. But the fact that the storm ceased when Jonah was thrown overboard definitely got their attention.

In chapter 2 we read about Jonah’s prayer to God after being thrown overboard. He describes being overcome by the waves and sinking deep into the Mediterranean Sea. He speaks of seaweed wrapping around his head and descending to the roots of the mountains. It would seem that Jonah was swallowed by the great fish toward the bottom of the ocean.

It could be that the great fish God appointed to swallow Jonah was a sperm whale. Some of you may be thinking that a whale is a mammal and not a fish. 2700 years ago, that was not an important distinction. To a Hebrew prophet, a whale was a big fish. Some reasons why this may have been a sperm whale are: (1) sperm whales have been sighted in this area; (2) they feed at the bottom of the ocean; and (3) their favorite food is giant squid — which they swallow whole.

There is a reported incident of a sailor by the name of James Bartley who fell overboard and was swallowed by a sperm whale in 1891. According to the report, the whale was harpooned the next day and when they cut it open James Bartley was alive after spending 24 hours in the belly of that whale. The gastric juices had bleached a good deal of his skin white and he was in a state of shock and anxiety for a couple of weeks. How could a man survive that long inside a whale? They are mammals, therefore they breathe air. I take it that some of that air enters into the stomach (I am not volunteering to find out). And there was plenty of squid to eat. The other interesting thing about sperm whales is that the beaks of the giant squid they eat sometimes get lodged in their intestinal tracts and a waxy substance called ambergris is formed to protect the whale from internal injury. Every so often this waxy substance builds up to the point where it is either vomited or excreted out of the whale and found floating on the water or washed up on shore (it is extremely valuable in the making of costly perfumes). At the end of chapter 2 we read, “And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” Jonah may have floated to shore on a hunk of ambergris.

I am not vouching that a James Bartley was swallowed by a sperm whale (I read it in an encyclopedia, but that still doesn’t mean it happened), but I am testifying that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish. It is clearly recorded in the book of Jonah and our Lord Jesus verified that it happened.

Look with me now at chapter 3, “Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’ Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh.”

Would any of you have tried to run from the Lord a second time? Look with me at verses 4-10:

On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned” [Ha, ha]. The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

The fact that God sent Jonah to the Ninevites showed that He cared about them and did not want to destroy them. But, friends, if Nineveh had not repented, they would have been destroyed. And Christians, if we only talk about God’s love and never warn people about God’s wrath, then people may think they do need to repent (see Psalm 94). How did Jesus preach? He said, “Repent, and believe the gospel.”

Jonah spoke what God told him to say and the people of Nineveh believed. This resulted in the greatest movement of God among the Gentile peoples recorded in the Old Testament. Can I speculate for a moment? Did the Ninevites know that Jonah had been miraculously delivered out of death in order to bring them this message? If they did, it was because of the testimony of the sailors who came to believe in God because of Jonah. It may have been that Jonah’s warning to the Ninevites was made divinely powerful because the sailors testified that Jonah had come out of death to give them this message.

The greatest movement of God ever among Gentile peoples began 2000 years ago when Jesus Christ rose from the dead and commissioned a small group of his followers to make disciples of all the nations.

Friends, God did not send His Son into the world because He couldn’t wait to destroy humanity, but because He wants to save us. Listen to John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life [if we don’t believe, we will perish]. For God did not send his Son into the world condemn the world [our sin has already done that], but to save the world through Christ.”

If you are here this morning and you know you are not right with God, please do not think that a loving and compassionate God will not judge you. The Bible says He most certainly will. But it is also my privilege to tell you that there is forgiveness for all who confess their sin and ask for God’s mercy in Christ. Let’s pray.

Sermon text ©2007 Mark C. Alvis
Bible text © as applicable