Passage: Jonah 1:10-16
The Big Idea
Jonah tells the sailors to throw him overboard so the sea will be calm. One man goes into the deep so others can live. It is a picture of substitutionary love, and it points straight to Jesus, the greater than Jonah, who came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).
“Doctor, When Do I Die?”
In Written in Blood, Robert Coleman tells of a boy named Johnny whose sister Mary needed a blood transfusion. Johnny had survived the same disease and had the same rare blood type. When the doctor asked if he would give his blood, Johnny’s lip trembled. Then he smiled: “Sure, for my sister.”
As the blood flowed, Johnny asked quietly, “Doctor, when do I die?” He thought giving his blood meant giving his life, and he had decided to do it anyway.
Johnny did not have to die. But our condition was worse than Mary’s, and Jesus gave not just His blood but His life.
Read: Jonah 1:10-16
“Throw me into the sea”
The sailors have found the source of the storm and ask Jonah what they should do with him. Jonah tells them to pick him up and throw him into the sea, and the sea will become calm (Jonah 1:11-12).
Why? A death wish? Taking responsibility? Probably a bit of both. Jonah is complicated. But it seems the kindness of these pagan sailors has touched his hard heart. They have been honorable every step of the way. God used them to soften His runaway prophet.
“You are dying for me, when I should be dying for you. Let me be your substitute.”
That is the pattern of true love: I will die so you don’t have to.
Why these stories move us
On May 21, 1946, at Los Alamos, a young scientist named Louis Slotin was testing how close a plutonium core could get to critical mass, holding two shells around it apart with a screwdriver. The screwdriver slipped. The room flashed with a blue glow. Instead of ducking, Slotin knocked the shells apart with his hand, stopping the chain reaction and shielding the seven others in the room. He died nine days later.
Centuries before, the Son of God walked straight into sin’s most concentrated radiation, let it take His life, and broke the chain reaction of sin.
Stories like this wreck us because we are made in the image of a God who loves like this. Jesus called Himself greater than Jonah (Matthew 12:41). As Jonah was thrown over to save the sailors, Jesus gave Himself as a ransom for all (1 Timothy 2:5-6).
A father’s plate
A boy kept coming home late for dinner. One night, after many warnings, he arrived to find a slice of bread and a glass of water at his place. He stared at it, crushed. Then his father quietly took the plate, set it in front of himself, and slid his own full plate to his son. Years later the boy said, “All my life I’ve known what God is like by what my father did that night.”
Stop Rowing
The sailors rowed hard to get back to land, but they could not (Jonah 1:13).
They try to save themselves first. That is exactly what we do. Before I depend on Christ alone, I try everything I can do. I try harder and do more. Sometimes after years of effort, I give up and say following God is too hard, when all along I could have trusted the Substitute.
God is not asking you to row. Rowing only delays the rescue. Are you tired? Winded? Eyes fixed on a distant shore you think will finally give you rest? It never works that way.
And God is so good not to let their rowing succeed. If it had, they would spread the gospel of their own strength. The storm keeps us from saving ourselves.
Faith and Humility
So they pray. They ask the Lord not to let them perish for this man’s life, not to hold innocent blood against them, and they confess that He has done as He pleased (Jonah 1:14).
- They call God by name. They stop trying and start trusting.
- They ask for mercy and for innocence through blood.
- They submit to God’s plan. The cross was God’s plan. A substitute was God’s plan.
It is embarrassing to admit we cannot save ourselves. But it is the only way to be saved.
The Storm Stops
They throw Jonah into the sea, and the sea stops raging (Jonah 1:15).
Instantly, the storm is over. This is a picture of propitiation: God’s righteous judgment against sin fully satisfied.
God is rightly against sin and everything it does to the people He loves. Sin cannot simply be ignored. But now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, and not only ours but for the whole world (1 John 2:2).
The storm is over. The sin is paid for. There is not a drop of judgment left for you. Jesus drank the cup to the bottom. You are at peace with God.
Jonah’s struggle was believing that God really cared about his good. A God who takes our place is a God we can trust. Jonah did not have the cross. We do.
Grace Takeaway
After the sea grew calm, the sailors feared the Lord greatly, offered a sacrifice and made vows (Jonah 1:16). Notice they did this after the danger passed. It was not a deal to get out of trouble. It was the response of rescued people.
Because of Jesus, and not out of obligation:
- I get to set my mind on Him and honor Him in my thoughts and decisions.
- I get to give freely and cheerfully, putting others’ needs before my own.
- I get to live as His beloved, with a heart that belongs to Him.
All of it flows from His sacrifice, not mine.