Obedience

Devotion: Jonah 3:1-3a

Since the fall of Adam God has been reconciling His creation to Himself. While within His right to wipe away creation completely (see Genesis 6:5-8), God continually redeems and offers second chances. Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord and this led God to deliver him personally and give all of creation a new start. Jonah also has found favor in the eyes of the Lord and so God gives him a new start.

"Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, 'Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.' So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD." -Jonah 3:1-3a ESV

The message Jonah is given is similar to his original call from the Lord. In Jonah 1:2 the Lord calls to the prophet, saying, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me." The first call contains a reason for Jonah to go to Nineveh, namely that the wickedness of the city had come into the presence of God, polluting His holy habitation in heaven (see Hebrews 9:23-24), a problem that will only be ultimately solved in the death of Christ Jesus and his ascension to the right hand of the Father. At any rate, the parallels between Jonah 1:2 and Genesis 6:5 should help us to see the biblical pattern present here. Sin/evil/wickedness have come before God and He makes moves to stop the invasion of the fallen pollutant from spreading. In Noah's case, the Lord calls him to build a gigantic box to preserve the creation through a purification and scouring of the fallen world. In Nineveh's case, the Lord calls the prophet Jonah to go and call out against it.
The call of Jonah is usually described as a call to go and preach repentance. Such a call is actually absent from the text. Repentance, for the most part, depends upon an existing faith relationship with the Lord. Faith precedes repentance in the Reformed understanding of Scripture (see Acts 11:1-18) and is true repentance necessary prerequisite. At any rate, Jonah is called to go to Nineveh and he does not.
The second call of Jonah after the big fish incident subtly changes the call of the Lord. Jonah has been disobedient to the clear call of God. Jonah is worthy of condemnation and destruction by the Lord. Yet, the Lord's electing grace restores Jonah and calls him back to obedience. The call loses its focus on Nineveh's sin and instead focuses on Jonah's sin. Jonah has been flippant about the Word of the Lord and so now the Lord is more pointed that Jonah will say what the Lord gives him to say. Jonah has not done what the Lord called him to do, now the Lord wants to be sure that Jonah gets the message that obedience to the call of God is his only real option. If the big fish incident was not enough to convince Jonah of the Lord's power, then this call to obedience should cut through his own sin and impress upon him the seriousness of the Lord.
The amazing thing, then, is that Jonah obeys the call of God this second time without saying a word. The suffering of Jonah has brought him to the point that he sees the futility of resisting God's call. Jonah goes to Nineveh at last. I think, perhaps, that we can see our own faith and God's call in all this as well. Resisting the Lord's call will end in the Lord's will being done. Perhaps it is better to submit in obedience to His call now.

This week's music is from Paul Zach courtesy of the Good Christian Music Blog.

News for You:

• Spring Small Group sign ups for our study in Titus are coming soon!
• The Chelan Camp fundraiser, "Pick-a-Party" will have sign-ups following worship this Sunday, May 6. The cost is $15/adult/party or $5/child/party with a maximum family cost of $35. All funds go to support our youth camp this summer.
• The Okanogan Community Homeless Shelters Board of Directors are seeking two new board members to help lead and manage the homeless shelter ministry. If you are interested, contact Pastor Bill.

Resilient Hope

Devotion: Jonah 2:8-10

Human beings are remarkably resilient. A few months back I became somewhat obsessed with reading the horrific first-hand accounts of living in ISIS-occupied Mosul by the Mosul Eye. A particular entry from June 2016 talked about the high cost of living and the low wages. As I read through the entry I kept expecting the journalist to report that people were simply giving up, yet the final lines speak of people working longer hours to survive. In the midst of atrocities, violence and horror, in the midst of starvation, destruction and war, in the midst of persecution, oppression and injustice, people were simply trying to find a way to live. The good news is life is returning to Mosul--and the Christian witness there is back. I believe this resiliency is born of our innate sense of hope.
There is something in human nature that holds out hope. Whether we are in financial straits, in the midst of war or, perhaps, in the belly of a monstrous fish, we hold out hope that things will improve. Spiritually-speaking, our hope derives from a sense of alienation from God. Something in the sin of Adam creates a longing for what was lost, namely, an intimate, personal relationship with God. The Good News of the Gospel is that God desires to restore that relationship with us in Jesus Christ. While our petty hopes in our current circumstances may vary, the true hope of the Gospel is firm. Our hope and resiliency aims and prepares us for the Good News. This is exactly Jonah's point at the end of his prayer:

"Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the LORD!” And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land." -Jonah 2:8-10 ESV

Jonah knows there is only one true God, YHWH, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who delivered Israel out of Egypt. We know that this same God, the Triune God (Father, Son, Spirit) is the very one who raised Jesus from the dead on the third day. To worship any other god, giving devotion and allegiance to that which is not YHWH, is to actually forfeit and abandon the real hope of God's steadfast, faithful, covenant-fulfilling love.
While we may not bow down to carved, graven or other physical objects as the manifestation of a deity, we still bow down to ideas and concepts. Instead of trusting the Lord, we hope against hope that we will pull ourselves up by spiritual bootstraps and fly right. Instead of surrendering to the saving grace of Jesus Christ, we try really hard to be good moral agents who can get it right if we just put in enough effort. Instead of connecting with God in His Word as He ordains we attempt to find God in nature or thought and pretend that it makes no difference. God is sovereign (hence Jonah is cooling his heals in the belly of a fish) and He ordains His own revelation and worship. Jonah understands this and so he vows in prayer to worship God in the way God ordained (prayers of thanksgiving, sacrificial animals marking the fulfillment of his vow). As Christians, we understand that the old covenant system of worship came to a final and dramatic conclusion with the death of Jesus (see Hebrews 9:11-12), ushering in a new era of worship the relies upon the faithful self-sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross. Regardless, we too are to worship God as He commands and find our relationship with Him is restored and strengthened in that worship.
At any rate, Jonah finally concludes and understands that if he is to live, it will be by the Lord's own salvation. No one else can help him. Jonah knows enough of God's character (this will come up again in chapter 4) to understand that God does not desire the destruction of His creatures, but their salvation. Jonah knows first-hand that God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. His prayer concludes with the declaration that salvation belongs to YHWH, implying that outside of Him there is no real and lasting hope. Jonah's faith is well-founded as the Lord causes Jonah to be deposited on dry land. On a humorous note, I cannot imagine how bad Jonah stank and how long it took him to wash that stink out of his hair.
We are created for a intimate, personal relationship with God. When we all fell in Adam, we lost that relationship. God has moved in history, culminating in the ministry of Jesus Christ, to re-establish that relationship. Our hope, misplaced or well-placed, is an artifact of that desire for God that ultimately and only is fulfilled through salvation in Christ Jesus alone.

Our song this week is "Your Love" by Chris Howland featuring Sajan Nauriyal. Admittedly, it is a little different than what many are used to hearing, but the lyrical content is spot on.

News for You:

• The new youth director position is ready for applicants. If you know of anyone who is qualified for the position, please contact the church.
• For the month of April, we will be doing a diaper drive for Care Net. Please bring in size three diapers if possible, thank you!
• All men are welcome to join the Men’s Bible Study on Mondays at noon, they will be reading from Judges!
• Are you interested in hosting a small group? We are gearing up to launch our next small group session and could use your help. Please contact Pastor Bill if you are interested.

Jonah's Exile

Devotion: Jonah 2:4-7

Jonah's experience in the fish is cast in the same light as exile. Exile is being forcefully removed from one's home and being sent to live in a place not of one's choosing. This idea seems far from most Western readers who are used to at least some autonomy of movement and settlement. Outside of the Western world, however, displacement and exile are still quite common. Refugees and others displaced by violence, war and famine are akin to exiles and perhaps this prayer of Jonah helps to empathize with their plight.

"Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’ 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; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God. When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. " -Jonah 2:4-7 ESV

The journey in the fish is an exile for Jonah. The prophet stands removed from all that he knows and from all familiar environments. He is utterly cast out and cast down. He has no frame of reference for his experience. In short, Jonah is lost.
When lost, I was always taught the best thing to do is to stop moving. Jonah has stopped moving by force. He is stuck inside the fish, facing what must seem to him as certain death. Yet, Jonah still prays in hope to the Lord for deliverance. The modern and ancient exile can resonate with that idea. I had neighbors in seminary who were exiles of a sort from Iran. The family had to flee Iran or face the death of the husband because of his conversion to Christianity. What always surprised me was that in spite of that death sentence looming over him, the family still longed to return to their home. Jonah must believe, at least in part, that his life is at an end, yet he still longs for home.
The longing of Jonah is specifically to see the temple again. The temple was the heart of the religion of Israel so long as it stood. The prophet not only desires to be free of the fish, but to return to the place where God's glory dwells (1 Kings 5:10-11). Jonah knows he is in exile, but his longing is not merely for freedom, but for the Lord, the very one that caused his plight in the first place. His vivid description of his descent poetically retells his drowning experience or perhaps his journey in the fish. At any rate, that experience brings him into the realm of death. Jonah ought to be dead, and he knows it. It is only by the hand of the Lord that Jonah can pray at all from the fish.
Each of us still faces the final enemy of mankind, namely, death. While death is defeated at the cross of Jesus and triumphed over in his resurrection, we still face it in our earthly lives. For Christians, death has lost its sting (1 Corinthians 15:54-56), but it is still thrashing about and making a nuisance of itself. Jonah recognizes that his journey in the fish is his death. Jesus will pick up on this idea in his references to the sign of Jonah (e.g. Matthew 12:39-40). Death is like exile for us all, yet it is not devoid of hope. Death removes us from our familiar life and thrusts us into an unknown place.
Jonah looks to the Lord in his plight for deliverance from death. He recognizes that his miraculous survival can only be the doing of the Lord himself. Jonah has no where else to turn, so he turns to the Lord for help--the very same Lord that had caused him to be tossed into the sea in the first place. Once more, the theme of suffering and redemption are both attributed to the Lord. It may have been the Lord that caused Jonah's exile, but it will also only be the Lord who can save him from that same exile. Jonah's remembrance of the Lord and his heartfelt prayer remind him that the Lord is the deliverer of His people and the personal savior of those who turn to Him.
For the Christian we need to see a few things in this portion of Jonah's prayer:

1. We need to be compassionate and empathetic toward those in exile. Displaced peoples are to receive our prayers and support. We long for a day when no one will be forced from their homes for any reason and I believe we can start to see that ultimate goal in our world today in God's grace and providence.
2. Everyone is alienated from God and death is the final exile for those who do not trust in Him. Jonah turns to the Lord in his plight, but his experience is seemingly rare these days. Too often, angry fists are shaken at heaven, if one even thinks to consider God at all. We look for practical, earthly solutions attempting to politic our way out of trouble. Yet, for Jonah it is the supernatural and the spiritual that are the way forward. The Lord supernaturally preserves his life despite his circumstance and Jonah prays for further deliverance. Our lives are providentially preserved by God and I believe this should lead us to seek the Lord in spirit and in truth for help.
3. Jonah finds his hope in the deliverance of the Lord he had so far experienced and this gives him reason to hope in the further salvation of God. We need to give witness and testimony in our own lives to the deliverance the Lord has already wrought in our lives over sin, death and Satan and point to further salvation when Christ returns to judge the quick and the dead. We can speak of God's salvation in broad terms, but our witness and evangelism must be punctuated with personal examples as the Lord is not merely the deliverer of His people, but our personal savior as well.

While the Lord may have caused Jonah's exile, the Lord is Jonah's only hope for deliverance. We cannot fix our own exile, but we can turn in faith to the Lord who is more than able and, in Christ, is more than willing to deliver and save us.

Music from Tina Boonstra, "I Think I See You Now"

News for You:

• The new youth director position is ready for applicants. If you know of anyone who is qualified for the position, please contact the church.
• For the month of April, we will be doing a diaper drive for Care Net. Please bring in size three diapers if possible, thank you!
• CPC is looking for a part-time nursery attendant while Emily Gonzalez is on maternity leave. If you, or anyone you know is interested, please contact church staff.
• All men are welcome to join the Men’s Bible Study on Mondays at noon, they will be reading from Judges!
• Would you like to serve on the CPC Service Team? We meet every other month to discuss ways to share Christ’s love for us in our community. Please contact Dolores for more information.

Course Correction on Suffering

Devotion: Jonah 2:1-3

There is a current in the church that goes something like this: "If I am suffering, it is because I am not loved by God, maybe because of something I did or maybe because God is not loving." As a pastor I rarely hear this idea expressed quite so starkly, but I do hear it in the tone and desires of those I talk with in discipleship and shepherding. On the surface the idea is initially attractive because it gives the sufferer either control or excuse. To explore this, let's take some examples from the Book of Job.
On the one hand, the sufferer could claim that the pain is brought on by his actions, words, attitudes or thoughts. To end suffering means changing behavior under this false idea. The sufferer corrects the wayward actions, word, thought or attitude, bringing himself back into line with God through faith and the suffering ends as he is restored to the love of God. Further, this bankrupt thought has a built-in defense mechanism, namely, if suffering does not end it must mean that further alignment still needs to take place. The sufferer is given false-control over his circumstances and can fall back on blaming himself when suffering does not end. What's worse, the love of God becomes a fee-for-service, meaning it is earned by right behavior and not a gracious gift. This idea is found in Scripture being taught by Job's companions (see Job 11 for example)--and it is damned as heresy by God (Job 42:7-9). Job, for his part, rejects false-control and even proclaims, "Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face" (Job 13:15).
On the other hand, the sufferer could claim that God is unjust and/or unloving. There is no way to end suffering in this false way of thinking, but it does give the sufferer an excuse. In essence, the sufferer can say to himself, "I am good person and do not deserve what is happening to me. Since God is in control, I am a victim of His capricious actions. Woe is me." Here the sufferer does not so much seek to be restored to the love/justice of God (like Job), but rather rejects that God is loving and/or just at all. This is the attitude of Job's wife when she tells him, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die" (Job 2:9). Job, for his part, will not give in to his wife's bleak outlook on the Almighty. Though the Lord is responsible for his suffering, Job will not acquiesce to his wife's despair. Instead, Job asserts, "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!" (Job 19:25-27). Job will not give up on God's love and justice, but believes that even if it should mean his death, he will be resurrected at the coming of a Redeemer and will know the love and justice of God anew.
And this brings us to our passage in Jonah. Jonah has fled God's call, been captured by God in his storm, thrown overboard and consumed by the giant fish. Chapter 2 is set in the belly of the fish and there we read:

"Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. For 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." -Jonah 2:1-3 ESV

Jonah views his life as forfeit. In the belly of the fish, being kept alive by supernatural means, Jonah thinks it must be like being dead. So Jonah does the only sensible thing a man in his position can do--he cries out to the God who put him there in the first place. This is where the modern thinker on suffering goes astray so often. In either trying to cease control or make excuse, the sufferer fails to turn to the God who brought on the suffering. Gone from the modern thinker is the notion that suffering can (though not always) be productive.
Jonah's suffering is just (he fled God's call) and loving (God is bringing him back to his call). The suffering of Jonah in the belly of the fish is a course correction, to bring him back to God's will. While I cannot say that all suffering is meant for that purpose, I think as Christians we would do much better to consider that possibility first than resorting to the inadequate explanations/solutions discussed out above. Jonah recognizes that his suffering comes from the love and justice of God and serves God's purpose. We would do well to consider the same.

This is Wendell Kimbrough's rendition of Psalm 69.

News for You:

• The new youth director position is ready for applicants. If you know of anyone who is qualified for the position, please contact the church.
• For the month of April, we will be doing a diaper drive for Care Net. Please bring in size three diapers if possible, thank you!
• CPC is looking for a part-time nursery attendant while Emily Gonzalez is on maternity leave. If you, or anyone you know is interested, please contact church staff.
• All men are welcome to join the Men’s Bible Study on Mondays at noon, they will be reading from Judges!

Consumed

Devotion: Jonah 1:17

The story of Jonah and the big fish is often taught to Sunday School students. Similar to the story of Noah's Ark, the story is usually cleaned up and sanitized for children. The grit, fear and gore are cleaned out of the text and these stories are presented as adventures with animals for children. If, for a moment, however, we set aside the cleaned-up 'children's Bible' version, we see these accounts for what they are--a massive display of God's power and might and humanity's frailty and dependence. In Jonah's case, he is consumed by the call of God and must rely upon God's faithfulness to survive. Let's take a look at the very brief account of Jonah being consumed by the great fish:

"And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." -Jonah 1:17 ESV

Jonah had fled the call of God. God sent a great storm to force Jonah back to his call. The result of the storm was a mass conversion of the sailors and Jonah being tossed overboard to appease YHWH. In the end, YHWH sends a great fish to swallow Jonah and carry him back toward Israel, and beyond it, Nineveh. While we do not have every detail of the great fish, it is not idle speculation to think it must have been something like leviathan, described in Job 3:8, 41:1-11, Psalm 74:13-14, 104:24-26 and Isaiah 27:1-though admittedly Isaiah describes leviathan as more of a serpent than a fish. At any rate, the great fish is large enough to swallow Jonah whole.
Jonah is then said to spend three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, no doubt as the fish travels back toward Israel to deposit Jonah on the shore to make his way inland to Nineveh. As we will see next week Jonah lifts up a prayer from the belly of the fish and so his life must be preserved there, no doubt supernaturally by the Lord. Yet, Jonah's consumption by the great fish is a death of sorts and a resurrection when he is spewed out on dry land. How do we know? Jesus tells us so in two disputes with religious leaders of his day:

"Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, 'Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.' But he answered them, 'An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.' " -Matthew 12:38-41 ESV

"And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, 'When it is evening, you say, "It will be fair weather, for the sky is red." And in the morning, "It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening." You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.' So he left them and departed." -Matthew 16:1-4 ESV

Jesus takes the time Jonah spends in the belly of the great fish as a prefiguring of the time he will spend in 'the heart of the earth' following his crucifixion and leading to his resurrection on the third day. Much and more ink has been spent working out the math of three days and three nights for Jesus in the tomb, but suffice to say, the point is not precision in math, but that Jonah's time in the belly of the great fish was a type pointing forward to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Like the sailors with Jonah, the religious leaders are to accept the sign that is given to them and not seek for one on their own terms.
Like many things in life, we often want more surety and certainty than we are given. In finance, most want a guarantee that a particular investment will make a profit, hence Bernie Madoff was able to dupe many out millions because he seemingly (though fraudulently) could guarantee a good return on investment. I imagine the religious leaders of Jesus' day wanted a guarantee that Jesus was the Messiah before they put their support behind him, but perhaps they simply wanted a confirmation that he was not so they could dismiss him as a fraud. Jonah, on the contrary, had no guarantee apart from the faithfulness of YHWH when he hit the water and was consumed by the great fish that he would survive. He merely had his call and trust that the faithful God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, YHWH, would preserve his life until he fulfilled his mission.
Surety and certainty that come in the form of portends and signs are not only unnecessary for our faith, they are a hindrance to it. Such signs make God perform tricks to woo us to His call and cause. In the end, these demands place us in a superior position to God and simply continue the sin of Adam in our lives. This is why Jesus rejects the call for a sign in both instances from the Gospel of Matthew. Yet, Jesus does say they will have one particular sign, namely, the resurrection.
As we participate in God's call on our lives to proclaim Jesus Christ we have few guarantees apart from the resurrection of Jesus. Our entire faith hangs on the veracity of that event (see 1 Corinthians 15:12-20). So, like Jonah, we must be consumed by God's call on our lives and trust only in His faithfulness to deliver us from death.

Music this week is "Levithan" by Josh Garrels.

News for You:

• Shout Out: A big thank you to all who helped with the sound upgrade in the sanctuary this last week. Butch, Pete, Jim, Joe, Kurt, Nick and Elizabeth put in the hard work to help us all hear the Word more clearly.
• Maundy Thursday, March 29^th, at 7pm will be a service of scripture, prayer, and the Lord’s Supper.
• Community Good Friday Service will be on March 30^th at 7pm at CPC!
• SonRise Service will be at the Omak Memorial Cemetery on April 1^st at 6:30am.
• The new youth director position is ready for applicants. If you know of anyone who is qualified for the position, please contact the church.
• We are getting the Blue Angel up and running again! If you are needing a ride to church on Sunday, contact Dave at 826-1290.
• For the month of April, we will be doing a diaper drive for Care Net. Please bring in size three diapers if possible, thank you!

Overboard

Devotion: Jonah 1:10-16

I think I have spent a lot of my life taking responsibility for things that were not my responsibility and dodging responsibility for things that were my responsibility. I have spoken often of late of the sin of Adam. Adam, created in essence to be king of creation, the vice-regent of God to reign at His right hand over all that He had made, falls into sin. King Adam's basic sin is to follow his wife, Eve, into sin by taking hold of ultimacy. King Adam the Fallen sought to usurp God's role in defining the good. The knowledge of good and evil is unnecessary for human flourishing. After all, Adam knew the goodness of God and could be in His holy presence without fear. What more could Adam want? Indeed, even wanting more than what God had provided and choosing a way other than the call of God on Adam's life was sin itself. The so-called forbidden fruit did not have magical, mystical or spiritual powers inherit to it. The sin is not eating the fruit, it is desiring to eat the fruit, and, therefore, desiring to take God's place as the ultimate and final authority on all things.
When we go overboard in taking too much responsibility or shirking our responsibility we are simply following King Adam in usurping God's authority and denying His call. We must resist both sides of the responsibility temptation, but the way forward is not merely a compromise position between the two, but rather to be properly oriented to God in the surrender of faith. This is the way of King Jesus the Redeemer and the way Jonah discovered on board a ship caught in a storm:

"Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore they called out to the LORD, “O LORD, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O LORD, have done as it pleased you.” So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows." -Jonah 1:10-16 ESV

Jonah knows God's call on his life. He was a prophet, one who heard and reported the Word of the Lord. He was called to go to Nineveh, the capital city of the Assyrian Empire and denounce the city for its evil. Yet Jonah went the opposite direction, fleeing from God and choosing to shirk his responsibility to the call of God. Shirking our responsibility to the call of God is something that resonates with all of us, at least some of the time. Jonah decides to choose his own path and this is his sin, and, frankly, his echo of the sin of King Adam the Fallen.
The storm that rose against the ship must have been monstrous to terrify the sailors. It was so bizarre and strange that they decided immediately it must be of supernatural origin. Jonah is finally singled out as the one who had displeased his God and therefore the root cause of the storm. The question that faced those aboard the ship at that point was, "What now?"
Fear is the initial action, followed by disbelief. The sailors discover that Jonah had shirked his responsibility to God's call and they are flabbergasted. The fear quickly gives way to the practicality of disbelief, that is, if we try hard enough we can fix this. Something must be done to end the storm, something that must involve Jonah. It would have been easy for Jonah to steer the sailors in a way that denied taking responsibility. Jonah could have lied, could have invented a strategy out of thin air. He could have prescribed sacrifices, prayers or even conversions. What he did was shocking--telling the crew to throw him overboard. His suggestion is so shocking that the crew tries desperately to escape the storm one more time, only to find that the storm worsened as they denied the call of God.
This is the most difficult part of the entire first chapter. Jonah's solution, (toss him overboard), seems to be almost suicidal. The sailors recognize that throwing Jonah overboard would all but certainly lead to his death. So they pray to God and ask to be excused from what seems an immoral act to them. The sailors invoke the name of God (YHWH, here represented in the English as "LORD") in their prayer and surrender to His will as spoken by the prophet Jonah. Jonah is thrown into the sea and all is calm. This leads the sailors to fear the Lord, offer sacrifices to him and make vows--in other words, they come to worship the Lord as their God.
Jonah, in surrendering to the will of God and taking proper responsibility leads others to surrender to God in faith. When we lay down the sin of Adam and take up the way of King Jesus we do much the same. Evangelism is rarely accomplished by marketing and gimmicks. It is accomplished by the followers of Jesus surrendering to his will and his way. We must hear the call of God and follow even if it appears to lead us unto death. This is our responsibility in faith and it is in taking this responsibility that we proclaim the truth of our God.

The music is "Where Were You" by Ghost Ship. It is a beautiful depiction of Job 38ff.

News for You:

• Maundy Thursday, March 29^th, at 7pm will be a service of scripture, prayer, and the Lord’s Supper.
• Community Good Friday Service will be on March 30^th at 7pm at CPC!
• Sonrise Service will be at the Omak Memorial Cemetery on April 1^st at 6:30am.

To Tell the Truth

Devotion: Jonah 1:7-9

As a kid I remember spending time watching old episodes of "To Tell the Truth." If you are not familiar with the program, it features three contestants who all claim to be a particular person with a particular story, usually with some unusual or fantastic twist. A panel is tasked, then, with asking the contestants questions and determining who is telling the truth. To my surprise, the program was revived in 2016 and is currently running on ABC. At any rate, what fascinated me as a kid was the moment of truth, that point when the real person would stand up. I remember when the panel was completely wrong and when the panel got it just right. It is the moment when truth is revealed that mattered though, regardless of how well the panel did.
In our passage from Jonah this week we have the moment that truth is revealed. It comes about through casting lots (throwing dice or other objects to determine who was the odd-one-out) in the midst of a raging storm. The lot falls on Jonah and it comes time to tell the truth:

"And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, 'Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?' And he said to them, 'I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.' " -Jonah 1:7-9 ESV

Jonah only really answers one of the many questions he is asked. He tells the other passengers and sailors about his people, saying, "I am a Hebrew." He then goes on to bear witness about his God. Jonah tells them the name of his God, YHWH, here written as "the LORD," and that his God is the one who made heaven, the sea and the dry land. What Jonah cannot bring himself to do is to tell them why this calamity has fallen on the ship bound for Tarshish, namely that he is fleeing from God's call.
Also, Jonah, to his credit, does not ascribe 'evil' to his God. Jonah knows full well that the storm has come upon the ship because of his own disobedience to the call of God and he will shortly move to remedy that disobedience in a self-sacrificial way (that will be next week). Therefore the storm is not evil, but rather a time of suffering to serve the good purpose of God, delivering his prophet to Nineveh to proclaim the word of his judgment. At present, in the midst of a raging storm Jonah tells the truth about his God and this is a witness that will bear fruit shortly.
I think we lose sight of the setting for this passage too quickly. This casting of lots and discussion is not a calm discussion after dinner while everyone pokes at a piece of pie. Instead, the storm continues to rage all around them and the need for truth, quickly and succinctly stated, is paramount. The storm is unnatural and with the supernatural worldview of the ancients, they know it must come from some divine force. The pagan sailors are sure it is because someone has displeased a god/goddess, and, in a way, they are right. Yet, it is not a fickle pagan deity, but the Lord, the maker of heaven of earth that has brought the storm upon them. The storm is not intended for evil, but for good. The storm is intended to call God's man, Jonah, back to his senses and to the Lord's service.
We need to see and tell the truth in our own lives. When suffering, tragedy and crisis come upon us, are we more apt to shake an angry fist at heaven or plead for deliverance than we are to receive the suffering as a reminder of our finitude and our need for God? I think too often we simply want the suffering to end rather than asking how God is using suffering for His own good purpose. To tell the truth about suffering is to acknowledge that suffering often serves God's purpose of calling us back to Him and to His service.

The song is "Prodigal" from Tina Boonstra.

News for You:

• Thanks for all the support and donations to our Sanctuary Sound fund. We have reached our goal, ordered equipment and will begin the project very soon!
• CPC member Marian McClanahan recently published a book about her life, titled “Vignettes of an Ordinary Life.” If you wish to support Marian and her book, you can find it on Amazon!
• Maundy Thursday, March 29^th, at 7pm will be a service of scripture, prayer, and the Lord’s Supper.
• Community Good Friday Service will be on March 30^th at 7pm at CPC!
• Sonrise Service will be at the Omak Memorial Cemetery on April 1^st at 6:30am.