The Sign of Jonah

Several decades ago, as a student of church history, I pursued the origins of the premillennial movement which emerged in the 19th century. This movement discerned in the signs of its times a prelude to the second coming of Jesus. Adherents correlated imminent events in world history with the biblical apocalyptic visions and anticipated that the Lord would soon return to set up a perfect kingdom on earth for a thousand years. I never dreamed then that an updated version of the same theology would become popular in the 20th century.

My faith pilgrimage has since led me to become more empathetic with the premillennialists. Though Jesus did not return on dates set by 19th-century leaders in this movement, the premillennialist hunch about the course of history was more accurate than the promises of their liberal counterparts, who envisioned a 20th century without hunger or war. I believe with the premillennialists that things often get worse before they get better. I have learned that we cannot simply roll up our sleeves and build the kingdom on earth. I know that the kingdom is God's and will come in God's time, not ours.

Nevertheless, when history fails, when the arms race appears to be out of control, in our anxiety we desire to nail everything down. We want the details of our future existence spelled out neatly.

The present revival of faith in pop apocalypticism, as well as astrology, soothsayers, and fortune tellers of all kinds, represents a refusal to live with God's open-ended future. In their desire to chase after gods who can tell them everything, many are unfaithful to the God who called Abraham "to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance ... not knowing where he was to go" (Hebrews 11:8). They refuse to live by faith and crave to live by sight. They overlook passages of scripture that say we are not to know the times or the seasons and ignore the Pauline admonitions that we can only know in part and that our knowledge is imperfect.

As we face the specter of possible nuclear holocaust, it is imperative that we discover fresh ways to proclaim the biblical message of hope. For me an intriguing possibility has come through an examination of New Testament references to the sign of Jonah.

In the New Testament, the Pharisees and the Sadducees are often depicted as antagonists. These respected religious leaders frequently come to Jesus intending to trap him, or at least put him on the spot. On one such occasion, they asked Jesus to show them a sign from heaven (Matthew 16:1-4). Jesus declared that they could look at the red sky in the evening or in the morning and predict something about the weather, but they could not interpret the signs of the times. "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign," he charged, "but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah."

Jesus was not easy on those in his time who were engaged in messianic speculations about the signs of the end. Robert Jewett, in his book Jesus Against the Rapture, offers some possible reasons. The speculations often focused on the hope of a chosen few, were self-serving, and nourished a type of nationalism our Lord opposed.

Today many share the enthusiasm of one Christian entertainer who testified that his spine tingles with joy thinking of meeting Jesus in the clouds even while millions are being destroyed below in a nuclear holocaust. This falls short of the compassion of our Lord, who looked over the wicked city and contemplated its destiny if it did not change its ways. Instead of being filled with joy, Jesus wept and cried out, "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace!" (Luke 19:42).

But Jesus ends his encounter with the Pharisees and Sadducees on a positive note. "No sign will be given except the sign of Jonah." Our curiosity should be sufficiently aroused. What is this sign of Jonah?

God's Universal Love
In the several references to the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:39-41, 16:4; Luke 11:29-32), the Gospel writers relate Jesus and Jonah. Jonah's three days and three nights in the belly of the whale are compared to Jesus' time in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40).

The gospel passages also relate the mission of Jesus to that of Jonah. As Jonah was called to preach repentance to his generation, so Jesus was one who came preaching, "Repent, for the kingdom is at hand." Jesus reminded his hearers that the wicked people of Nineveh had repented, and proclaimed woe to his generation if it did not repent, for "something greater than Jonah is here" (Matthew 12:41).

What is the sign of Jonah? First, it is a sign that we should love our enemies. The book of Jonah is one of the foundation stones on which the New Testament rests. Its fundamental message is that we are called to participate in God's universal love.

It was obvious that Jonah did not want to preach to the Ninevites, people he despised. He ran away from his assignment and ended up spending a short sabbatical at the bottom of the great sea. When the Word of God prodded him a second time to go and preach to the wicked city, he became a reluctant prophet. He cried out in his preaching, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." And this is what he wished. Then the miracle occurred. The wicked people repented. God did not destroy the city. Jonah was angry.

Although many preachers become angry because people do not listen to their preaching, Jonah was angry because they did. He complained to God that he had originally run away because he knew that God was gracious and merciful and would forgive the wicked Ninevites. Jonah was so depressed that he expressed a wish to die.

Then Jonah departed from the city to sulk. It was time for God to teach him a lesson. God caused a castor oil plant to grow and shade him. Then God sent a worm to attack the plant. The plant withered. Jonah suffered from the lack of shade and again became very angry. God replied that if Jonah pitied the plant for which he did not labor and which came into being in a night and perished quickly, how much more should God pity Nineveh, the great city in which there dwelt 120,000 people who did not know their right hand from their left?

The lesson of God's concern for the wicked city is a sign of God's universal love, including even the enemies of the chosen people. How desperately such a lesson is needed today. When the poison of hatred is spread around the globe and the president of one superpower announces that the focus of evil resides in the other, the sign of Jonah may indeed be the only sign that will be given to save us.

The sign of Jonah also points to the power of the gospel to convert a wicked city. Many Christians have embraced a biblical realism. It is their experience that Sermon on the Mount behavior cannot easily be anticipated from unredeemed humanity. When we preach to the wicked cities of our day, we need to remain realistic. Nevertheless, we are called to keep preaching and remain faithful even though this may lead to the cross.

Others have sounded another call, one which heeds the sign of Jonah. We can proclaim the gospel of peace to the Ninevehs of our day with the expectation that God might actually do something with our witness. We can believe in miracles.

I have been in the peace movement more than 30 years without dramatic signs of success as that word is usually interpreted. If my motivation needed to be fired by successes, I would have burned out long ago. My motivation comes rather from the only sign promised, the sign of Jonah, the faith that one can preach to the Ninevehs, the Moscows, the Washingtons, the Jerusalems of our day with the foolish and wonderful hope that repentance might occur. We proceed in the faith that God is still loving and gracious, abounding in steadfast love, the kind of God who desires that all peoples repent.

To say it another way, the sign of Jonah is the sign that the unexpected can enter human history. The sign of Jonah can be named apocalyptic or resurrection hope. Apocalyptic hope keeps on hoping in spite of the apparent movement of history in the wrong direction. This is consistent with the Quaker stance: "Biblical hope points to the light which still shines in this thick night of darkness." When history fails, we can still hold fast to the promises of God.

Biblical scholars debate whether apocalyptic hope is the same as the hope of the earlier, prophetic writers. In one way, the hope of the Old Testament prophets can be contrasted with apocalyptic hope. Prophetic hope can behold God's faithfulness through the generations and be confident that God will continue to be faithful. This kind of hope is good.

But there are times when we must draw upon apocalyptic hope, a hope which sustains us when we cannot discern from historical evidence that things are moving in the right direction. Such hope comes from the possibilities of God's future kingdom breaking into the present.

To illustrate the distinction, prophetic hope is like the faith of a devout farm community in times of drought. Because God has been faithful in the past, God can be trusted to be faithful in the future. If we repent and are faithful in spite of our present adversity, we know that things will work out for those who love the Lord.

On the other hand, it is apocalyptic hope that inspires people who cannot remember anything other than abject poverty. Nevertheless, they live in a sense of trust and hope in the Lord. Their hope is not based on the same kind of evidence of God's great faithfulness as joyously sung by some other Christians. Rather, they are sustained by the hope that life might be better for their children than it has been for them.

It is interesting how many secular versions of apocalyptic hope can be found. The power of these various ideological visions is the promise that something entirely new might enter the scene of human history. Hannah Arendt, a well-known political philosopher, wrote: "The fecundity of the unexpected far exceeds the statesmen's prudence." Translating this into biblical language, one might say that the fruitfulness of the unexpected far exceeds worldly wisdom. Arendt also critiques the inclinations of historians to project the future on the basis of present processes and trends. We can live in a sense of openness to the coming of the new.

Apocalyptic hope is a hope in the kingdom, which is not yet, but is also now. We do not need to be very keen observers of the world to know that the kingdom has not yet arrived. But though the kingdom has not yet arrived in its fullness, it is now upon us. As Christians we can begin to have a foretaste and to experience the first fruits of the kingdom. We can join with premillennialists in a sense of expectancy in the coming of the kingdom of peace, justice, and righteousness on this earth. But we cannot agree with those among them who locate the kingdom reality entirely in the future. We are called to participate in signs of the kingdom coming wherever we see them appearing. The gospel message offers life eternal which transcends our earthly existence without denying God's passionate concern for peace and justice in this world.

Peter Ediger, a Mennonite pastor in Colorado, marched with his congregation with toy trumpets around the Air Force Academy chapel. Marching seven times around, they blew their trumpets. Afterward, as Ediger was telling about this event, someone asked, "Did the walls fall down?" With a twinkle in his eye, he retorted, "No, but they will." With Ediger's congregation we can begin to live now out of the hope that the sign of Jonah may be heeded. We will no longer have places which train others to engage in blasphemy against the goodness of God's creation.

The sign of Jonah is for those who would heed the biblical call to become peacemakers. It is a sign that we can still believe in miracles. The sign of Jonah is not a sign of resting in Zion while enjoying the destruction of our enemies. Rather it is a sign that God loves even the people of Nineveh, of Washington, of Moscow, of Jerusalem.

The sign of Jonah does not signal that we are to rejoice in wars and rumors of wars because they somehow fulfill the will of God in telling us that the end time is near. Rather, the sign calls us to face the bad news in the hope of God's ultimate victory. The God of the Bible is not one to want wars and rumors of wars. Have you ever heard a similar verse about fathers killing their children and children rising up to put their parents to death used to argue against striving for better family relationships? The sign of Jonah is living with the crazy expectation that the Ninevehs of our day might defuse their horrible weapons and refuse to learn war anymore.

The sign of Jonah is not one which draws on the facts of history for strength and hope. Rather it is the sign that the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord.

Dale Brown was a Sojourners contributing editor and professor of Christian theology at Bethany Theological Seminary in Illinois when this article appeared.