Jonah is one of my kids’ favorite Bible stories. It doesn’t hurt that Veggie Tales did a pretty rocking job with it (who doesn’t love the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything, and asparagus singing Gospel tunes??). My two oldest could give you a pretty decent summary of Jonah and the whale, and a kid-friendly version of God’s grace toward the people of Ninevah, those notorious fish-slappers.

Although I don’t see myself as an asparagus (not often, anyway), I think we can all find a bit of our hearts in Jonah’s. Think of the group of people you hate the most, even if you would never admit it. Think of the people who believe different than you, or vote different than you, or the people who have been hateful to someone you care about, or the people who bring death and suffering to innocents around the globe. I don’t spend my time spouting hatred, but I could think of a few groups of my own “Ninevites”: those people to whom I am reluctant to extend grace and mercy. Those people toward whom my heart is hardened. I know God’s grace is bountiful, but it doesn’t go THAT far, right?

Jesse Harden reminded us on Sunday that Jonah knows two things well: he knows God, and he knows Ninevah. He knows that Ninevah is horrible and sinful and bad and wrong and that they have persecuted his people, have probably murdered people he knows and loves. And he knows that God is merciful and forgiving and righteous. He knows that God has called the Israelites back to Himself 70 times seven times. And he doesn’t want that mercy and forgiveness for his enemies. So he decides, on his own, to run the other way. And never the twain shall meet.

Even after he flees, deals with the whole “whale thing” and then agrees to go to Ninevah, Jonah basically believes he’s going to watch a show. He’s going to watch his enemies be destroyed. Yeah, yeah, he gives them the message God wants them to hear, but then he expects to get to see them perish.

Jonah is hesitant, or, rather, vehemently against God’s mercy extending to them. Who is your them? Have you extended God’s mercy? Have you allowed God to extend His mercy through you?

I’ve been on the outside of grace. I’ve stood there and looked in the windows of Macy’s on Christmas and thought “wow, if only I could afford that”. Grace was too costly for me. It was meant for people who called Him Savior. It was meant for those with far more spiritual capital than I had. It was meant for His chosen ones. Right? Even though I was raised in the bosom of the church. Even though I was baptized and confirmed and first-communioned and married my beloved in front of a Priest. When I fell away I fell far and hard. And it took my personal Jonah, the person that had every reason to hate me, the person who would maybe have been glad to watch my entire city-self be devoured in a ball of fire, extending grace, for me to realize that even my Ninevite-self could be forgiven.

As we open this Advent season and enter into the waiting and the hope, we remember Jonah. We remember that God came down to co-inhabit with us. We remember that He lowers himself in order to extend grace to every one of us, even those that we might rather see burn. We remember that his message of grace is bigger than our desire to share it. We remember that his grace follows us to the belly of the whale, to the cross, to the grave, and to the manger, where it meets us in the cry of a baby.

Go with grace, my friends. He is coming. He is coming for us, and for them, the Ninevites in our own lives. Know that no matter how far away you are, He comes for you.

~ Kaytee Cobb