Salvation Belongs to the LORD
Jonah 2:2-9
How hard is it for you to offer healing and help when someone has hurt you? I’m guessing it’s not too easy. When we get hurt, our first reaction is to hurt them back or avoid them. If they haven’t done anything to deserve our forgiveness, then why would we take the first step? Maybe we’re reluctant to heal and help because we crave to blame or complain about someone
The Old Testament prophet Jonah struggled to offer healing and help to those who had hurt him. The LORD had commanded Jonah to go to Israel’s enemy, the capital of Nineveh, and preach repentance so her inhabitants would be saved from the LORD’S righteous wrath. That was the last thing Jonah wanted for his enemies! So he ran away and refused until the LORD provided Jonah with salvation from a watery death. Jesus used this salvation to Jonah as a sign to his coming death on Good Friday and resurrection from the grave. By fulfilling this sign on Easter Sunday, Jesus shows how correct Jonah is when he says: salvation belongs to the LORD! And for we who worship our risen Savior today, we can burst in praise and thanks as Jonah did so long ago. For the LORD’S salvation is now our salvation.
In case you’re not familiar with how the LORD saved Jonah, let’s briefly review. The LORD’S command to preach repentance to Nineveh was a tall order. Relations between Israel and Nineveh were as fraught as today’s relations between Russia and Ukraine. Jonah did not want any mercy shown to Israel’s enemies. He wanted them to suffer God’s wrath. So he boarded a ship and sailed as far away as possible. Along the way, the LORD raised up a horrible storm that threatened to capsize the boat and drown everyone on board. Jonah knew he was to blame for all this. So he had the sailors throw him overboard rather than have everyone die. Jonah sunk beneath the waters, down to the roots of the mountains with seaweed wrapped around his head. As his life ebbed away, he cried out to the LORD for salvation. And what did the LORD do? He sent salvation through a big fish who swallowed him, kept him safe in its belly for three days, and spat him out onto dry land. It was during his three-day stay in the fish’ belly that Jonah prayed the words from our First Reading.
Jesus used Jonah’s three-day stay in the fish’s belly and later safe exit as a sign to his own three-day stay in the grave and later resurrection. We hear how in Matthew chapter 12(:40 EHV), “For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be three days and three
nights in the heart of the earth.” As with Jonah, so with Jesus. Yet Jesus didn’t give this sign to only show how long he would be entombed It was to show how great Jesus is in comparison to everyone else. For it’s in Jesus, our risen Savior, we see how salvation belongs to the LORD and thus also us.
Easter’s empty tomb fulfills the sign of Jonah. As Jonah stayed in the fish’s belly for three days, so Jesus stayed in the grave for three days. As Jonah left the fish alive and well, so Jesus left his grave on Easter Sunday alive and well. Yet Jesus’ fulfillment of the sign of Jonah also shows how great Jesus is. Jonah remained alive while in the fish. Jesus was dead while in the grave. That was the price required for our sins. After Jonah left the fish, he would die again. When Jesus left the grave, he was alive again and would never again die. He did what was needed for salvation to belong to the LORD: a perfect life, a sacrificial death, and bodily resurrection, just as the prophets had said. Through faith in Jesus as our risen Savior, we receive the LORD’s salvation: forgiveness of sins, peace in our souls, and eternal life in heaven.
But if we’re being honest, Jesus fulfilling the sign of Jonah on Easter Sunday and how the LORD’S salvation is now ours requires a child-like faith, a faith that whole-heartedly believes what is plain impossible. Skeptics have reason to challenge the Bible’s accounts about Jesus and Jonah. How can a person survive three days inside a fish? Who comes back to life after being declared clinically and biologically dead for three days? Realistically speaking, there’s no natural way that Jesus fulfilled the sign of Jonah! Did you find yourself thinking such things as you prepared to worship today?
Who are we to receive the LORD’S salvation? We haven’t done anything to earn it! What makes us so special? We can think of plenty others who are humanly-speaking more deserving than us. Besides, can we be so sure that Jesus’ fulfilling the sign of Jonah on Easter Sunday still benefits us today nearly 2,000 years later?
There’s no reason to doubt these things. For Easter is true! Salvation belongs to the LORD! And it’s all because Jesus fulfilled the sign of Jonah on Easter Sunday. Listen to the witnesses: angels from today’s Gospel and many others on separate occasions from our Second Reading. Look at the empty tomb and how first century critics fail to debunk it: not by denying that it was empty, but how it got empty. See Jesus’ appearances after Easter: he isn’t a ghost, he’s alive and well again! Read the accounts in the Bible: reliable and inspired by God himself.
Through faith in our risen Savior, we get to share in the LORD’S salvation. This goes back to Jesus and how much greater he is than anyone else. No one else has beat death like him. No one else has his blessings and benefits from beating death. And you know what? He shares all that with us, his believing children. Though it’s been nearly 2,000 years since Easter Sunday happened, it still matters. That’s because of Jesus who takes from death to life. He takes our souls from death to life as he gives us the forgiveness he won on the cross and guaranteed with his resurrection. He takes our bodies from death to life with the promise of the resurrection and eternal life in heaven. And he’s not like Jonah or you and me who wait until we’ve something to earn or deserve it. No, our risen Savior showers these blessings upon in full because of his love for sinners like you and me. Though we had nothing before, we now have the Lord’s salvation from Jesus, the great one himself.
Jonah learned how comforting this was when he was facing a watery grace. So can we when we fall into distress. Whether it’s as extreme as Jonah’s or something much more every day, know that you have your risen Savior by your side. He will not turn a deaf ear to you, not even if you only have yourself to blame. He will listen to you and act in your eternal best interest. And when he does, you can burst forth in praise and thanks as Jonah did from within the fish’s belly, for the LORD’S salvation is yours.
We struggle to offer healing and hope to those who have wronged us. The LORD does not. Instead, he is quick to give us the salvation that belongs to him. We know the LORD has this salvation because Jesus fulfilled the sign of Jonah when he rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. Not only has Jesus conquered death, he is the greatest one to have ever walked this world. Through faith in Jesus as our risen Savior, this great one shares the Lord’s salvation with us: forgiveness of sins, peace in our soul, life in heaven, and help in our distress. So don’t be afraid to show your joy as 21st century Christians on this Easter Sunday. Salvation belongs to the Lord! And that salvation is also ours. Amen.