Forty Days

The word of the LORD came to Jonah, saying: “Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you.” So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh, according to the LORD’S bidding. Now Nineveh was an enormously large city; it took three days to go through it. 

Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed, “when the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out. (Jonah 3:1-5, 10)

Missing from this reading is Jonah’s refusal to go to Nineveh, the Assyrian capital and the temporary ride in the belly of the whale.  We all know that story of the “big fish.”  Jonah was to announce God’s grace to those people who were powerful and oppressive.   They brought subjugation, misery and death to the Jewish people.  In this story the people repented of their evil ways, so God spared them.  The clock was ticking for them; they had 40 days before destruction.

The number 40 is mentioned 146 times in scripture, and it may represent the time of preparing a person, or people, to make a fundamental change.  Christians use the number 40 to highlight important time periods. For example, before his temptation, Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights in the Judean desert.  There were 40 days from the resurrection of Jesus to his ascension. The great flood lasted 40 days and 40 nights; the Jewish people wandered the desert for 40 years.

According to Miguel A. De La Torre in his 2007 book Liberating Jonah, “The story of Jonah is a tale of an evil and oppressive empire that has achieved great wealth, power, and privilege at the expense of the surrounding marginalized communities.  It is the story of a rebellious prophet from the empire’s margins who wants only to see his oppressors utterly destroyed and who is angry with an unjust God who has shown mercy to the enemy.  It is the story of a God who is quick to offer redemption and mercy even to those who deserve neither.  In short, it is a story of reconciliation that encompasses God, the oppressors, and the disenfranchised.  The story has as much relevance in the ancient world as it has in the modern world of today.  But what does it say about us today?  What can we learn from it?  What does it call us to do?”

This author asks important questions for us to answer.  We all have oppressors and must deal with those we would consider evil.  Do we think and act like Jonah, or do we reconcile?  Are we merciful or vindictive?  Let’s give ourselves 40 days to decide.

Deacon David Pierce