[AI translation] Dear brothers and sisters! In the course of our study and explanation of the story of the prophet Jonah, we have now come to the part which is usually considered the critical point of the whole story. In fact, some people consider it to be one of the most critical points in the whole Bible. It is said that a book with such fantastic stories as the story of the prophet Jonah cannot be taken seriously. Because here's what happens here. What happens is that a man is thrown into a stormy, choppy sea, and then a large fish - a whale, according to popular belief - swimming by, takes him in. He is swallowed whole, and in this impossible situation, the poor man survives three days and three nights, and then emerges unharmed, even unscathed, after the fish has pulled him out of the water and onto dry land. A truly fantastic story! And I am not at all surprised that this story has provided ample opportunity for pro and con debates over and over again. There have always been, and still are, those who try to scientifically explain that a catfish does not have a gullet big enough to fit a human being, and that even if it did fit, and even if it could swallow, the juices and the lack of air in its stomach make it absolutely impossible for a human being to survive for even a few hours - so the whole story is not credible. So that's how you can believe the Bible stories! There have been, and still are, those who claim the opposite: that the passage is not about a whale - and it is true. It is about a big fish, a catfish has been added by common knowledge. So it's a kind of whale that has a much bigger gullet than a whale, according to popular belief, and which can swallow a man if it wants to. In any case, many of these commentators or debaters know of sailor stories in which similar incidents have occurred, with exact place, time and name, that sailor XY, when he once fell over the side of the ship, was eaten by such a whale, and when this whale was later fished out and its belly was cut open, it turned out that the man was still alive, could be revived and no harm had come to him. Behold, then, the story of the prophet Jonah is authentic. This is the way they want to defend the authenticity and truthfulness of the biblical stories against attacks.Let me say, dear brothers and sisters, that I myself smile at both the pro and the con arguments. But I smile a little sadly. That is because all these explanations - whether they are this kind of explanation or that kind of explanation - actually miss the point. And that is the problem. In fact, let me tell you, and I hope you will not be offended by this, I am not afraid of the modern man's calling the story of Jonah a myth. Good. Let it be a myth. Do you know what a myth is? Myth is one of the most legitimate expressions of belief in an invisible and elusive God. Myth is nothing more than an expression of the depth dimension of a story. Mythic language is precisely the language of that dimension of a story, of a narrated event, which is no longer earthly or human, but more than that. The fact that there is much more to a narrated event than can be contained in purely historical categories. What the myth perceives is that the truth, the validity, the credibility of that story, that narrated event, is much more and much more universal than the question of its mere historical authenticity.
So, if I say this story is a myth, I have not diminished its credibility, I have increased the credibility of this story. For look, brothers and sisters, even if the whole story is not true in terms of historical authenticity, what God has to say to us through it can still be true - and that is the important thing. This is precisely the point that is being avoided by the arguments about whether or not Jonah could have been taken by the big fish. And we all feel, brothers and sisters, that God does not want to give us biological knowledge in this biblical passage about the characteristics, nature and abilities of the great fish swimming in the sea, but about something quite different. In this beautiful, mythical narrative, God is talking about you and me and Himself. I remember very well: I once had an acquaintance who was immensely shocked when I found myself saying to him that the whole story of the prophet Jonah could be a myth. And he fiercely defended the historical authenticity of this story, saying that it must have happened as it is written in the Bible, otherwise it is not valid. And at the same time, this same acquaintance of mine was living in far greater apparent disobedience than Jonah, and had no intention of taking seriously the judgment and the mercy with which God was seeking the disobedient Jonahites. Now then, dear brothers and sisters, tell me what is more important: to insist at all costs that this strange story from the mists of time really happened, or to go above and beyond the problem of historical authenticity and hear the word of God in it. For my part, in any case, I choose the latter, and I recommend the latter to all of you.
Tell me, for example, could there be a more apt and everlasting expression of man's fall into some abyss of earthly life than this - let us say mythical - image of Jonah, thrown into the sea, swallowed up by a great fish? For there are undoubtedly depths of this earthly life, a physical and spiritual torment from which there is simply no way out, or at least no way out that one can see. Sometimes one is so overcome by despair that one cannot even imagine how to go on, whether there is any more, whether there is no more. For example, a great humiliation: someone's secret sin is revealed, and now he is forced to feel the contempt of people and the awareness of his own almost unbearable wretchedness. This is also an abyss. Or perhaps it is the pain of a body-soul paralysing grief, in which the soul becomes so entangled that it can see almost no point in living any longer, and retreats into solitude, like a wounded deer licking its wound in the thickest thicket of the forest - that too is a terrible abyss. Or perhaps some terrible material collapse. So that the waves of trouble crash over one's head, as Jonah said in this prayer. Or perhaps a terrible spiritual turmoil, when all supports are lost, and everything becomes tangled, the soul loses its footing and can no longer stand on its feet in any way - a terrible abyss. Or perhaps a great, great despair, for example, the realisation of a fatal illness, from which one knows that there is no escape, that only death can swallow one up. This is also a depth.
I do not know, brethren, who is in the belly of what kind of fish, and in what depths he is wallowing, but I do know this: that in your case it is exactly as we read here in the case of Jonah: "the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah". So it wasn't that when Jonah flew over the rail of the boat and fell into the water, a big fish happened to be swimming by. No. It's very important here in the verse that "the Lord set a great fish" there. So it was by the Lord's appointment that the big fish was there. What an accident, people say, what an accident, what an accidental tragedy, what a small coincidence, sometimes a big thing in a person's life depends on small coincidences! Well, brothers and sisters: no, no! It is not a coincidence. There is no accident, nothing is accidental. Could it be more eloquent to say that all the difficulties and problems of our lives, all the burdens, miseries, pains, sufferings, depths, are not the result of the whim of blind fate, nor of the accident of circumstances, but are the result of the Lord's providence? However frightening the terror that threatens to engulf us, or perhaps has already engulfed us, it is still an instrument of the Lord's providential love. It means that my life, with its highs and lows, is in the Lord's hands. Jonah, when he fell out of the boat, fell out of the boat only, but not out of the Lord's hand. It is not that the Lord has now taken his hand off him: in fact, he has now fallen right into the hand of the Lord! He who has entered into some depth of life - no matter what kind of depth, physical or spiritual - will know that he has fallen into the hand of the Lord, that he has now really been taken into the hand, now really been handled by the Lord. That is why there is no hopeless abyss, and that is why the abyss in which one of us is now suffering is not hopeless.
Brothers and sisters, many of you know this, but let me tell you: a year and a half ago, in a very beautiful, romantic little cemetery in West Germany, I stood over a gravestone: three young boys were lying under it. These three great young men, three brothers, serious men of faith, had set out one fine day to climb a steep peak in the Alps. They were excellent hikers, and yet disaster struck: they fell. As the parents later tried to reconstruct the incident, it seems that one of them slipped on the steep rock face and, because they were tied together with climbing ropes, pulled the other two with him, and the three of them fell 300 metres. Late the next evening, the three bodies were found in a heap. On the grave is an uncarved rock, a stone that is a tombstone, with the inscription, the three names, and then just this: 'So and so fell, and yet they remained in the hands of the Lord. So that even if the most terrible terror, the dark mouth of death, swallows a man up, he remains in the hand of the Lord. So even this monstrous fish, death, is still the instrument of the Lord's providential love. I do not know, all you souls in the depths: do you feel how much gospel, how much comforting encouragement there is in this otherwise frightening announcement, that 'the Lord has appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah'?
And nothing shows how truly into the hand of God Jonah has fallen than the fact that - look - he can now pray! It is from the depths that prayer is most fervent. When the storm broke, and when the sailors all called on their gods, Jonah was the only one who did not pray. Do you remember him? In fact, when the captain called on him to pray to his own god and beg, Jonah's heart and lips were not open to prayer. Why then did not the man pray to God? He could not, because he was angry with the Lord, because he was fleeing from the Lord, because he was not in a speaking relationship with him. He who is in flight from the presence of God, and he who is in disobedience, cannot have recourse to that greatest weapon, prayer. Examine your own prayer life if you cannot pray. If there is something wrong with your prayer life, examine it, brother, is it not because your soul is still in a controversy with the Lord about something? But a broken-hearted man can always pray. Jonah is already praying. And not in the way a troubled man is wont to: Now, Lord, come quickly, for I'm in trouble, and get me out of this mess - in a different way. Let's see, how? First of all, where Jonah prayed: in the belly of the fish. Not a very fancy place indeed. But, brothers and sisters, if you really want to pray, you can find an opportunity to do so anywhere. For the man who prays is everywhere in the temple of the Lord, because he has the temple within him. It is always a cheap excuse when someone says that he has no opportunity to be quiet in prayer. For it is just as possible to be in a crowded tram as it is in a sickbed, tossing and turning in a sleepless night, or in a bright cathedral, or in the dark belly of a fish. If one really wants it, one can find it anywhere. Thus it says, "in my affliction I cried to the Lord, I cried out from the throat of Sheol". From the most awful depths, prayer soars, soars to the most glorious heights. Isn't it a great thing that no matter how deep one is, the way is always open in one direction: upwards? And there is no situation so lamentable, no sin so great, no suffering so painful, and no scandal so burning, from which it is not possible to cry upwards, and from which the word of prayer does not ascend to the highest place, to the face of God! Nor is it too late from the throat of Sheol. This is not yet hell, but only the entrance, the earthly entrance to it - but even from here there is a return! And even here it is possible, perhaps with a soft sigh, or a shriek, to cling to the cross.
So Jonah goes on to say, "you have cast me into the abyss, into the midst of the sea". But were not the sailors cast into the deep? But the sailors threw him in! And Jonah attributes it to God? Yes, of course, because what the sailors did to him he accepted as judgment from the hand of God. Can we, brothers and sisters, accept calamity in this way? From the hand of God? As a judgment from God? There, in that abyss, where there was then real darkness, it is interesting that it was there that Jonah saw most clearly. For now he sees quite clearly that God was judging him for his disobedience. He was not angry with the sailors, for the sailors were only instruments in the hands of God, instruments to execute God's judgment. Many other people have had similar accidents to Jonah. To be thrown out, like Jonah, from his job, from his home, from his esteemed position, from his spiritual height and peace and tranquillity, is something he can receive as Jonah did: from the hand of God, as a worthy judgment. And not only was Jonah not angry with the sailors, he was not angry with God. Did he not say, 'Lord, how can you do me such terrible wrong? Why do you punish me in such a terrible way? How can you allow this to happen to me? - There is no such accusation against God in his prayer. He accepts everything as a just punishment, as one who knows that he deserves nothing else.
I have a very dear older male brother, a very dear, dear child of God, who has had one of his legs cut off and is struggling with rectal cancer and now his other leg is about to be amputated. I once asked her with great, sledging compassion, how are you? And he smiled sweetly and said, "Much better than I deserve! Brothers and sisters, do you know what a consolation and what a power there is in being able to lean into the hand of God in this way instead of lamenting and complaining, even if that hand is threatening? Just look at what a man comes to when he truly prays. Yet you have lifted my life out of the passing, O Lord my God." What: was Jonah promised deliverance? No, he was not promised anything. All that happened was that he rediscovered his relationship with God there in the abyss. And that basically solved all his problems. He was reconciled to God, now he was reconciled to his fate. Because God always helps you out of trouble first, and only then out of trouble. Jonah is still up to his neck in trouble, and even above it, in the abyss, but he is now holding the hand of God.
And look, this is what he can say in the next verse, "I will bless you with a word of thanksgiving" - he can already give thanks, even though nothing has happened yet. Of course it has! A great thing has happened, the greatest thing has happened, but not in his destiny, but in his heart, in his soul: he has been reconciled to God. His relationship with the Lord has changed, so a whole world has changed in him, in himself. That is why he can then cry out, "Salvation is the Lord's". What is this? Optimism? No. It is trust. It is the happy certainty that God is gracious, God is mighty, and I am his child, and whatever my fate may be here in the abyss, I am already saved, even if I have to perish here.
That's why he finally says, "what I have received, I give" - as if to say, "Here I am, Lord, use me if you will, for what you will! As the Apostle Paul said, whether by my life or by my death, may your holy name be glorified! It's as if he said, Lord, I ask nothing of you, nothing, but I am here and I am yours, and I will get the most if I give myself entirely to you - as if he were entrusting himself to the Lord. And he says if I have to die here, fine. It's good anyway. If the Lord go out from here, blessed be his holy name. If he sends me to Nineveh again, I'll go to Nineveh. He is the Lord, and I will be His obedient servant and nothing else. Let it be to me according to His will. And so it ends, "The word of the Lord came to the fish, and he threw Jonah out on the dry land". Brothers and sisters, there is no "fish" that, once the Lord has commanded it, will not cast its Jonah out to dry! Especially since he had to give up his greatest prize, Jesus Christ, on Easter morning. Since then, there is no abyss, no desperate and hopeless abyss of life, from which one cannot cry out in the happiest hope:
To you with all my heart
I cry without ceasing:
From this lamentable abyss
Hear me, Lord God!
Open thou thine ears,
When I call to you,
Consider my cause,
For I have long desired you.
(Psalm 130:1)
Amen.
Date: 26 February 1967.