Jesus, Jonah, & Easter

My Easter Message for 2025

“Jonah and the Whale” by Pieter Lastman, 1621

Back where I’m from, in Central Alabama, there’s this thing called noodling. It’s a form of fishing where you hop in a creek and start feeling around rocks and inside crevices, hoping a big old catfish will latch onto your fingers so you can yank him out. Now I would never, ever, in big red letters, go noodling because the thought of sticking my hand in a hole under water is almost as frightening as swimming where there are sharks. I’ve got better sense. But I appreciate the simplicity of that fishing style. There’s nothing fancy about it—no expensive rods, no extravagant lures—but it works.

In seminary, they taught me to craft a sermon using a well-tuned introduction where I tell you what I’m going to tell you. Then, employing points that all begin with the same letter and maybe even rhyme, I tell you what I want to tell you. And then, closing with a moving illustration, I tell you what I told you.

That is not what you will get today, and I am sorry.

After preaching for thirty-plus years, the only way I know to describe my preaching style is, well, noodling. There’s nothing fancy about it. No alliteration or rhymes. No killer illustrations (some would even say no point!). Just me noodling around the Bible. I’m not sure it works, but it’s all I got. So, for today’s message, I went poking around in the river of God’s Word, and what I think is an appropriate Easter text latched onto my heart. Let’s just jump right in and go to the OT book of Jonah, chapter one.

1 The Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.” 3 But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord. He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish. 4 But the Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart. 5 Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. But all this time Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold. 6 So the captain went down after him. “How can you sleep at a time like this?” he shouted. “Get up and pray to your god! Maybe he will pay attention to us and spare our lives.” 7 Then the crew cast lots to see which of them had offended the gods and caused the terrible storm. When they did this, the lots identified Jonah as the culprit. 8 “Why has this awful storm come down on us?” they demanded. “Who are you? What is your line of work? What country are you from? What is your nationality?” 9 Jonah answered, “I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” 10 The sailors were terrified when they heard this, for he had already told them he was running away from the Lord. “Oh, why did you do it?” they groaned. 11 And since the storm was getting worse all the time, they asked him, “What should we do to you to stop this storm?” 12 “Throw me into the sea,” Jonah said, “and it will become calm again. I know that this terrible storm is all my fault.” 13 Instead, the sailors rowed even harder to get the ship to the land. But the stormy sea was too violent for them, and they couldn’t make it. 14 Then they cried out to the Lord, Jonah’s God. “O Lord,” they pleaded, “don’t make us die for this man’s sin. And don’t hold us responsible for his death. O Lord, you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons.” 15 Then the sailors picked Jonah up and threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once! 16 The sailors were awestruck by the Lord’s great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him. 17 Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights. Jonah 1 (NLT)

Uh, pastor, maybe you’re not so good at this noodling thing after all. I mean, it’s cute that you chose a text about a fish, but this is Easter, remember? We brought guests!

Humor me as we talk about the old prophet, Jonah, for a minute. He, an Israelite, was called by God to preach a message of repentance to the Ninevites, non-Israelites. Not only were they not God’s chosen people, but they were also bad folks. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria at that time, the savage, cruel enemy and oppressor of Israel. If anyone didn’t deserve the chance to repent, the people of Nineveh didn’t. Jonah so hated the idea that his enemy might receive grace, he took off and hid from God and his mission on a ship. What happened next is taught even to the youngest of folks in Sunday School and VBS. Jonah was thrown overboard for endangering the crew with his rebellion, and God sent a fish to swallow him whole and teach him a lesson. After three days in the briny depths, he ended up getting puked out by that fish.

Jonah’s response to God reminds me of the classic story of a father who told his little four-year-old son to sit down, but the son didn’t sit down. So the father said a second time, “Son, I said sit down.” The boy still didn’t sit down. Finally, the father took him by the shoulders and placed him in the chair. He said, “Now, Son, sit there!” The little boy answered, “I may be sitting down on the outside, but—” he added defiantly, “I’m standing up on the inside!”

Jonah eventually went to Ninevah and delivered God’s message, but on the “inside,” he was still rebellious, evidenced by the fact that when the Ninevites actually repented, this happened.

1 Jonah was furious. He lost his temper. 2 He yelled at God, “God! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That’s why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness! 3 “So, God, if you won’t kill them, kill me! I’m better off dead!” Jonah 4:1–3 (MSG)

God went on to show him how he should have mercy on people, even those who don’t deserve it. There are all kinds of lessons to be learned here, but we are interested in what this has to do with Easter. To figure that out, we must fast forward many hundreds of years to Judea in the 1st Century where a rabbi from the hick town of Nazareth is upending the establishment with some pretty edgy teachings and actions. A man named Jesus claims he can forgive sins. He says things like “before Abraham was, I am.” He calls himself the Son of Man (a clear reference to deity, pointing back to the book of Daniel). Rumors are buzzing among the common folk and a few elites that he might actually be the long-awaited messiah. Look with me at Matthew 12:38 where,

38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered and said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” 12:38 (LSB)

If Jesus was going to make such towering claims, the religious gatekeepers demanded he back that up with a sign, an unmistakable miracle proving he was who he said he was.

39 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation eagerly seeks for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; 40 for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Matthew 12:39–40 (LSB)

And there it is. Jesus says the only sign they’ll get is one hinted at in the story of Jonah. Just as the reluctant prophet spent three days in the sea and then came back, Jesus will spend three days in the heart of the earth and return. This, of course, foreshadows Jesus’ death on the cross and burial in a tomb from which he rises on the third day. The first Easter. Let’s look at Luke’s account of the Jonah sign fulfilled.

1 Now on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 And it happened that while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing, 5 and when the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living One among the dead? 6 “He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, 7 saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.” 8 And they remembered His words, 9 and when they returned from the tomb, they reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Luke 24:1–9 (LSB)

Talk is one thing. Action is another. Jesus backed up all his claims and supported all his teachings by doing something no one has done before or since. He came back from the dead bodily, physically, and literally. Could there be any bigger sign than that? And, just like Jonah, Jesus was, in a sense, a prophet sent to preach a similar message:

17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew 4:17 (LSB)

But, unlike Jonah, Jesus obeyed God on the outside and inside. The late Tim Keller writes,

[Jesus came to] astonished listeners [saying] that he was the ultimate Jonah (Matthew 12:39–41). When Jesus Christ came to earth, he was leaving the ultimate comfort zone, in order to come and minister not just to a people who might harm him, but to people who would. And to save them, he would have to do much more than preach, he would have to die for them. While the original Jonah was merely thought to be dead, Jesus actually died and rose again. It was what Jesus called the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:41).

Consider another way in which Jesus was the ultimate Jonah. In Mark 4 we have an account from Jesus’s life that deliberately evoked the Old Testament story. There was a terrible storm and, like Jonah, Jesus was asleep in the midst of it. Like the sailors, Jesus’s disciples were terrified and woke him up to say that they were going to perish. In both cases the storm was miraculously calmed and those in the boat were saved by the power of God.

But here is the great difference. Jonah was thrown only into a storm of wind and water. Jesus on the Cross, however, was thrown into the ultimate storm—of all the divine justice and punishment that we deserve for our wrongdoing. When I struggle with my idols, I think of Jesus, voluntarily bowing his head into that ultimate storm, taking it on frontally, for me. He sank in that storm of terror so I would not fear any other storm in my life. If he did that for me, then I know my value, confidence, and mission in life all rest in him. Storms here on earth can take away many things, even my physical life, but not my Life.

God hinted to Jonah that he would love the great, lost cities of the earth in a way that Jonah would not. In the gospel of Jesus Christ, the true Jonah, that commitment was fulfilled.¹

But there’s more here when it comes to Jesus, Jonah, and Easter. If you think about it, we are Ninevites in need of God’s undeserving grace. Jesus, the true and greater Jonah, came to preach his message of repentance to us. It may be easier to believe Jesus came back from the dead than that because we must accept the fact that we come into the world separated from a Holy God because of sin. We are prone to think, “I’m not that bad.” But we must ask who we are comparing ourselves to. What is the standard by which we measure ourselves? We can always find someone more sinful than us, but the true standard is God, not the best efforts of mere mortals. The apostle Peter wrote, quoting OT Scripture,

16 because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:16 (LSB)

Jesus declared,

20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:20 (LSB)

James wrote,

10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. James 2:10 (LSB)

This puts everyone in the same boat: in need of a Savior.

Jesus, the true and greater Jonah, came not just to warn us but to actively save us by living the life of perfect obedience we should have lived and dying the death we should have died. But he did not stay dead. Death was no match for him. He walked out of that tomb the first Easter morning victorious over death and sin. That is the sign that he is who he says he is, and we should listen to him. Listen to what he said:

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 (ESV)

That wasn’t a boast. It was simply the truth. Hear me, though. Easter doesn’t just offer us a ticket to heaven when we die (I bought into that idea for far too long as a pastor); it invites us into God’s grand redemptive story that includes all creation and setting the world back to rights. A year or so ago, I tried to tell that story in a letter to my beautiful, blue-eyed granddaughter, Wren. May I share it with you this morning?

Dear Wren,

Papa is writing a letter I pray you never have to read. That sounds kind of silly, doesn’t it? I much rather hope to tell you about this in person one day when you’re older (you’re just three right now). But in case I’m not around—I sure hope I am!—there is something about me I want you to know and something I want you to do more than anything else. 

As a little boy, I heard true stories from God’s Book, the Bible. I learned them at church, just like you. But much later, one night, when I was a teenager alone in my room, the One who made those stories came to me as I read his Book. He asked if I wanted to be his child. Can you imagine? I said yes. That’s what I want you to know about me more than anything.

Do you know what it’s called? That we can become God’s children? The Good News, and it truly is. To understand why, you must remember the stories, especially about when God first created the world and how there were no bad things there. Adam and Eve, God’s first son and daughter, lived in his Garden. Their job was to make the rest of the world like that beautiful, perfect place with two special trees. One was called the Tree of Life. The other had a different name. God asked them not to eat the fruit from that other tree because if they did, bad things would follow. They disobeyed. For reasons I don’t think we can understand, it meant from then on everyone ever born enters the world broken and ashamed because of something called sin. But the good news is that God loved them and us so much he made a way for our hearts’ mending. That’s where the stories of Jesus come in.

God sent his son, Jesus, to live the life Adam (and we) should have lived. He obeyed God in everything. He wasn’t broken. Can you imagine? But even though he was entirely good, people crucified him on a cross. He died there. It’s all incredibly sad except, for reasons I don’t think we can understand, God wanted it that way because Jesus paid the price required for all our sins, all the bad things in us and around us. He took upon himself our badness. You know from the fantastic stories, the truest tales ever told, Jesus didn’t stay dead. He walked out of his grave alive to show us the way to God so we can become his sons and daughters! Can you imagine?

Because of all that, God invites us in the Bible to take him up on the most incredible offer ever given. The offer goes like this, “All those who call on God’s name will be saved.”1 It’s for anyone who realizes they need a Heavenly Father and asks him to heal and forgive them through what Jesus did. If we say yes, all our brokenness and shame are taken away, and we are freed to live in God’s forever family as his children. And our new job is making this world like it will be when Jesus returns to set things back right, like they were before they went wrong in the Garden.

One day, God will invite you to become his child just as he did me. It might be in a moment. Remember my room that night? Or it might be slow, arriving in bits and pieces that eventually fit together like a puzzle. How will you know? You just will, like how you know the wind is blowing even though you can’t see it. When he does, I’m hoping with all my heart you’ll say yes, the one thing I want you to do most of all.

Well, there you have it, my sweet little bird. The one thing I want you to know and do more than anything. Before I go, I have a request. The Bible says in the very last story that when Jesus returns to make the world good again, God will plant that Tree of Life in his New City. It will be tall and beautiful. On that Day, when everything sad becomes untrue, meet me under its branches. I’ll be waiting. And we can explore the wonders of our Forever Home together. Can you imagine?

With So MUCH Love,

Papa

Coming to God through Jesus, the true and greater Jonah, ushers us into something cosmic, something bigger and brighter than we could ever imagine. Something that matters right now and extends all the way into the farthest reaches of eternity. Back to the late Tim Keller, who writes,

Christianity differs from [all other religions in that] It does not merely offer the prospect of a wholly spiritual future in heaven. The resurrection of Jesus, to cite the Greek New Testament, is arrabon, a down payment, and aparche, the firstfruits of a future physical resurrection in which the material world will be renewed. It will be a world where justice dwells, every tear will be wiped away, death and destruction are banished forever, and the wolf will lie down with the lamb; these are lyrical, poetic ways of saying that this world will be mended, made new, liberated from its bondage to death and decay (Rom. 8:18–23).

This is the fullest possible hope. The resurrection of Christ promises us not merely some future consolation for the life we lost but the restoration of the life we lost and infinitely more. It promises the world and life that we have always longed for but never had.²

As we get ready to close, nothing I’ve said may mean much to you. That’s okay. But what about this? If the resurrection really happened, if Jesus left that tomb empty, having defeated death, if he is the true and greater Jonah, then everything is going to be okay. That was the hope the late Dr. Tim Keller (whom I quote so often) held onto in the final days of his life as he battled pancreatic cancer. It’s the hope we can hold onto when we face betrayal, when we lose a spouse or child, when we struggle with the deep, dark throes of depression, or when we feel like the world is falling apart.

One pastor wrote how…

[Easter] means the world as we know it is not the final chapter. It means death, which snakes its way through the human experience, has been defeated. It means the brokenness, the pain, and the sadness will one day give way to a restored world where every tear will be wiped away.

Jesus said… “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live (John 11:25).

Jesus made an audacious claim. He claimed to have the keys to life and death. And then he did rise again. He beckons those who are far from him to come, have their sins forgiven, and find peace with God.

Perhaps you—this Easter—might find that peace with God.

Jesus, through the power and truth of the resurrection, offers us such enduring peace.

33 I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 (NLT)

He is risen.

He is risen indeed!

1. Keller, T. (2011). Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters (pp. 151–152). Riverhead Books.

2. https://www.christianitytoday.com/2021/04/timothy-keller-hope-times-fear-resurrection-better-world/