Post 143.
In the book of the prophet Jonah, God reveals His nature as Love. The Word speaks to Jonah, commanding him to speak words of forewarning to the Ninevites. Jonah, the devout Hebrew prophet, flees by boat toward Spain, at the remotest reaches of the known world. Why does he seek to escape the Lord? Jonah knows the Lord’s power, and that He is the single God who is actual. The Word then walking with Jonah is the God who walked with Adam in the Garden of Delight; who warned Noah to build and vessel; who gave Sarah a son when she was 90; who led the slaves out of Egypt, parted the Sea of Reeds, and fed them manna in the wilderness. Jonah, then, knew not only of the Lord’s power, but of His mercy. This is what he feared.
In the 8th Century, BC, Nineveh was a large city in the Assyrian Empire, which had decimated the Kingdom of Israel, killed and tortured many, and captured all the educated and strong youth. Assyria was known for being cruel, devising what would become the foulest and most notorious mode of torture: crucifixion. Jonah lived in the Northern Kingdom, in the town of Gath-hepher, about two miles from what would become Nazareth. Jonah likely had family members who were killed, tortured, and taken into slavery. When the Word came to Jonah he knew of God’s oneness, of his strength, and of his clemency. It is clemency that vexed Jonah most, and he absconded from his homeland and the Lord.
In his flight Jonah experienced God’s power over the sea, being forced to admit that the God of the Hebrews was Lord of the land and sea. Unnamed sailors were converted and offered worship to the one God as they reluctantly threw Jonah overboard. Jonah, consumed by a large fish, was taken to the depth of the sea—to Hades itself—and prayed that he would once again be allowed to be in the presence of God. After three days, Jonah was expelled onto the shoreline where the Word returned to him and commanded him again to prophesize to the Ninevites. He reluctantly did so, offering Ninevah the shortest prophecy shared in scripture: “Forty days more and Ninevah shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4).
I say these eight words aloud. Were they spoken in a soft or loud tone? With abruptness or with gentle lovingkindness? Did Jonah speak to them dryly with a shade of joy, eager for Ninevah’s destruction and taking pleasure in it? This seems most likely, by what follows. Jonah retreats beyond the walls to await the city’s annihilation, rightful vengeance for the atrocities Assyria committed on Jonah’s nation, family, and friends. But the Assyrians pronounce a fast and repent of their many sins. In response, God relents, and shows mercy, just as Jonah dreaded He might. Jonah, the unwilling prophet, stews in his tent. Does God withdraw his lovingkindness from Jonah, this obstinate prophet? No, he educates Jonah, explaining that he loves the humans and animals that live in Nineveh. They too are His, just as the sailors are, and as Jonah is. Rather than retribution, He wants a relationship with them.
Who is this God that is one, all powerful, sends his Word to his prophets, and who relents? Relenting is typical of loving relationships. My son asks to go bowling and I say no. Later he asks again and I relent. Do perfect fathers relent? Evidently. Many centuries would pass before this paradoxical question had a theological answer—the Trinity. The word—Trinity—is not penned in scripture, and yet, read in light of the Trinity, some of the most paradoxical scriptural episodes become less paradoxical. How is the face of God something humans cannot see (Exodus 33:20), and yet Adam and Noah and Abraham and Moses all walk and talk with Him? The Word of the Lord comes to all the prophets. For early Christians wrestling with the divinity of Jesus, most explicitly in the Johannine books of the bible, the Word is in some way God, but in some way a separate person. So too, the Spirit is a separate person, unified as part of the same God. God is one, God is three. Trinity. From the dawn of being, the Trinity was—three persons in loving relationship. For an internally loving God, God does not require our relationship to be perfected—He is not missing relationship, only to get it through his creation—but rather clemency is internal to God. Herein lies truth to the nature of Beauty, in God’s transcendent relenting. Beauty is never experienced except through relationship—an artist colony, a punk band meeting in a garage, a father walking with his teenager through a museum pointing out his favorite paintings, a DJ and an MC responding to each other’s improvised ideas, a child cooking a cake for the first time with their parents, a singer responding to an audience, a grandma crocheting a scarf for her grandchild, a congregation intoning psalms together, a barber discussing baseball while trimming an old friend’s hair, or a mother singing lullabies to her babe in a rocking chair. Every experience of beauty in this world is internally a relationship—so it would be inconceivable to imagine transcendent Beauty as lacking this essential characteristic of beauty-in-specific. Relationship.
DS
Link to image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jonah_and_the_Whale,_Folio_from_a_Jami_al-Tavarikh_(Compendium_of_Chronicles).jpg
In the book of the prophet Jonah, God reveals His nature as Love. The Word speaks to Jonah, commanding him to speak words of forewarning to the Ninevites. Jonah, the devout Hebrew prophet, flees by boat toward Spain, at the remotest reaches of the known world. Why does he seek to escape the Lord? Jonah knows the Lord’s power, and that He is the single God who is actual. The Word then walking with Jonah is the God who walked with Adam in the Garden of Delight; who warned Noah to build and vessel; who gave Sarah a son when she was 90; who led the slaves out of Egypt, parted the Sea of Reeds, and fed them manna in the wilderness. Jonah, then, knew not only of the Lord’s power, but of His mercy. This is what he feared.
In the 8th Century, BC, Nineveh was a large city in the Assyrian Empire, which had decimated the Kingdom of Israel, killed and tortured many, and captured all the educated and strong youth. Assyria was known for being cruel, devising what would become the foulest and most notorious mode of torture: crucifixion. Jonah lived in the Northern Kingdom, in the town of Gath-hepher, about two miles from what would become Nazareth. Jonah likely had family members who were killed, tortured, and taken into slavery. When the Word came to Jonah he knew of God’s oneness, of his strength, and of his clemency. It is clemency that vexed Jonah most, and he absconded from his homeland and the Lord.
In his flight Jonah experienced God’s power over the sea, being forced to admit that the God of the Hebrews was Lord of the land and sea. Unnamed sailors were converted and offered worship to the one God as they reluctantly threw Jonah overboard. Jonah, consumed by a large fish, was taken to the depth of the sea—to Hades itself—and prayed that he would once again be allowed to be in the presence of God. After three days, Jonah was expelled onto the shoreline where the Word returned to him and commanded him again to prophesize to the Ninevites. He reluctantly did so, offering Ninevah the shortest prophecy shared in scripture: “Forty days more and Ninevah shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4).
I say these eight words aloud. Were they spoken in a soft or loud tone? With abruptness or with gentle lovingkindness? Did Jonah speak to them dryly with a shade of joy, eager for Ninevah’s destruction and taking pleasure in it? This seems most likely, by what follows. Jonah retreats beyond the walls to await the city’s annihilation, rightful vengeance for the atrocities Assyria committed on Jonah’s nation, family, and friends. But the Assyrians pronounce a fast and repent of their many sins. In response, God relents, and shows mercy, just as Jonah dreaded He might. Jonah, the unwilling prophet, stews in his tent. Does God withdraw his lovingkindness from Jonah, this obstinate prophet? No, he educates Jonah, explaining that he loves the humans and animals that live in Nineveh. They too are His, just as the sailors are, and as Jonah is. Rather than retribution, He wants a relationship with them.
Who is this God that is one, all powerful, sends his Word to his prophets, and who relents? Relenting is typical of loving relationships. My son asks to go bowling and I say no. Later he asks again and I relent. Do perfect fathers relent? Evidently. Many centuries would pass before this paradoxical question had a theological answer—the Trinity. The word—Trinity—is not penned in scripture, and yet, read in light of the Trinity, some of the most paradoxical scriptural episodes become less paradoxical. How is the face of God something humans cannot see (Exodus 33:20), and yet Adam and Noah and Abraham and Moses all walk and talk with Him? The Word of the Lord comes to all the prophets. For early Christians wrestling with the divinity of Jesus, most explicitly in the Johannine books of the bible, the Word is in some way God, but in some way a separate person. So too, the Spirit is a separate person, unified as part of the same God. God is one, God is three. Trinity. From the dawn of being, the Trinity was—three persons in loving relationship. For an internally loving God, God does not require our relationship to be perfected—He is not missing relationship, only to get it through his creation—but rather clemency is internal to God. Herein lies truth to the nature of Beauty, in God’s transcendent relenting. Beauty is never experienced except through relationship—an artist colony, a punk band meeting in a garage, a father walking with his teenager through a museum pointing out his favorite paintings, a DJ and an MC responding to each other’s improvised ideas, a child cooking a cake for the first time with their parents, a singer responding to an audience, a grandma crocheting a scarf for her grandchild, a congregation intoning psalms together, a barber discussing baseball while trimming an old friend’s hair, or a mother singing lullabies to her babe in a rocking chair. Every experience of beauty in this world is internally a relationship—so it would be inconceivable to imagine transcendent Beauty as lacking this essential characteristic of beauty-in-specific. Relationship.
DS
Link to image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jonah_and_the_Whale,_Folio_from_a_Jami_al-Tavarikh_(Compendium_of_Chronicles).jpg
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