Tag: Jesus

Jonah, Jesus, and persuading God

Simplified plan of ancient Nineveh showing cit...
Diagram of saved city

Jonah 3 tells how God changed his mind (!) about Nineveh, thanks to Jonah’s pleading.  Luke 11.29-32 builds on this.  It took a Jonah, but a greater God-mover was among Jesus’ listeners, he told them, meaning himself.

More on this Jonah-Jesus comparison: Jonah was (a) thrown overboard at his request (b) to save his shipmates in the dreadful storm, (c) sacrificing himself for others.

Jesus also sacrificed himself, as we know, but achieved more, ransoming us all from perdition, not just a city.  He is the hero of any day’s re-enactment of that self-sacrifice, namely the mass — a truly cosmic event.

Jesus saves

Jesus at the house of the Pharisean, by Jacopo...
At a pharisee's house, by Tintoretto

Forgiveness double-header today.  From Hebrews 4:

For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,
but one who has similarly been tested in every way,
yet without sin.
So let us confidently approach the throne of grace
to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.

And Mark 2:

Some scribes who were Pharisees saw that Jesus was eating with sinners
and tax collectors and said to his disciples,
“Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus heard this and said to them,
“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”  (Italics added)

Tax collectors bought the position, then took tax revenue to cover their cost and make a profit.  So there you were, dealing with a middle man reporting to no one.  To sit with these people was to be one of them.  Jesus had something else in mind.  Good for him and good for us.

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