Rev. Nick Cheek
Psalm 46 and Jonah 1:17-32
15 years ago, during spring break, Ashley and I were away in Fort Myers Beach. I love the beach… the sound of the waves, the endless water, the breeze that somehow invites you to rest. Ashley was reading in a chair while I was busy digging some giant sand fort for the kids. During one of my breaks, I sat down beside her and watched Lydia and Nicholas playing together. We talked about how we were entering that new season of parenthood where you can finally be a little more hands off. The kids were out of diapers, playing on their own, and for a moment we just embraced the freedom.
And then Ashley smiled and said, “Let’s have another one.”
For the rest of the week we wrestled with the idea. Could we handle three? Could we afford three? Would we have enough time, enough energy, enough love? There are plenty of rational reasons to stop at two. We tried to convince ourselves of them… but eventually we gave up. We ended up throwing rationality into the sea and soon enough… we welcomed Ada into our family. You know that old adage… “Three is a crowd” – it’s true!… but three has also proven to be an absolute joy. Every day Ada’s energy and charisma fills our house with smiles and laughter.
Historically, three is a deeply significant number. Ancient philosophers like Pythagoras believed that three represented the first complete number — a symbol of harmony, fullness, and stability. Across cultures and religions, the number three often points toward wholeness and transformation. And throughout scripture, we see this pattern repeatedly. On the third day of creation, God gathered the waters, revealed the dry land, and life began to emerge from the earth. Noah had three sons. The great patriarchs of Israel come to us in threes: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Our understanding of God is rooted in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus’ earthly ministry lasted roughly three years. And perhaps most importantly for us as Christians, Christ remained in the tomb for three days before rising from the dead on Easter morning. [Pause] In the Bible, three is also the number that appears when something is being made new… when God is bringing about transformation…. This pattern is all over Scripture, and we encounter it again in Jonah’s story. After sinking into the depths of the sea, Jonah is swallowed by a great fish prepared by God. And there, in that strange place between death and deliverance, Jonah remains for three days and three nights.
The amount of time Jonah spends in the fish is intriguing not only because it calls to mind the other 3s in the Bible, but also because of how close Jonah already is to shore. If we remember last week’s sermon, the sailors, during the storm, do all in their power to try and row back to shore. But why would they try to row back to shore if they were three days out at sea? The truth is, they weren’t that far away. Jonah’s distance from shore is minimal, and yet… it still takes three days for the fish to find land. Why? Why did God keep Jonah in there for three days? Why not just spit him back up on dry land immediately and keep Jonah moving on towards Nineveh… towards his duty? Maybe… God is up to something here.
Because Jonah is in this position… for three days… He has no other option than to sit in this darkness… and in this solitude… he has no other option than to feel it… to know it… to get in touch with it… It’s almost as though God is providing this time as a meaningful moment – a moment of deep discernment… a time of engagement with Jonah’s inner self. It acts as a holy interruption. A time when Jonah is no longer running, no longer resisting, but finally having to stay still and listen.
Staying still is challenging at times, amen? When we stay still… we begin to get in touch with ourselves. When we remain still, we create space for self-examination… for our hearts to finally breathe a little. And in that quiet, our minds often wander to places we would rather avoid; Thoughts about our needs… our hopes… our fears… the deep desires of our souls. Thoughts about what we miss about ourselves, realizations about where we may be hurting… where we may feel empty… what in our lives may be lacking.
In stillness, the heart has a way of speaking more clearly… and sometimes what it says is not easy to hear. I think we are often hesitant about what we might find there, in the solitude. Hesitant to confront our own souls… our own incompleteness… our own griefs and brokenness.
We may tell ourselves we do not have time for that kind of honesty. And so, all too often, we push the inner self aside. We bury it beneath busyness and distraction. We drown it with overloaded calendars and endless to-do lists. We suffocate it with pressure, anxiety, noise, and unending drive. We throw those quieter parts of ourselves down into the deep dark abyss… and hope they stay down there…
I have mentioned Henri Nouwen before, and his work on nurturing the soul is beautiful. Nouwen was a Catholic Priest interested in self-reflection, healing, and wholeness. And in his book, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, one of the three movements of the spiritual life he touches on is solitude. He believes that solitude is an essential piece of our faith – but that practicing it is no easy task. Nouwen’s book compels us to resist the urge to quench the feelings and instead… embrace the solitude and healing that comes with it. He writes, “The difficult road is the road of conversion, the conversion from loneliness into solitude. Instead of running away from our loneliness and trying to forget or deny it, we have to protect it and turn it into fruitful solitude. To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness… As hard as it is to believe that the dry desolate desert can yield endless varieties of flowers, it is equally hard to imagine that our loneliness is hiding unknown beauty. The movement from loneliness to solitude is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit, from the out-ward reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.”
At first glance, the fish looks like punishment. A lonely, cramped, and silent place. But what if it also comes to Jonah as mercy? Perhaps what seemed at first like a place of despair spoon becomes a place of discernment. Because in the depths of the sea and solitude, Jonah encounters not only his own soul, but the quiet and persistent presence of God.
Something powerful happens in those three days. As Jonah ponders the deep sea around him… he also ponders the deep see within him. The deeper the fish takes him… the closer he gets to God… and the closer he gets to himself. It is in this solitude that he is finally able to come face to face with those parts of himself he’s avoided all this time… he is finally willing to come to terms with his inadequacies, with his limitations, with his shadows, with his fears, with is lack of courage, with whatever it is that has kept him running from God and from himself. While it might be somewhat frightening to go there… the solitude is also the place where God is given the most permission to penetrate our hearts. It is in that place where we are finally able to let go… and to be open and unguarded to God’s healing… to God’s love and mercy, open to God’s transformation from darkness to light… from brokenness to wholeness… from a sense of wandering to a sense of purpose.
After three days of silence… the first words out of Jonah’s mouth are not a protest… they are a prayer. And this is not a prayer filled with eloquent phrases… it is not meticulously woven together. Jonah’s prayer is nothing of the sort. Instead, it is a prayer from the his heart. It is a stream of pure, authentic, and unhindered words to his steadfast God. To the God who has followed him from his home in Joppa, to a boat in the middle of the sea… and now… whose presence encircles him in the belly of a fish. Jonah prays…
“I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. 3 You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. 4 Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; how[a] shall I look again upon your holy temple?’ 5 The waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped around my head, at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land, whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the Pit, O Lord my God. 7 As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. 8 Those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty. 9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the Lord!”
[Pause] Jonah’s prayer tells again what his story is ultimately about. It is not about Jonah running from God… it is about a God who relentlessly runs after him… and after us.
Henri Nouwen reiterates this attribute of God… and writes. “The real spiritual Guide is the one who, instead of advising us what to do or to whom to go, offers us a chance to stay alone and take the risk of entering into our own experience. He makes us see that pouring little bits of water on our dry land does not help, but that we will find a living well if we reach deep enough under the surface… The few times we do listen carefully to our restless hearts, we may start to sense that in the midst of our sadness there is joy, that in the midst of our fears, there is peace, that in the midst of our greediness there is the possibility of compassion, and that indeed in the midst of our irking loneliness we can find the beginnings of a healing solitude.”
Church… there is indeed something powerful about those three days. Through the solitude, Jonah is transported from the land of the dead… to the land of the living… and from the deep dark sea… to the light of the morning sun. When the fish spits Jonah onto dry land, once again the word of the Lord comes to him: “Get up… rise… go to Nineveh…” [Pause] Even in Jonah’s wandering… the call of God had not left him. Even after the running… even after the fear… even after the descent into the deep… God still calls Jonah to rise. To stand back up. To continue the journey. To step once again into the purpose and calling that had been there all along. MY friends… God’s not done with us yet, either. And while it might be somewhat frightening to embrace the deep depths of our inner selves… we don’t travel there alone… we travel there with each other (Unpack that a bit)… AND with a God whose love and mercy is deeper than our darkness… a God whose grace is wider than the oceans. We go there with a God who will never stop running after us and telling us again and again… and again… Rise. Thanks be to God.