Thursday, March 26, 2015
5 Then the sailors were afraid and each one cried to his god. To lighten the ship for
themselves, they threw its cargo into the sea. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down
into the hold of the ship, and lay there fast asleep.
According to bible-study-for-everyone.com[1]:
Christians regard the prophet Jonah as a type foreshadowing Jesus. Jesus said that he did not come for the healthy but for the sick. The healthy are well and they know it. So, they have no need of a doctor. But the sick may be diseased and not know it. They require someone to diagnose their sickness and prescribe the remedy. They need a healer. People can be sick physically. And they can be sick mentally, spiritually, emotionally. For instance, the physical ailment of blindness is plain because the person cannot see. But there is also the blindness of selfishness. People can be blind in many ways. A person can be blind to themselves. They see with their eyes but they do not understand what they see. Or they can be blind as to their experience. They interact with their world and with other people but remain isolated and lonely because they cannot see the depth and love within their relationships. Or they have very deep emotional or mental feelings but they do not see (understand) from where the feelings came. They do not know what the feelings indicate. They are in the dark as to any remedy. Jesus came in order for us to understand, to see and gain a remedy. He came as the source of knowledge, as light in darkness and as the cure for our illness. Those in light do not need a lamp but those in darkness need the light. Jesus was sent as the light that shines in the darkness. From the beginning to the end of the bible the theme is repeated. Humankind is lost due to deafness, blindness, ignorance, stupidity, arrogance, selfishness and greed. That is the first act of the play. The second act is God seeking and searching for lost humankind, looking for them in the various places of their fear, the haunts of darkness, the hiding places of those who are afraid of God. The final act is played out in the response of each individual and society, each nation and epoch of human history.
Will man and God be enemies or friends? Will God win and regain the trust and fidelity of his creation? Or will humankind forever remain estranged? Will the people always wander outside in the desolation or will they be admitted once again into the intimacy of the Garden of Paradise?
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