The End of Ourselves

Pastor Adam Sinnett | August 17, 2008 | 01hr:07mn
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Last week, we left Jonah sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Owning his sin and realizing that he cannot run from God, Jonah places himself in God’s hands and is thrown overboard into the sea. This week we look at chapter two, Jonah’s prayer, which recounts his downward descent into the deep darkness of the frigid water and subsequent miraculous salvation. Yet though it’s Jonah’s prayer from inside the fish, the main character is God. It is God who ultimately cast Jonah into the sea (2:3), it is God who controls the currents and waves (2:3), it is God who rescues Jonah from death (2:6), it is God who tells the fish to place Jonah back on dry land (2:10) and it is ultimately God who determines salvation (2:9).

As Jonah sinks into the sea, the currents throw and control him (2:3), the light of the world above slowly disappears, the dark silhouette of the roots of the mountains come into view (2:6), and he becomes tangled i n a bed of seaweed (2:5). Jonah reaches rock bottom, the end of himself, a descent that began in the first chapter (1:3,5,2:6). He finds himself on the brink of death (2:2,6), likely going in and out of consciousness (2:7), when out of nowhere God graciously rescues him through an unlikely hero, a fish. Finding himself inside a fish, Jonah seemingly reconsiders his understanding of the grace of God (2:6,8) and offers up the psalm of thanksgiving recorded in this chapter.

Similarly, our lives are much like Jonah’s journey, filled with God’s loving initiation (1:2), our running from him (1:3), God’s pursuit of us despite our running (1:4,6,7,17) and coming to the place where we realize that we are not competent to run our own lives. As it has been said, we are not competent to run our own lives until we realize that we are not competent to run our own lives. (Tim Keller) There is a road in life that appears to be a dead end, called the End of Yourself. It is at times a dark road, filled with fear and questioning, yet it is there at the end of the End of Yourself we meet Jesus. What is seemingly a dead end is in fact the road to life (Jn 14:6; Mt 11:28,29). The key to the Christian life is to stay on this road, the End of Yourself, following Jesus, giving up your map for his map (2 Cor 5:21; Gal 2:20; Mt 16:24,25) for it is there that we most clearly see our sin and only there we experience the grace of God.

[Note: For more on the Christian life as allegory I highly recommend John Bunyan’s, Pilgrim’s Progress.]