Lightbulbs and Great Fishes
Epiphany is a funny word. It just sounds funny. Really - say it out loud right now. See? Funny word. It sounds like a girls name that everybody skips over in the baby-name book. What would you call her for short? Epiphany is one of those words you have to look up in the dictionary twice. What the meaning of it boils down to is, a lightbulb. Think cartoon: A coyote has a great idea (always involving explosives) and a lightbulb appears over his head. An epiphany is when the light comes on in a big way. It even looks funny typed.
So, I was sitting one Sunday morning, listening to a guest speaker in our chapel and I was daydreaming. I should have been trying harder to pay attention, I guess, but I found myself thinking about how Jesus said he was like Jonah. It was the time when the Pharisees were asking for a sign, and all the Lord would give them was the sign of Jonah. He said, “as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” I had never really thought much about how that was so. So, I did. It fits better than I would have thought.
It goes this way: Jonah was on a ship close to capsizing. The cargo had been thrown overboard and the nature of the storm was such that the sailors were sure there was something supernatural to it. They determine that somebody on the ship is the cause, and so they draw straws to let divine intervention pinpoint the culprit. Jonah gets the short straw (or long one and the rest were short… not sure). He jumps into the sea – the very thing that is about to kill everyone – and the storm subsides. The sailors are saved. He is then carried through the water – through death – in the belly of that great fish. God commands the fish to throw him up, and Jonah then goes on to save a million people in Nineveh. Do you see it?
Death is the result of sin. It didn’t exist before the fall. It wasn’t part of the original creation. But death is not only something that happens to us at the end of our lives. It’s something that is present with us all the time. Death is inside us. So, the Son of God takes on humanity – he dives right into it – and allows mankind to swallow him. But he’s preserved through it. He comes out the other side. Millions of people are saved. Maybe you’re reading this going, “um… ya Beej, that’s great. I learned that in Sunday School when I was 8 months old.” But it’s MY epiphany! That’s the thing about those things. They’re personal. God makes something real to YOU and you hang on to it.
Christ certainly didn’t have Jonah’s attitude, but Jonah is a “type” of Christ. He pre-figures the Lord in what he goes through. The interesting thing is that now the opposite is happening. Before Jesus came, people like Joseph, Isaac, and Jonah outlined Christ in different ways. Now, we who are reborn in Him find Him as our type too. T. Austin-Sparks wrote that the Holy Spirit is writing a biography of Christ in the lives of believers. We will go through what Jesus went through here in varying degrees. Jesus said, “the world hated me, and they will hate you too.” But he was preserved through it all, and so shall we be.
The Lord turns the light on sometimes. Sometimes it’s the littlest and simplest of things that all of a sudden become dear to us this way. I’m thankful for a fresh look at Jonah. I am grateful for how it has increased my appreciation of Jesus. Now, if I can just say epiphany without snickering.
BJ
So, I was sitting one Sunday morning, listening to a guest speaker in our chapel and I was daydreaming. I should have been trying harder to pay attention, I guess, but I found myself thinking about how Jesus said he was like Jonah. It was the time when the Pharisees were asking for a sign, and all the Lord would give them was the sign of Jonah. He said, “as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” I had never really thought much about how that was so. So, I did. It fits better than I would have thought.
It goes this way: Jonah was on a ship close to capsizing. The cargo had been thrown overboard and the nature of the storm was such that the sailors were sure there was something supernatural to it. They determine that somebody on the ship is the cause, and so they draw straws to let divine intervention pinpoint the culprit. Jonah gets the short straw (or long one and the rest were short… not sure). He jumps into the sea – the very thing that is about to kill everyone – and the storm subsides. The sailors are saved. He is then carried through the water – through death – in the belly of that great fish. God commands the fish to throw him up, and Jonah then goes on to save a million people in Nineveh. Do you see it?
Death is the result of sin. It didn’t exist before the fall. It wasn’t part of the original creation. But death is not only something that happens to us at the end of our lives. It’s something that is present with us all the time. Death is inside us. So, the Son of God takes on humanity – he dives right into it – and allows mankind to swallow him. But he’s preserved through it. He comes out the other side. Millions of people are saved. Maybe you’re reading this going, “um… ya Beej, that’s great. I learned that in Sunday School when I was 8 months old.” But it’s MY epiphany! That’s the thing about those things. They’re personal. God makes something real to YOU and you hang on to it.
Christ certainly didn’t have Jonah’s attitude, but Jonah is a “type” of Christ. He pre-figures the Lord in what he goes through. The interesting thing is that now the opposite is happening. Before Jesus came, people like Joseph, Isaac, and Jonah outlined Christ in different ways. Now, we who are reborn in Him find Him as our type too. T. Austin-Sparks wrote that the Holy Spirit is writing a biography of Christ in the lives of believers. We will go through what Jesus went through here in varying degrees. Jesus said, “the world hated me, and they will hate you too.” But he was preserved through it all, and so shall we be.
The Lord turns the light on sometimes. Sometimes it’s the littlest and simplest of things that all of a sudden become dear to us this way. I’m thankful for a fresh look at Jonah. I am grateful for how it has increased my appreciation of Jesus. Now, if I can just say epiphany without snickering.
BJ
posted by BJ at 4:01 p.m.
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