Ancient Anglican

The sign of Jonah goes beyond simply the understanding that Jesus, like Jonah, will spend three days in the belly of Sheol. The Sign of Jonah is only complete when the fish vomits the incorruptible Jonah out.

As we read through Jonah’s prayer, it is a prayer that we can make our own. It is a prayer of deliverance and thanksgiving said in the space between the chaos ending and restoration being obtained.

Jonah flees from God and God’s instruction into a tempestuous chaos. Like Jonah, the natural and consequent result in fleeing from God is that life becomes chaotic, and we are tossed like a ship caught in a tempest upon the sea.

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

The story is about Jonah’s response to God’s call of redemption and reconciliation of the enemy. Our story is about the depth of God’s grace and mercy towards his disobedient servant Jonah and his rependant enemy Assyria.

There are three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another .

God is Love.

Little children, you are of God, and have overcome the spirit of the antichrist, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth.

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are.