Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, as well as with the second preparatory week before Great Lent!

Over the course of the past several months, we have briefly discussed almost all of the minor prophets. Only two are left to discuss: Jonah and Joel. Today let’s focus our attention on the Holy Prophet of God Jonah, who is probably very familiar to most of you, and on his book. Since the story of Jonah and the whale is known to all, let’s not retell it, but instead let’s draw our thoughts to certain other aspects of this book.

First, let’s note that the book of the Holy Prophet Jonah is unique amongst all the other prophetic books of the Old Testament. There are no words of denunciation addressed to the Jews, no foretellings of future calamities, no prophetic allegories or wonderful words about the coming of the Messiah. Instead of all this, we have a story which is easier to characterize as a biblical narrative or history than as a prophecy. Despite this the Jews, and after them the Christians, considered and continue to consider it a prophetic book. Today let’s endeavour to explain why this is so.

As many of you probably know, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself answered this question when He spoke to the Jews the following words: “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12: 40). In other words, that miraculous event through which Jonah lived brightly foretells on its own that Jesus Christ would die, be buried in the ground for three days, and afterwards arise in the same way that Jonah, once upon a time, spent three days in the belly of the whale and then was released alive onto dry land. Although Christ explains this directly, it seems to me that in some of His insignificant deeds He also reminded us that Jonah was a foreshadowing of Himself. Remember that like Jonah, Christ calmly and soundly slept in the ship while a storm was sinking the boat (Matthew 8: 23-27, Mark 4: 38-40, Luke 8: 22-26). Both of them slept so soundly that they had to be wakened. Is this not a very gentle reminder that Christ fulfilled the message of His prophet?

The book of the Holy Prophet of God Jonah also very clearly foretells the salvation of the gentile nations, for Jonah was sent to preach repentance not to the chosen Jewish nation, but to the pagan citizens of Nineveh. These pagans heeded the prophetic voice of Jonah and repented through intense fasting. The Lord, seeing their struggle, took pity on them and saved them from punishment. This is a foreshadowing of the entrance of the gentile nations into the New Testament Church.

Today, on the threshold of Great Lent, let this powerful image of repentance stay within our souls. Let’s remember that the Lord is “a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness” (Jonah 4: 2), therefore let’s take the coming Lenten season seriously, as did the citizens of Nineveh, and let’s receive from God eternal salvation and a place in the heavens.

priest Alexis