NEBAB #50 The Fast of Nineveh
NEBAB #50
The Orthodox Tewahedo Magazine
FAST OF NINEVEH
Ethiopian Orthodox Church
Archdiocese of the Caribbean and Latin America
When God described Nineveh as being the great city, He was not considering its ignorance and sin but He was looking with great joy at its profound repentance.
Nineveh was quick in responding to God's word.
When Lot warned the Sodomites of the Lord's hot displeasure, they scorned him, and "to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking" (Gen. 19:14), whereas the Ninevites listened with utter seriousness to Jonah and responded quickly to his word, despite the respite of forty days which could have been taken for slackness and slothfulness. The word of the Lord was fast, bearing life, efficacious and sharper than a double-edged sword.
In their immediate response, the Ninevites were much greater than the Jews, who were contemporary to Christ the Lord, who is incomparably greater than Jonah. Those Jews saw the Lord's numerous miracles and beheld His infinite spirituality, yet they did not believe and repent. The Lord reproved them by the Ninevites (Matt. 12:41).
"The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgement wit hthis generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here."
The word of the Lord was prolific. It yielded an abundance of amazing fruits.
The first fruit of the Ninevites was faith: "So the people of Nineveh believed God."
The second fruit was the unfeigned contrition of heart; humiliating themselves before the Lord. Thus they put on sackcloth "from the greatest to the least of them". And sackcloth is a rough material made of goats' hair; a sign of affliction, abstinence and rejection of worldly pleasures. Even the king of Nineveh himself took off his royal robe and covered himself with sackcloth, arose from his throne and sat in ashes.
The Lord looked at that debased city and smelt a pleasing aroma; for "the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart- these, O God, You will not despise" (Ps. 51:17). Truly how wonderful is this unique spectacle! A whole city is seen contrite in dust and ashes, debased in sackcloth, from the king to the infant. Even the livestock were covered with sackcloth!
The word of God also yielded fasting and prayer.
The city proclaimed a general fast for all. People abstained from eating and drinking, and even the beasts, herds and flocks did not eat or drink. People did not want to be occupied with feeding their flocks so that they could spare their time for worship and supplication to God. Thus they mingled their fasting with prayer and cried "mightily to God".
The most important fruit of the Ninevites was repentance.
Repentance led them to faith because sin was an obstacle between them and God. The fruit of their repentance was their humiliation, fasting, wearing sackcloth and crying out to God.
Their repentance was a sincere repentance in every meaning of the word: serious and from the heart, in which everyone turned 'from his evil way and from the violence that was in his hands."
By this repentance they deserved God's mercy. He pardoned and forgave them, received them and joined them to His own. In this respect the Holy Bible says: "Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it" (Jon. 3:10).
The Holy Bible did not say: "When the Lord saw their fasting, prayer and affliction", but said: "Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way". Therefore repentance was the reason for God's mercy on them. Their fasting, prayer, and humiliation were but fruits of repentance.
I would like here to pause for a while at a verse said of the repentance of Nineveh, that is: "It repented at the preaching of Jonah".
What Was Jonah's Preaching?
The Holy Bible did not record for us the deep admonishing speech which led one hundred and twenty thousand persons to repentance with that wonderful contrition of heart. O that it supplied us with this excellent part in which concentrates all Jonah's greatness!
All that the Holy Bible records for us in this respect does not exceed one phrase in which was mentioned that Jonah entered the city and cried out, saying: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" (Jon. 3:4).
Could it be that Jonah said only this single sentence? Was it sufficient to save the city and cause that tremendous effect?
Previously, Lot had said of Sodom: "The Lord will destroy this city!" (Gen. 19:14), yet no one was affected and no one repented. The people heard of the Flood that was going to destroy the whole earth, and saw the Ark being built before their very eyes, yet no one repented and they were all destroyed. Many a time did the warning of death fail! Adam himself heard the warning: "you shall surely die", yet that warning did not prevent him from sinning.
What was the secret behind the repentance of Nineveh and its salvation?
Was it the thirst of Jonah's preaching and its deep effect on the souls of the Ninevites? Or was it due to the strong inner readiness of the heart so that every Divine word brought about an effect because the heart was ready to hear, the will ready to put into action, and the soil good for sowing? In my heart, I lean towards this second opinion.
I would say that the repentance of the people of Nineveh was mainly due to the readiness of their hearts.
It was this readiness that made God send His prophet to them, and as the Apostle says: "For whom He foreknew... He also predestined" (Rom. 8:29). Indeed readiness of heart plays a major role in the act of repentance.
In the case of the rich young man, the Lord Himself talked to him, and with all the power and efficacy of the Lord's words, he went away sorrowful because the heart within was not ready.
This is similar to the stony places which do not yield fruit no matter how good the seeds are and no matter how experienced the sower is. The heart of the young St. Anthony, however, was ready to hear the word of God. When he heard in the church the same verse said to the rich young man, he was deeply affected and carried it out wholeheartedly. Likewise were the hearts of the Ninevites.
This opinion is confirmed to me by the fact that when Jonah said that the city would be overthrown, he said it while being sure in his heart that it was not going to be overthrown and that his word would not be carried out.
He cried out those words reluctantly, merely obeying an order given to him, unconvinced of what he was saying. If he were convinced, his words would have had a stronger effect.
However, Nineveh repented at Jonah's preaching because their hearts were prepared for any word proceeding from the mouth of God. Thus their repentance was so powerful, for it sprang from within and not from without.
Accordingly, the Lord praised the people of Nineveh and their repentance, and said that they shall arise on the Day of Judgement and condemn that generation.
The power and beauty of this repentance is that it was a general repentance. Everyone repented, everyone returned to God, everyone believed in Him.
More than one hundred and twenty thousand persons entered the Lord's fold, one and all. If there is joy in heaven over one person's repentance what shall we say about the joy brought about by more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who previously could not discern between their right hand and their left?
Thus succeeded the second aim in God's design. The Ninevites were saved as the mariners had previously been saved.
Now it is Jonah's turn.
The story of Jonah reminds us that faith calls for action, sometimes in directions we’d rather avoid. Reflecting on Jonah's struggles, let's challenge ourselves to delve into the book of Jonah especially this week.
Read one chapter of Jonah the prophet each day of the fast beginning from Monday.
Ask yourself:
- How does my faith show in the choices that I make?
- Am I willing to respond, even when things are uncomfortable?
- Where might God be calling me to act with compassion and mercy today?
2) Israel
3) Samaria
4) Joppa
The book of Wisdom states that “for God created us for incorruption,
and made us in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil’s envy death entered the world…” (Wisdom 2:23-24) Early Church fathers like St Athanasius explains that by choosing to alienate ourselves from God through sin, we were condemning ourselves to “abide in death and corruption.” Salvation therefore must bring about an existential change within us – from death to life – from corruption to incorruption, from separation from God to union with Him. Therefore, as Orthodox Christians we reject any doctrine of Salvation that would reduce the problem to simply the need to be forgiven for a moral infraction. Humanity needed an ontological change, and so God’s offering of salvation has to offer just that!
Miracle of Mary: https://pemm.princeton.edu/en-us/stories/128
Coptic Orthodox Answers: How are we saved according to Orthodoxy? | Coptic Orthodox Answers
Contemplations on the Book of Jonah the Prophet: H.H Pope Shenouda III
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