The King of Nineveh

It’s been suggested that the real hero in the book of Jonah is… the king of Nineveh. That’s right – the top Ninny himself.

Of course I think honorable mentions should be awarded, first to the sailors who threw Jonah overboard and offered sacrifices and vows to Yahweh. And also to the great fish who apparently endured significant gastrointestinal distress resulting in the upheaval of Jonah’s undigestable carcass. Perhaps even to the worm, who was given the unenviable task of snatching the last remaining comfort from an easily-ticked prophet. I’ll bet that worm snuck out at the crack of dawn, hurriedly assessed the vine at its weakest point, chomped at top speed, and was outta there before Jonah could plant a sandal on him. Courage.

But the king of Nineveh deserves hero status because, as the Bible says, those who humble themselves will be exalted (Lk. 18:14). And the king, when confronted with Jonah’s dire pronouncement of doom, didn’t try to shut Jonah up, call for his arrest, or throw him out of the city. Neither did he try to justify himself and his people or argue with the prophet’s message – or with this God he’d never worshipped and couldn’t even see.

Instead, he got down from his throne and laid aside his kingly robe. He put on sackcloth and sat down in ashes. He refused food and drink, turned from violence and evil, and cried out to God in the hope that He might relent and spare them in His mercy.

Not bad for a Ninny. In fact, he ends up looking a lot better than the prophet who sat down and cried over his success. Who, while the city wailed and repented under the torturous sackcloth, waited in the comfortable shade and hoped desperately that God wouldn’t hear their cries.

Oh that more of us would be ninny-heroes. Would just humbly accept God’s correction and crawl down off our high-horses, forget our own comfort, forsake our wrong pursuits, and bank wholly on God being forgiving and merciful yet again. And oh that we would recognize our responsibility to lead others in the same decision.

Not just once, when we bow to accept Christ as Savior. But again and again, every time the Spirit convicts us of a wrong we ought to make right or a course correction that’s needed. Every time we are confronted with the unpleasant realization that we are not what God wants us to be.

In those moments, the ball is in our kingly court. And we must decide whether dismiss it with a wave of our hand, or go to our knees in repentance and choose to be heroes of God’s grace.