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The Sign of the Prophet Jonah
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Volunteers are always preferred to conscripts – people who have to be forced to do something. Jonah was no volunteer. Asked to go east, he ran away to the west, and had to be brought back in a way that was very traumatic for him. Eventually he did what was asked of him and ended up saving a lot of lives. But even then, he wasn’t happy about that either!
Jonah was both unhappy and troubled when God asked him to go and warn Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria, and to urge them to repent of their sins. Nineveh was 500 miles away from Israel; the nation was much stronger and more self-important than Israel. You could understand it if Jonah thought they would not even listen to him. Did they know anything about Israel, or anything at all about the God of Israel? He doubted it.
The more Jonah thought about this, the more impossible it seemed. In the end his fears overcame him, and he decided to run. Where could he go to get away from God, from Assyria, and from Nineveh? In a panic he left his home, crossed the mountains, and arrived in the sea port of Joppa, almost 50 miles to the southwest. He found a ship sailing to the West, paid the fare, and settled down to escape from God.
What happens when we die?
How do people react to the fact of death? The young frankly do not treat the matter seriously. When they have the occasional shock - a friend is killed in a road accident, for example - it is just "bad luck". The tragedy is soon forgotten. The middle-aged do not care to contemplate death. It is too far off yet to seem a real danger: "Better face it when it comes." Older people become more aware that here is a reality they will not escape. Their friends and relations pass off the scene. Failing eyesight and hearing, growing physical ailments remind them that the human frame eventually perishes.
Many people find some comfort in the idea of survival. A mysterious inner life called "the soul" is thought to pass out of the perishing body and to go to "heaven", where the personality continues to live--in bliss. This view is not so confidently or so widely held as once it was; it is now often more a pious hope than a strong conviction. And it is very vague, as is shown by the prayer uttered each Christmas Eve at the famous Lessons and Carols service in King's College, Cambridge. The leader prays that the congregation may be joined with those "who rejoice with us, but on another shore and in a greater light" - he means those who have died. If we were to ask, What is this "greater light"? Where is this "other shore"? we should be unlikely to get any very definite answers. The hope is vague.
An increasing number of people today are frankly pessimistic. They accept the fact that death is the end of life. "I shall soon be pushing up the daisies", as one acquaintance put it. The view has unfortunate consequences, for the person holding it is strongly tempted to argue that his life is all he has; it is his own to do as he pleases; and he may as well "eat, drink, and be merry", for tomorrow he will die. This view of life has a serious effect upon the kind of life to be lived, which can become self-indulgent and self-centered, with the disastrous results for society which we are seeing today.
To read more, click here or on "After Death, What?" below:
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