There were so many kings and leaders that were pagan and did so much good for the Church. They were not Christian, were unbelievers, or were not Jewish. It is like what Nebuchadnezzar and the kings after him did with Daniel. They did a lot of good things for the people of God. And just as the governor did for Esther and saved her people after ordering their demise. Recent history and the history of the Copts proves this. God would direct the king to act in a manner that benefitted the Coptic people or for the good of the Christians. One time, a Turkish governor had a Jewish prime minister who hated the Copts. He could not stand them at all! He was one who practiced astrology, magic, and all these things. The governor loved these things. So, he asked him what the destiny of his kingdom was. He told him, “Your kingdom will be good, but there is danger from these Christians. They are very harmful. You must take action.” So, the governor began to think of something very evil. God appeared to Him in a dream at night and directed him to think peaceably and do good. God does not neglect His people and the heart of the king is in God’s hand.

I do not want to waste our time on these stories, but truly the people of Nineveh were very important to God. This shows us, beloved, that we should not demean or degrade anyone, because every person – regardless of race or religion – is created by God. God is responsible for him and is the One who supports the whole world. God is the One who chooses the leader and directs him for the good of the people that he rules. This is the case with the Ninevites. Who can say that the Ninevites did not respond to the call of God? Whoever compares them to Jonah will see that they were more obedient than Jonah. It can be even be observed in the book of Acts that the Gentiles were more receptive to the Word than the Jews. God, in every time and generation, has people that fear Him and know Him, and He leads them to the Truth.

As for Jonah’s personality, there are many people who have spoken on this topic. So many people! Some people have supported Jonah, some have attacked him for his actions, and others, sadly — I had a close friend of mine who came and told me that he was talking to a foreign man about this topic. He told him, “Do you believe these things written in the Holy Bible about Jonah? Can it be true?” He also doubted in what the Bible said about Job, “Can all of these catastrophes really befall a person all at once?” He responded, “These are all events recorded in the Bible and written by the inspiration of God.” He told him, “No, it is not so.”

Do not be disturbed when you hear these things. There are many churches abroad now that reject entire books of the Bible. If it is a book that is not logical, it is unacceptable. But, for us, the book of Jonah is among the greatest books in the Bible. It is enough that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke about it. What greater testimony is there than this? They asked for a sign. He told them, “There is one sign that I have drawn a long time ago. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the depths of the Earth for three days and three nights.” If Christ Himself confirmed saying, “Jonah, who was in the Old Testament, is a symbol of Me or is the sign,” how can we contradict this? How do we have the right to question if it was possible for Jonah to fit into the fish’s mouth, or how he was able to breathe inside the belly of the fish or didn’t die? Is this truly a greater problem than presence of the Lord in the depths of the earth for three days and three nights? If we doubt Jonah being in the whale for three days and three nights, then we will also begin to doubt the presence of the Lord in the tomb for three days and three nights.

Beloved, this is our faith. Always be confident and believe that these divine books which we have received today came to us by the sweat and blood of many saints and fathers. Our fathers were invested with the grace of the Holy Spirit and no one in the world was faithful to their book like our fathers. No one was as precise in keeping the tradition of the Old Testament as the Jewish people. Every word written in it is preserved, kept, and written by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is enough that the person of Jonah was a symbol of the Lord Jesus Christ.

As for his personality as a person, or a prophet, it was a very strange personality. This is the nature of a person. He is one condition one hour and a different condition another hour. When you look at his prayer when he is in the belly of the fish, it is filled with confidence and hope that he will get out. He tells him, “I will stand before Your altar.” He even speaks in the past tense as though he has already stood in front of the altar. It is as if Jonah is very assured that he will get out of the belly of the fish and stand before the altar of God. Then, there are bad moments of weakness where, even the pagan mariners, go and tell him, “What is wrong with you? Why are you sleeping? Arise and pray to your God. The ship will sink!” The pagan is crying to God and you, the one who knows God, what is your religion? He told them, “I am a Hebrew who has fled from the face of the Lord. I fear God and have fled from before His face. How can I pray to Him?” Then, Jonah began to pray in the belly of the fish.

These contradictions that we find in the personality of Jonah are present in my personality and yours. God bears with us. One time, we tell Him, “No, we don’t want this.” He says, “I want to send you to Nineveh.” We say, “No, I don’t want to go to Nineveh.” God says, “I am sending you for good” and we say, “But I don’t feel like Your plan for me has any good in it.” I begin to rebel against God and go in the opposite direction. We have all opposed God and walked in the opposite path so many times in our life. He bears with us and is patient.

Nineveh is in the east and Tarshish, which Jonah wants to go to, is towards the west. He is saying to God, “You say east and I will tell you west!” He told him, “Jonah, I love you and have good things in store for you.” He said, “Lord, I don’t want this love of Yours and, honestly, my relationship with You is based purely on fear. So, with any possible means I will flee from You.” So, God causes there to be a storm, helps the mariners, directs the fish to swallow Jonah, and has it cast him once more onto the shore. All of this is God’s care for us. Of course! Does He have anyone more precious than His children? Even when we rebel against Him? Yes, even when we rebel against Him.

But do not be upset – please do not be upset – when God bothers you and sends you something you do not want. He loves you. Do not be upset when He stands in your way. You have something in mind and God does not grant it to you. You tell Him, “I want this. I want to go to the people of Tarshish. They are good and polite people. I don’t want to go to the people of Nineveh.” He says, “No, I will get in your way and close all the open doors.” Believe me, this is God’s care for us. When God gets in my way, I feel that He cares about me. If God leaves me alone to walk in whichever path that I wish, then God does not care for me. So, the troubles that come up in my life and things not going as I want them to is one of the signs of God’s care for me. Sometimes, we say, “I want to see God in my life.” You know how you can see Him? In these obstacles and difficulties that come up in your life, when things do not go as you want. A trial or tribulation comes from a door that you do not expect. Then, you ask, “Why did God do this? I wanted an easy life.” God is preparing you for great things. He is purifying you, cleansing you, teaching you, and you are very important to Him. How can He leave you on your own?

It as David the prophet says, “When I went away from You, I was like a horse, having no understanding. You placed a bridle on him.” This means that the horse was going left and right, but God placed a bridle in its mouth. So, the horse is upset because he is bothered by the bridle. David says that he is adorned with the bridle. You have corrected him and directed him to walk left and right. A horse without a bridle will have a bad destiny. A horse without a bridle is bad and will be destructive. When God adorns it with a bridle, the horse is upset, but it will be good, responsive, useful, and walk in a good path. Would you rather a person be going all over the place without direction or for God to direct him left and right?

Jonah’s personality is not flawed, but is really my personality and your personality. One time, he is walking good with God and another time he is not. So, God reroutes his path or puts pressure on him. All the works of God are good. God cares for him and teaches him. He knows that he is nervous and is easily upset. He tells Him, “How can people repent so quickly. You have humiliated me! You humiliated me in front of the people. How can you accept their repentance after I call them to it?” He says to him, “I will teach you.”

How great are You, O Lord! How longsuffering You are! He is long-suffering. Sometimes, we get upset with God and say, “He waits so long. We ask for something and He waits for such a long time.” Be thankful that God is longsuffering because He waits and is patient with me and you. His longsuffering and waiting for so long on these small materialistic things, it is beneficial for me because if God was not patient and longsuffering with me, and caused me to feel loneliness, I would not have stood before Him for a single moment. I thank God that He is longsuffering and patient. When He is patient and waits for a long time in your ordinary problems, He is the same God and has not changed. Jonah, you are looking at the problem from only one side – your perspective. God is looking at this problem from many sides. He is looking to the children of Nineveh, the animals, the young and old, and Jonah. God is looking at all of those and not just you. He will solve the problem in order to please all of them. But, Jonah wants to please himself, even if it means the destruction of Nineveh. No, God is longsuffering. Just like He is patient with You Jonah – He could have drowned you when you were on the ship and cast you into the depths of the sea. But, because He is longsuffering, He is patient with you and them. Allow God to be longsuffering. We thank You, God, that You are longsuffering.

Jonah’s personality has often been used to show us bad things, but it has actually revealed to us the goodness of God. He stands in our way to bring us back to the good path. He puts bridles in our mouth to adorn us, just like is done to a horse. God is longsuffering and does not desire the death of man, but loves for him to return to Himself. God chose Jonah. This is a great honor. Why are you upset Jonah? He said, “Because God is working with me and He is very hard on me. He tells me to go there and come here.” He could have not taken you at all. He could have chosen anyone else. When God uses you for something good, thank God that He chose you for this work.

The thing that we want to talk about is the prophet. How did God choose Jonah to be a prophet? First, the calling of a prophet is a hard one. Any person that calls people to Christ or speaks about anything good, people do not accept him. But, if someone speaks about something silly or about something materialistic or worldly, the world opens its ears to him, accepts him, and is very pleased with him. When is the world upset with you? When you begin to speak the Word of God, bear witness to the Truth, or walk in the path that is pleasing to God. They are upset. God want us to walk in the narrow path. He wants us to be good prophets. A prophet who does not walk in the path of God is bothered by other people. The prophet is a person that is obedient, submitting to the hand of God. He does not work, but God is the One who works. So, when a person is serving, he should not be upset or quickly irritated because the word of God is hard or does not seem reasonable to him. Let’s not say impossible or unreasonable, but hard.

St. Paul says that the cross of Christ to the Jews is a curse and to the Greeks ignorance. If you spoke to St. Paul about His personality, and asked Him, “Would you rather talk about Christ who raises the dead and performs miracles or Christ crucified?” He will say, “The crucified Christ people do not accept.” I would say, “But you must speak about Christ crucified.” Christ is rejected from the world. He is 100% rejected and not accepted, especially His Cross. This was not just in the time of Christ, but will be to the end. It is not only in countries that do not believe in Christ, but also in those that do. If a person carries his cross, follows Christ, and crucifies his pleasures and lusts, he will also be rejected. The Cross of Christ, the prophet – if I am a prophet and you are a prophet, we carry God’s message, carry His cross in our lives, and enlighten the world- a prophet enlightens the world. He is the salt of the earth. If we carry Christ’s message and His principles and teachings to the world around us, we should immerse ourselves in them even if the outside world rejects it. The Cross of Christ will never be accepted by the world. Never! It will never be accepted by the world! But, we also will not forsake our cross. We will not forsake the mysteries that God has given us in the Bible, even if the world does not accept it.

“How can I talk to the people about this?” Don’t worry about this, Jonah. Are you the one who will change the hearts of the Ninevites or will God change their hearts? You must be calm. All that is required of you is to believe in God, follow the Gospel, carry your cross, make known your Christianity calmly and respectfully, and God is the One who changes the hearts of the Ninevites. It’s not your job. Jonah thought he was going to take on the burden of the Ninevites. Who said that? I do not carry the burden of another, but Christ is the Lamb of God who carries the sins of the whole world. Christ is the One about whom was said that He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. If He had not opened the minds of His disciples, they would not have understood the Holy Scriptures. The disciples of Christ were the first ones to oppose the Cross. Peter told Him, “Far be it from You, Lord!” Who can open people’s hearts and who can change the heart of the Ninevites? Who can lead people and show them the way of Christ? It is not the prophet, but God who uses the prophet. The prophet, then, must be an obedient person, completely obedient to the will of God in him. The prophet does not have to say reasonable things or he is not a prophet. If he is saying things that make people happy or are reasonable to them such as, “God exists and He is good. He wants you to be happy on earth.” He makes them a law to live by on earth and people say, “Great. Thank you.” This is not a prophet.

The prophet carries a spiritual message from Heaven that is generally opposed from the materialistic world. This is why the prophets of the Old Testament were all rejected, without exception. One of them, Isaiah, was sawed in half with a wooden saw. Look at how many times the people complained against Moses. Moses! The one who would bring them and show them things that they could never have dreamed of. They would tell him, “You should have left us in Egypt. You brought us here to kill us in the wilderness.” They always complained and murmured against him. What prophet could be accepted? If he is a prophet that gives them the things that they like, they will surely applaud him and he is not a prophet from God. The prophet from God sends things that are not accepted except by the spiritual person.

What I would like to say to you is not to be upset that you are in the world when the world opposes you. No, on the contrary, all the prophets were opposed. But, you need to have strong faith, be whole on the inside, and rejoice in Christ and His cross. God will take care of all the outside matters. One of the signs of the prophet is that he is a model of Christ. You might say, “Jonah was before Christ.” I tell you that all the prophets that came before Christ were like Him. Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. Joseph the Righteous was sold as a slave by his brothers just like Christ was sold as a slave – also by His brothers. Joseph suffered injustice. Isaac was going to be slain just as Christ was slain. All the prophets of the Old Testament had the fragrance of Christ. This is why Daniel the prophet, when he speaks about the prophecy and is talking about Christ, he says that He is the seal of the prophecy. The prophecy is sealed by Christ because any prophet would bear the message of Christ – just a small portion of it, whatever he could carry. When Christ came, his message was over.

This is why, beloved, when we carry God’s message, are faithful to it, submit and are obedient to it, and leave it all in God’s hand, the traits of Christ begin to appear in our life. In the New Testament, St. Paul speaks about this more clearly and calls it the fragrant aroma of Christ and the likeness of Christ. He says, “You have put on Christ.” The fragrance of Christ exudes from us and, in the end, we become members in the body of Christ and His children. He becomes our heavenly Father. We journey in the world carrying a message, just like Jonah was carrying a message, even though he didn’t understand it in the beginning. This journey will end in us being in the image of God and His children, carrying His message.

This is the personality of Jonah. I do not look at him as merely a person, but as a person, a prophet who was carrying a message. Our church gave great importance to the person of Jonah because when Christ was asked for a sign, He told them, “There is no other sign than that of Jonah the prophet. I will be in the depths of earth for three days and rise.” We fast for three days in Jonah’s fast and there are people who fast with strict abstinence for all three days. We call the feast the Passover of Jonah just as the Holy Bible talks about the passover. Jonah is an exact symbol of Christ. Jonah is very important. They said, “Give us a sign.” He said to them, “No sign will be given except that of Jonah.” I want to see this sign.

This sign, beloved, is Christ Himself — that you die with Christ for three days and rise. This is why the first thing that the Church does for the believer who comes, it tells him you must be purified – baptized. Baptism is being fully immersed — buried — in the water three times. The first step with Christ — pay attention to this point — the first point at which we know Christ and say that we are Christians is saying that you were buried with Christ for three days and rose. This is the sign of Christianity, that we be buried with Christ for three days and rise. Being buried means that we die to our bad life and rise in a new resurrection. It is not we who live, but Christ who lives in us. When we die, we die to the old man and his evil deeds. When we rise, we rise with good works, life in Christ, and the fragrance of Christ. We rise, having the characteristics of Christ. The sign that Christ has placed in every Christian person, in me and you, is the sign of Jonah. The story of Jonah is not a story written in the Old Testament, but one to be lived. We are buried for three days and rise as different people.

Look at Jonah. Before being in the belly of the fish for three days, he was stubborn, going against God, and feared Him. He was in the belly of the whale for three days praying. He returned to God, became obedient, and his life was changed. After he was going west, he started going toward the east. After he walked in opposition to God, he began to walk with Him. This our sign.

We will begin fasting Jonah’s fast tomorrow God-willing. Then, we will remember this. Everyday in the three days we will find the Gospel reading where they are asking for a sign and He says that no sign will be given them except that of Jonah. This sign you can learn in the next three days through your fasting – that you live in the tomb for three days and rise. On the fourth day, you will say that you truly feel the resurrection in your life. Resurrection means a true repentance, the past is buried, and I am a person that has risen from the dead. If, after three days, you do not feel that you have risen after you were buried, then you did not benefit from this fast or the sign of Christ which is the sign of Jonah. Christianity, beloved, is not merely proverbs or teachings. It is a life! Christ, in order to come to us, took on our body and showed us all the steps that we must take. He died that we may die and rose that we may rise. He was buried in the tomb for three days that we may be buried for three days and rise anew. God is able to look down on us from Heaven that our minds, thoughts, and lives may be renewed. After these three days, we will be a new creation and truly feel that we have died and risen.

To God be the glory forever, Amen.