In a calm but commanding voice, he directed the scattered congregation to move closer together.
“Starboard side, move over! Larboard side, shift across! Come toward the middle. Everyone, fill the center!”
The sailors moved their heavy boots across the floor. The women quietly shuffled their shoes.
Then the chapel became silent again.
Every eye was fixed on Father Mapple.
He paused for a moment.
Then he knelt at the front of the pulpit, folded his large brown hands over his chest, and raised his closed eyes toward heaven.
He began to pray.
His prayer was so deep and sincere that he seemed to be kneeling somewhere far below the surface of the ocean, speaking directly to God from the bottom of the sea.
When the prayer ended, he began to sing a hymn in a slow, solemn voice.
His voice sounded like the bell of a ship sinking in thick fog.
But as he reached the final verses, his voice suddenly grew stronger. The sadness turned into joy and triumph.
“The whale closed around me, and darkness covered me completely. I thought I was sinking toward death, with no hope of escape. I saw the gates of hell before me, filled with suffering no one can understand unless they have experienced it themselves. I was falling into despair. In my darkest moment, I called upon God, even though I could barely believe He would hear me. But He listened to my cry, and the whale could not hold me forever. God came quickly to save me, shining with power and glory. His presence was terrifying, yet brighter than lightning. I will remember that terrible and wonderful moment forever. The mercy and power belong to God, and to Him alone I give the glory.”
Almost everyone joined the singing.
Their voices rose above the howling storm outside.
When the hymn ended, there was a brief silence.
Father Mapple slowly turned the pages of the Bible until he found the passage he wanted. He placed his hand firmly on the page.
Then he said:
“My friends, let us begin with the final verse of the first chapter of Jonah: ‘God had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah.’”
He looked across the congregation.
“My fellow sailors, the Book of Jonah is only four chapters long. Compared with the whole Bible, it is one of the smallest pieces of the great story.”
“But what a deep lesson it contains!”
“Jonah’s story takes us straight into the darkest parts of the human soul. His prayer from inside the fish is powerful and unforgettable. You can almost feel the waves crashing over you, the seaweed wrapping around you, and the cold mud of the ocean floor beneath you.”
“So what does Jonah teach us?”
“There are actually two lessons.”
“The first is a lesson for every sinful human being.”
“The second is a lesson for me, because I am a servant and messenger of God.”
“As sinners, we can see the whole story in Jonah: his deliberate disobedience, his stubbornness, his sudden fear, his punishment, his repentance, his prayers, and finally his rescue and joy.”
“Jonah’s sin began with one simple thing. God gave him a command, and Jonah didn’t want to obey it.”
“I won’t bother you with the exact command or how God delivered it. What matters is that Jonah found it difficult.”
“And remember this: the things God asks us to do are often difficult.”
“That is why God sometimes commands us rather than simply trying to persuade us.”
“If we truly obey God, we must sometimes disobey ourselves.”
“And that is the hardest part.”
“Jonah didn’t stop with disobedience. He went even further and tried to run away from God.”
“He imagined that a ship could carry him somewhere so far away that God’s authority would no longer reach him.”
“So he went down to the port of Joppa and searched for a ship sailing to Tarshish.”
“Now, where was Tarshish?”
“Most learned men believe it was the city we now call Cádiz, in Spain.”
“And where is Cádiz?”
“It lies more than two thousand miles west of Joppa, beyond the Strait of Gibraltar.”
“In those ancient days, that was about as far away as Jonah could possibly travel by sea.”
“Do you see what Jonah was trying to do?”
“He wasn’t merely leaving town.”
“He was trying to run from God as far as the world would allow.”
“Poor Jonah!”
“Look at him sneaking around the harbor with his head down and his eyes full of guilt. He looks like a thief trying to escape the country.”
“If policemen had existed in those days, they might have arrested him simply because he looked suspicious.”
“He had no luggage, no friends saying goodbye, and nothing that suggested a normal traveler.”
“At last, after searching around the harbor, he found a ship preparing to leave for Tarshish.”
“Jonah stepped aboard and went to speak with the captain.”
“The sailors stopped what they were doing and watched him.”
“There was something about his face that made them suspicious.”
“One sailor might have whispered, ‘That man looks like he robbed a widow.’”
“Another might have said, ‘Keep an eye on him. He could be a bigamist.’”
“A third might have joked, ‘Perhaps he’s a murderer who escaped from prison.’”
“They were joking, but they weren’t entirely comfortable with him.”
“Jonah himself noticed their looks, but he tried to appear relaxed.”
“He smiled as though everything were perfectly normal.”
“But the harder he tried to look innocent, the more suspicious he appeared.”
“Eventually, the sailors realized that he wasn’t the criminal they were looking for, so they let him pass.”
“Jonah went below to meet the captain.”
“Who is it?” the captain called from his desk.
He was busy preparing the ship’s papers.
Jonah almost turned around and ran again.
But he forced himself to stay.
“I’d like to buy passage to Tarshish,” Jonah said. “When will the ship leave?”
The captain finally looked up.
“We’ll leave with the next tide.”
“Not sooner?”
“That will be soon enough for any honest passenger.”
That answer must have struck Jonah like another blow.
He quickly changed the subject.
“I’ll go with you. How much is the fare? I can pay you now.”
The Bible makes a special point of saying that Jonah paid the fare before the ship left.
That detail matters.
The captain was the kind of man who could recognize a criminal, but he was much more concerned about criminals who had no money.
In this world, a sinner who can pay often travels freely.
A poor honest man, however, may have trouble crossing any border.
So the captain decided to find out just how much money Jonah had before judging him openly.
He charged Jonah three times the normal fare.
Jonah agreed immediately.
Now the captain was almost certain that Jonah was running from something.
But he was willing to help him escape because Jonah’s money made the journey worthwhile.
Even then, the captain remained suspicious.
He examined Jonah’s coins one by one, checking whether any were counterfeit.
“No, he’s not a counterfeiter,” the captain muttered.
Jonah was accepted as a passenger.
“Show me my room,” Jonah said. “I’m exhausted. I need to sleep.”
“You certainly look exhausted,” the captain replied. “That’s your room.”
Jonah went inside and tried to lock the door.
But there was no key.
The captain heard him struggling with the lock and quietly laughed to himself.
“Prison cells don’t usually let the prisoners lock themselves in,” he muttered.
Jonah was still dressed in his travel clothes, dusty and tired.
He threw himself onto the small bed.
The ceiling was so low that it seemed almost close enough to touch his forehead.
The air was hot and unpleasant.
Jonah could hardly breathe.
And there, inside that cramped little room below the ship’s waterline, he seemed to sense the suffocating prison that awaited him inside the whale.
A small lamp hung from the side of the room.
It swung slightly as the ship leaned toward the dock under the weight of the last cargo being loaded.
Strangely, although the lamp itself remained upright, it looked crooked compared with the room.
Jonah stared at it.
The floor looked crooked.
The ceiling looked crooked.
The walls seemed crooked.
Everything appeared out of balance.
The lamp frightened him because it seemed to expose something inside him.
“Oh God,” he whispered, “that’s exactly how my conscience feels.”
“The lamp is straight, but everything around it is crooked.”
“My conscience knows the truth, but my soul is completely out of balance.”
Jonah tossed and turned in his narrow bed.
He was like a man who had spent the night drinking and then crawled into bed while still dizzy, except that his problem wasn’t alcohol.
His conscience was tormenting him.
He wanted to escape the pain of knowing what he had done.
He almost wished he could simply stop existing until the suffering passed.
But there was no way to silence his conscience.
The wound was inside him, and nothing could bandage it.
After a long struggle, Jonah finally sank into a deep, miserable sleep.
Soon the tide arrived.
The ship released its ropes and pulled away from the harbor.
The vessel carrying Jonah toward Tarshish moved out to sea, leaving the harbor behind.
In a sense, that ship was carrying the first recorded smuggled cargo.
And the contraband was Jonah himself.
But the sea refused to accept him.
A terrible storm suddenly rose.
The ship was tossed violently by the waves and seemed ready to break apart.
The sailors rushed to save it.
Boxes, barrels, and cargo were thrown overboard to make the ship lighter.
The wind screamed.
The men shouted.
Their boots thundered across the deck.
The entire ship shook beneath them.
And through all of it, Jonah slept.
He saw none of the black clouds.
He felt nothing of the violent waves.
He barely heard the desperate cries of the sailors.
He didn’t even seem to notice that the great whale was already somewhere in the stormy ocean, coming toward him with its enormous mouth open.
Jonah had gone deep into the ship and fallen into a heavy sleep.
Finally, the captain found him.
He shouted directly into Jonah’s ear.
“What are you doing, sleeping at a time like this? Get up!”
Jonah woke in terror.
He stumbled onto the deck and grabbed one of the ropes.
Then he looked out at the sea.
At that exact moment, a huge wave crashed over the side of the ship.
Another wave followed.
Then another.
Water poured across the deck and rushed from one end of the ship to the other.
The sailors were nearly drowning even though they were still aboard.
Whenever the moon briefly appeared between the black clouds, Jonah could see the ship’s bow rise high into the air before crashing violently back toward the sea.
Terror filled him.
Now everyone could see that something was wrong with him.
The sailors watched Jonah more closely.
Their suspicions grew stronger.
Finally, they decided to find out who was responsible for the terrible storm.
They cast lots.
The lot fell on Jonah.
The sailors immediately surrounded him.
“Who are you?”
“What do you do?”
“Where did you come from?”
“What country are you from?”
“What people do you belong to?”
But notice what happened next.
They only asked Jonah who he was and where he came from.
Yet Jonah gave them an answer to a question they hadn’t even asked.
God’s hand was already forcing the truth out of him.
“I am a Hebrew,” Jonah cried.
Then he added:
“I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.”
“Then you have every reason to fear Him!” Father Mapple declared. “Especially now!”
Jonah finally confessed everything.
The sailors were horrified.
Yet they still felt sorry for him.
Jonah had not yet asked God to forgive him. He knew that he deserved what was happening.
Instead, he turned to the sailors.
“Throw me into the sea,” he told them. “I know this storm is happening because of me.”
But the sailors refused to do it.
They tried even harder to save the ship without sacrificing Jonah.
Nothing worked.
The storm only grew worse.
Finally, with one hand raised toward heaven, the sailors reluctantly took hold of Jonah.
They lifted him up like a heavy anchor.
Then they threw him into the sea.
Immediately, the storm stopped.
The sea became strangely calm.
It was as though Jonah had taken the storm down with him.
Jonah sank into the violent water.
Then the great whale appeared.
Its enormous jaws opened beneath him.
Its teeth closed around him like a prison made of white iron.
Jonah was swallowed alive.
And from inside the belly of the fish, he prayed to God.
But listen carefully to his prayer.
This is where we learn an important lesson.
Jonah didn’t cry out, “God, save me immediately!”
He understood that his punishment was deserved.
He didn’t demand an escape.
He left his fate in God’s hands.
Even while suffering terribly, he promised that he would continue to look toward God’s holy temple.
That was true repentance.
Real repentance doesn’t simply shout, “Forgive me and take away my punishment!”
Sometimes true repentance means accepting the punishment you deserve and still trusting God.
And God eventually rescued Jonah from both the sea and the whale.
So, my friends, I am not holding Jonah up as an example of how we should behave when tempted to sin.
I hold him up as an example of how we should repent when we have sinned.
Do not sin.
But if you do, then repent as Jonah did.
While Father Mapple spoke, the storm outside continued to scream against the chapel.
The sound seemed to give his words even greater power.
When he described Jonah caught in the storm, he seemed to be caught in one himself.
His chest rose and fell like the movement of the ocean.
His arms moved as though the forces of wind and water were fighting around him.
His dark face seemed to thunder with emotion.
His eyes flashed with such intensity that the simple sailors sitting before him felt a strange mixture of fear and awe.
Then he suddenly became quiet.
He slowly turned through the pages of the Bible again.
At last, he stood completely still with his eyes closed.
For a moment, he seemed to be speaking silently with God—and with his own conscience.
Then he leaned toward the congregation.
He bowed his head with deep humility, but there was nothing weak about him.
When he spoke again, his voice was low and serious.
“My fellow sailors, God has placed only one hand upon you.”
“But both of His hands are pressing down upon me.”
“I have shown you the lesson Jonah teaches every sinner.”
“And that lesson applies to me even more than it does to you, because I am a greater sinner.”
“I wish I could climb down from this pulpit and sit among you.”
“I would rather listen to one of you explain the other, more difficult lesson Jonah teaches me as a servant of God.”
“Jonah had been chosen to speak God’s truth.”
“God sent him to the wicked city of Nineveh and commanded him to warn its people.”
“But Jonah was afraid of what would happen when he spoke the truth.”
“He feared the hostility he would face.”
“So instead of doing his duty, he ran.”
“He went to Joppa and boarded a ship, hoping he could escape both his mission and his God.”
“But God is everywhere.”
“Jonah never reached Tarshish.”
“God found him in the middle of the ocean.”
“He was swallowed by the whale and carried down into the darkest depths.”
“The sea closed over him.”
“Water surrounded him.”
“Seaweed wrapped around his head.”
“He was trapped in a world of darkness and suffering.”
“Yet even there, at the very bottom of the sea, God heard him when he finally repented.”
“God commanded the whale.”
“And the great creature rose from the cold darkness of the ocean and came up toward the sunlight.”
“Then it brought Jonah back to land and threw him onto the shore.”
“God gave Jonah the same command again.”
“And this time Jonah obeyed.”
“He went to Nineveh and spoke the truth to people who did not want to hear it.”
“That is the second lesson.”
“That is the lesson for me.”
“And woe to any servant of God who ignores it!”
“Woe to the man who allows the pleasures of this world to distract him from his duty!”
“Woe to the man who tries to calm the waters when God Himself has raised the storm!”
“Woe to the man who would rather make people comfortable than confront them with the truth!”
“Woe to the man who cares more about his reputation than about being good!”
“Woe to the man who refuses to accept disgrace when speaking the truth requires it!”
“And woe to the man who would rather tell a lie than suffer for telling the truth!”
“Even the Apostle Paul warned of the danger of preaching to others while failing to live by your own teaching.”
For a moment, Father Mapple seemed overcome by his own words.
Then he lifted his face again.
His eyes were shining with joy.
“But, my fellow sailors, every sorrow has a greater joy waiting beyond it!”
“The highest point of that joy rises even higher than the deepest point of suffering.”
“Isn’t the top of a ship’s mast far above its keel?”
“There is great joy in standing firmly as yourself, even when the powerful people of this world demand that you surrender your conscience.”
“There is joy in standing strong when the corrupt ship of this world sinks beneath you.”
“There is joy in refusing to compromise the truth.”
“Let the truth destroy every sin, even if that sin is hiding beneath the robes of judges and powerful politicians.”
“The greatest joy belongs to the person who recognizes no higher authority than God.”
“Such a person may belong to this world, but his true loyalty is to heaven.”
“And there is eternal joy for the person who can face death and say:”
“Father, I have learned to know You through Your discipline.”
“I am dying here, but I have tried to belong to You rather than to this world—or even to myself.”
“And now I leave eternity in Your hands.”
“For what is a human life compared with the eternal life of God?”
Father Mapple said nothing more.
He slowly raised his hand and gave the congregation his blessing.
Then he covered his face with both hands.
He remained there, kneeling in silence, until every person had left the chapel.
