Resurrection

Back in the early days of the Lord’s activity among his people, the Lord appointed a prophet, Jonah to call to the people a great city, Ninevah, to tell them about Lord, Creator of the Universe. Jonah was instructed to notify those people about their need for repentance and the Lord’s expectation that they would turn to the Lord for help and salvation. But Jonah was not into it, so he got on a boat and sailed westward with a crew of merchant seamen. Thanks for reading Carey's Snippets! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. But a big storm arose and the ship was about to go down. The captain convened the crew and the passengers; his chosen strategy to save the ship was to lighten its load by throwing stuff overboard. Meanwhile, back at the back of his mind, Jonah was realizing that it was because of his disobedience that all this peril was enveloping these other guys. So he wised up and he told the captain that the storm was the Lord’s judgement against his own damn self, and that if they just tossed him overboard, all would be well with them. And so it happened.

Then Jonah was swallowed by a great sea fish—must have been a whale—and he was in the belly of the whale for 3 days. But then a funny thing happened on the way to the rest of history. The whale coughed Jonah up onto dry land. Then, by ’n by, Jonah did what he was supposed to have done in the first place. He went to Ninevah and spoke to the people there about their need to get right with God. Many years went by. Jesus Christ of Nazareth was born of a virgin, grew up in the Galilee region of what is now the nation of Israel. Jesus made good use of His time. He maintained His relationship with His Father, the Lord of the Universe; He trekked all around the land that is now called Israel/Palestine. He walked trails and Roman roads from Dan to Beersheeba, so to speak. But then He got into trouble with some hyper-religious people who prevailed upon the powers that be—the Roman occupiers of Judea—to solve their problem of having to deal with this old-fashioned prophet troublemaker. . . and so they did. The Romans hung Him up on a cross. I believe this is where it happened;

He died; but on the third day He was raised up,

and all of his disciples and apostles were flabberghasted but they finally figured out what they were supposed to do, which is to say, to spread the gospel of the good news of Jesus’ atoning death and His Resurrection, y’all! . . . which they did, which is why we know about all of that history now in the year 2025. While Jesus had been walking on the face of the earth, he had told the people that the sign of His perfect work that would be given—and had been given— for all people to believe and to comprehend, which is. . . envelope please. . . the sign of the prophet Jonah! Three days as good as dead in the belly of a tomb and then bouncing back into Life again! And if you believe that, I’ve got some real estate in heaven that we’ll develop together. That’s a pretty good deal; don’t ya think? a Whale of a Deal! if you ask me. King of Soul