![]() Jesus himself saw these parallels, talking about the sign of Jonah (Matt. Jonah went to the brink of death, and Jesus into death itself and both emerged by the grace of God. The early church saw strong parallels between Jesus and Jonah, because both went down to the Pit, the depths of the earth. It’s the picture of Jonah being thrown into the sea. But the burial is juxtaposed with another image at the corner of the page, let’s look at it more closely. It shows the burial of Christ as its main picture. Interestingly, in early Christian art the most frequently illustrated Old Testament story is the story of Jonah! Of all the stories in the Hebrew Bible, this is the one that resonated with them most! This first slide is from a prayer book made for the Duke of Burgundy in the 1400s. They try to get to the heart of the story by the way they picture what is happening. ![]() In the first part I want to look at some artist’s depictions of Jonah and in the second part we’ll look more specifically at the prayer that composes chapter two.įor millennia artists have been illustrating the Bible. The translatability of this story to today’s world, combined with the vivid imagery may explain why this story has had such lasting power in our culture. Going to the depths and coming up again…that’s something all human beings can relate to, even today. Jonah descends to the depths in this story, but he arrives, by the end of chapter two, at the surface alive again, by the grace of God. Jonah faces Sheol, the Under-world, the Pit. The deep surrounds him at the roots of the mountains. Finally Jonah goes down into the water, he is cast into the deep. Jonah goes down to Joppa, down to the port, down below the deck of the ship and lying down, he falls into a deep sleep. The Hebrew words for down and deep are used over and over again in Chapters 1 & 2. Today’s scripture shows a man who is very down. ![]()
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