Germans have a great word for the feeling of satisfaction you have when someone else experiences pain. It’s called schadenfreude. Pleasure at pain. Let me explain.
You’re
cruising along Zac Lentz loop when a turned-up Dodge Charger roars by you. A
couple miles down the road, you see a DPS Trooper writing a ticket to the
driver. A smile creeps across your face. That’s schadenfreude. Or, you’ve been working up the courage to ask a girl
out at school when another guy swoops in and asks her out instead. Schadenfreude is what you feel when he
fails his math class and his dad cancels all his future dates for a month. When
your sister, who always seems to skate by, suddenly gets caught cutting corners
while you get praised, you feel schadenfreude.
Pleasure at someone else’s pain.
Jonah
is loaded up on schadenfreude. Here
he was, a faithful Israelite, a son of Abraham, called by God to preach to the
Israel’s most feared enemy, the Assyrians and in their capitol city,
nonetheless. “Call out against it the message that I tell you,” God said. “Yet
forty days and Ninevah shall be overthrown.” Eight words: possibly the shortest sermon in
the history of the world. Eight words…what can eight words do?
Both
preachers and hearers of God’s Word know it’s majesty. God’s Word is a
remarkable gift. It is all powerful. When God’s Word is spoken, everything
obeys. From the “Let there be” that God thundered into the hollow nothingness
in Genesis one, to the “Be still” that Jesus uttered into the winds tearing
apart the Sea of Galilee; from the prophets of old to the evangelists of today
who cry out “Repent,” God’s Word is powerful and active, as sharp as any
two-edged sword (Heb. 4:12), containing both Law, which shows our sins, and
Gospel, which shows our Savior. Together, the whole counsel of God.
At
Ninevah, the eight word message from God is crystal clear: In seven of those words, Jonah says that in
forty days, Ninevah – the power center of the Assyrians – will be destroyed. That
is the Law, remember. It is good. It is holy. It identifies the sin and the
curse that will follow. The Law leaves you hopeless and without means of
rescue. The Law leaves you alone.
Jonah
just got to preach a wonderful message of bold, powerful, 200-proof Law to the
enemies of God’s people and now he’s going to have front row seats for when God
exacts his full wrathful vengeance on these terrible sinners. He, Jonah the
Israelite, will get to watch Ninevah get exactly what it deserves as enemies of
Israel and enemies of God. Schadenfreude…remember?
At
Ninevah, seven of the eight words from God are crystal clear Law.
But
there is one word, one-eighth of the sermon, literally, just a kernel, where there
is a nugget of Gospel-hope. It’s the word, “yet.” The Gospel is God’s antidote
to the Law. Gospel literally means Good News, and it is the Good News that God
will not leave you to the destruction you deserve. God will intervene out of
His mercy for broken people and He will not let them die eternally. In His
grace, He will offer forgiveness and life to people who do not deserve it.
“Yet…”
That one word is the entirety of the Gospel preached by Jonah. “Yet” is not the
full, fleshed out Gospel. A more accurate Hebrew translation would be “A
continuance for forty more days, but then the city will be destroyed.” There is
nothing about a Savior. There is nothing about Messiah who is to come. There is
nothing about mercy or grace that is specifically stated. There is no
connection to the promises of God made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that are
waiting to be fulfilled in the fulness of time when Christ takes on flesh for us. But that one word, yet, is
loaded full of the mercy of God. He does not desire Ninevah would be destroyed.
His desire is that they repent, turn, change their hearts so that the entirety
of His grace and mercy can be received by the people. Yet: it stands against
the sure certainty of the Law and offer – literally – a word of hope.
Remember:
God’s Word does what it will accomplish. The Holy Spirit, at work in the words
of the prophet, does what only He is able to do: he breaks the hard hearts of
the Ninevites. When the people of Ninevah hear these words of God, they repent.
To demonstrate their sorrow, they put on sackcloth – think burlap – and fast
from eating. The king, likewise, hears every word of Jonah’s message from God. He,
too, repents and orders the nation into a state of penance where neither animal
nor person eats or drinks. He calls people to repent and turn away from their
sinfulness, their evilness and violence.
And then holding God to his one-word Gospel promise, he says, “Who
knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may
not perish.”
You
are familiar with the story of Jonah and the great fish and God’s miraculous
saving of Jonah. This is an even greater miracle: that they believe the Word of
the Lord and trust in what is only a crumb of mercy. You notice the change of
heart: it’s a complete reversal of both behavior and lifestyle, turning away
from their old way of heathen living and toward God and his mercy. The change
is so great that they even go above and beyond what is commanded: where God
demands they turn from their evil way, the people of Ninevah demonstrate it
with sackcloth and fasting. The people of Ninevah are saved – not because they
suddenly become good people. They are saved because of the promise of God
contained in “yet.”
Make
no mistake: schadenfreude, pleasure
in someone’s pain, is not just a guilty pleasure. It’s a guilty, sinful mindset
and hardness of heart that stands 180 degrees contra the mercy and grace of
God. Listen to the words you speak, the voice in your head as you think of
other people. We watch the news to see what is happening in Washington and take
satisfaction that a politician is forced to resign in shame over sexual
misconduct while secretly hiding our own use of internet porn. With an arrogant
high that comes from juicing on schadenfreude,
we take sideways, self-righteous glances at people whose marriages are
troubled, we look down our noses at parents whose children don’t behave the way
ours did thirty years ago, and we self-righteously whisper, “You know…he likes
his beer,” or “Her momma was that way, too,” and “what else can you expect?” all
the while patting ourselves on the back for not being like those people.
What
if Jonah stood here this morning and said, “Yet forty days and Mission Valley
would be destroyed,”? Check your heart. More than that, repent and ask the Holy
Spirit to change your heart and break its hardness toward others. We are not
called to be self-righteous lawyers, building up ourselves over and against
someone else’s pain.
The
cure for our pleasure in someone else’s pain is God’s pleasure for us. Isaiah
53:10 says that it was the pleasure of God to crush [the Messiah]; he has put
him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt….” It is the
pleasure of God to substitute His only begotten, sinless Son for the sins of
the world. Christ has taken your schadenfreude
into himself. He, without any self-righteous arrogance, did not consider
Himself above anyone. He, who humbled Himself to kneel before sinners and serve
those who turned their backs to Him, yet He was obedient even unto death on the
cross to die for you. It was his pleasure as God’s Son to take your pain – all
of it.
Evidence
of this is in the three-day sign of Jonah. Not in Jonah being swallowed by the
whale and being spit up three days later, but in Jesus being swallowed by the
grave and his resurrection three days later. And now you, baptized into this
sign of Jonah, this death and resurrection of Jesus, are also called - not to
be a prophet, but to live out the “yet” of the Gospel. Yet, while you were
still a sinner, Christ died – and rose – for you. You don’t have to go to a
foreign, enemy country; you live the Gospel right here: in your home, in your
place of business, where you shop, where you conduct your daily work, where you
play. You, who have received mercy, are called to be distributors of mercy;
providers of mercy; purveyors of the hope that is given to us to share through
Christ.
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