The Narrow Way

It may seem a bit out of the ordinary, but this month my church is going through the book of Jonah for Advent. There are many obvious parallels between Jonah and adult Jesus, but I had never stopped to think about Jonah’s connection to the birth of Christ. Today our pastor spoke on the precision of God’s salvation—both for Jonah and through Jesus.

Orchestrating His creation for His exact goal, God choose one of His created beings (a giant fish/whale) to save/swallow another of His creation (Jonah) from His very creation (the stormy sea). And God knew and guided the fish to be exactly in the right spot (in the whole Mediterranean Sea) at the right moment.

Miraculously, Jonah survived in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights (a foreshadowing of Jesus’s death and resurrection) before God told the whale to vomit Jonah onto dry land.

Some people approach God’s way and call it constricting or too narrow (much like Jonah would have felt inside a giant fish, deep underwater). But my pastor reasoned, “there is nothing claustrophobic about God’s grace—it is precise. Look at the precision of God’s salvation in the Incarnation; the narrowness of a baby.”

Taking this image a step further, I turn to day 4 of the Good News of Great Joy Advent devotional published by Desiring God. John Piper begins by providing context from the gospel of Luke:

“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.” (Luke 2:1–5)

He then says,

“Have you ever thought what an amazing thing it is that God ordained beforehand that the Messiah be born in Bethlehem (as the prophecy in Micah 5:2 shows); and that he so ordained things that when the time came, the Messiah’s mother and legal father were living not in Bethlehem but in Nazareth; and that in order to fulfill his word and bring two unheard-of, insignificant, little people to Bethlehem that first Christmas, God put it in the heart of Caesar Augustus that all the Roman world should be enrolled each in his own town? A decree for the entire world in order to move two people seventy miles! . . . God wields an empire to fulfill his word and bless his children.”

The theme I have chosen for this second week of Advent is Rejection and Refinement. As Jonah waded in all the stomach juices of the giant fish, He could have thrown himself the largest pity party and focused on God’s apparent rejection. But instead, something miraculous happened—Jonah’s heart finally turned to prayer. The prayer recorded in Jonah 2 was composed in the most rejected circumstances, but God’s spirit enabled it to be a time of refinement for Jonah.

The road to Bethlehem and Jesus’ birth was far from easy for Mary and Joseph. Mary was almost stoned for being pregnant before marrying Joseph. Joseph’s reputation was put to the test. The literal road to Bethlehem was long and treacherous. They arrived in their census town and found there was nowhere to stay, except with the animals. Mary gave birth in a setting far less clean and comfortable than she was probably expecting.

I’ve been re-listening to the audiobook of Madeleine L’Engle’s chapter book, Meet the Austins. Within the first chapters, the family experiences the sudden death of a family friend. Trying to reconcile what they know about life and death, Vicky Austin and her brother drive out to Hawk Mountain with their mom to look at the stars. Mrs. Austin says, when horrible things happen, “sometimes it's very hard to see the hand of God, instead of the blind finger of chance.”

How could all the little things that had to come together for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem happen by chance? The precision points to the very nature of God’s miraculous hands. Luke says that Mary treasured all these things in her heart. She was a smart cookie, I’m sure she noticed the intricate weaving of God’s plan as she sat with a sleeping Jesus swaddled in her arms.

The narrow way is not one of rejection. It is a journey of faithful refinement and grace.