Secret Santa

As Christmas approaches, some of the traditions surrounding the holiday come to mind. In the workplace, attempts are made by the few, in order to bolster the Christmas spirit of the many, to institute some pretty silly ideas (in my opinion) like Secret Santa. To the uninitiated, Secret Santa involves placing a number of secret gifts so that the recipient you have picked by chance will find them without knowing who purchased and placed the gifts. At times messages are sent, perhaps unintentionally, to the recipient. One such gift that I received many years ago is still on my bookshelf. It is a copy of the Boy Scout Handbook. The message being sent was that I should stop being such a “boy scout” and stop trying to please so many people and to be a little less efficient or should I dare say it, prepared. The international motto of the Boy Scouts was and I suspect still is “Be prepared.” The message was a veiled insult that I still consider a compliment.

The word “prepared” shows up four times in the very brief Book of Jonah. Jonah is known of course by most children who have ever attended Sunday School or even watched a VeggieTale movie as the man who was swallowed by the whale and after three days deposited back on dry land by the whale. Adult Bible believing readers know Jonah as one of the most unwilling, yet successful evangelists in all history. The Lord forced him to bring dire warnings to the people of the city of Nineveh and at least one hundred and twenty thousand citizens listened, repented and were saved. Such was his distaste for evangelistic work that Jonah wasn’t the least bit happy even with his own success and complained bitterly about it.

In verse 17 of Chapter 1 of the Book of Jonah, we read the following very well known verse.

17 Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

The LORD also prepared a plant to shade Jonah after his work was done (Jonah 4:6), a worm to eat the plant to take away that shade (Jonah 4: 7) and finally a “vehement east wind” (Jonah 4:8) in order to get Jonah’s very close attention so that He could teach him a very valuable lesson in setting his evangelistic priorities. Jesus Himself, when the Pharisees ask for a sign, tells us that Jonah is the only sign they will see. We read this in Matthew 12: 39-41.

39 But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
40 "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
41 "The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.

As Jonah spent three days in the great fish, so Jesus spent three days in the grave. As Jesus was resurrected in three days, so Jonah was rescued from the stomach of the whale in three days. As Jonah, albeit unwillingly, sought to prophesy and preach, so did Jesus. Jesus also tells us that the people of Nineveh listened to Jonah and repented, but even “one greater than he”, who is of course Jesus, could not convince the hard hearted Jewish leaders of His day.

The definition of the word “prepared” suggests determination and resolve in making ready to complete a task. It is evident to me that God the Father was prepared to sacrifice His Son for our salvation. Happily for us, God the Son was prepared to do just that. Now we can take great solace that Jesus has gone to heaven in order to prepare a place there for us and indeed He is prepared even as I write this morning to come back and take us personally to heaven. Are you prepared to receive Him?

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