Three Minutes

Several years ago I was a volunteer hospice chaplain. One of the reasons I did so was curiosity. I wanted to know how if deathbed confessions--people who repent in their last moments—were common.
Deathbed confessions do not happen as often as we'd like to think. Most people who are running from God run to the last. Most people come in and out of conciousness at the end. Others die suddenly, without warning. Still others get only a small warning, and there is not enough time for sincere reflection.
So if you're one of those people who thinks he can get right with God at the end, after ignoring Him for a lifetime, think again! It is much more likely that you will run out of time.
Take, (for example) a drowning victim. Drowning is a process that takes about three minutes in normal temperatures. If a drowning victim falls into cold water, it triggers the "diving reflect" which slows the heart rate and allows a victim to survive up to ten minutes, but loss of consciousness results almost immediately. A drowning victim, before he passes out goes into a state of panic, desperately reaching for a path to the surface, all he can think about is getting air. It is doubtful that that moment affords us much time to think of repentance and believe.
This is the situation that faced the prophet Jonah. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach to the Assyrians. Jonah hated the Assyrians. He did not want them to be saved—he wanted them dead. Jonah resisted God literally to his last death. He jumped on a ship bound for Tarsish. When his ship started to go down, Jonah refused to call on his God, Jonah chose to die in disobedience. Jonah went over the side to die in the open sea.
Jonah had three minutes to live. The waters swirled around him, the wind howled. The waved rose like mountains over his head. He bobbed up and down, going under, hitting the surface, spitting salt water out of his lungs. He cried for help, but there was no one to hear. Only the howling wind answered him.
Then Jonah went down for the last time. His feet became entangled in seaweed. This was the end. There was no hope.
We don't know what kind of fish swallowed Jonah. The kind need not concern us. God made a big fish. That's all we need to know.
The means need not concern us. What is more important is the why. Why did God make a big fish to rescue Jonah. It would have been easier for God to make another prophet. Jonah was not the only man who could have gone to Ninevah.
But this is the mercy of God at work. He doesn't just throw people away. He uses people, even disobedient people, The point of the story is not to impress us with the anatomical particulars of sea monsters, but to show us that even at the end of live, in our last three minutes, God is still there, and we can still have hope.
As a pastor, I hear stories of near death experiences. I have heard of men dying on the battlefield being visited by angels, who told them that there was a purpose for their lives. One person told me of being in a car accident, and seeing angels in the back seat as their car flew into a ditch, and how they escaped unharmed. I have talked to people who died on an operating table, only to be brought back to earth.
This was a near-death experience. He was dead, but he was made alive.
God often does this, so often, in fact, that the one of the central rituals of our faith near death experience. Baptism is a symbol of the death and beginning. The only difference between Jonah's experience and the one who is baptized is the length of time he was under the water. He did not submit willingly, so it took him a while to fully let go of his stubbornness.
So God sometimes lets us die so that we can live. But here is the unusual part. Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale. Why? God could have just as easily removed him immediately from danger. But what was the purpose of the three days?
This is not an idle question. We face this question regularly. We have an operation, and are stuck in bed for weeks. We can't understand why we aren't getting up and doing wha we were before. We decide on the one we want to marry, but we have to wait anyway. We finally get a new job, but we have to wait for the first paycheck. It seems unfair that God would make us wait, when the solution is already at hand.
We live in a time of instant gratification. But the answers usually take longer and are harder than we ever thought. We lose one job and expect to go right into another. We lose one spouse and expect to find another right around the corner, when in reality it might take us months or years to find ourselves restored.
The book of Job is a good example. Job loses his family, his fortune, and his health then regains it all. But in between the losing and regaining are forty chapters of agony.
God left Jonah in the belly of a fish for three days and three nights for a reason. The whale's belly was a school. He was learning during this time.
First he was learning patience. Patience is the ability to wait in stillness.
Patience is not doing nothing. But what patience is is a belief that God is on the way. We do no panic in the face of a crisis. We do not decide to take matters into our own hands. If God has not given us the answer yet, he is still on our way. While we wait, we rejoice. We learn to appreciate God's presence in the stillness of the moment. Jonah sang in the belly of the whale as he waited for God's perfect time.
When a person is drowning, panic sets in. If you approach a drowning victim too early, he will drag you down with him, because he starts to strike out at anything around him, hopig to gain something to hold onto. Many potential lifesavers have been lost themselves by getting too close to a panicking victim. So we have to wait until the person drowning can no longer resist. Eventually, we get to the place where we can relax and let ourselves be saved.
He was also learning obedience. After chapter 2 Jonah never again refuses to do anything God commanded. He may complain and whine, but he learned it is foolish to resist God. First God works on his attitudes towards Him. Then he works on his attitudes towards others.
If you tell drunkard that he should not drink, he will not change. It is only when the alcoholic comes to a place where he realizes that he cannot drink. People do not change until their wills are broken. Only God in His mercy can bring us to the place of repentance.
He was also learning hope. Twice in this passage we hear Jonah talking about his hope for the future:

I said, 'I have been banished from your sight;
yet I will look again toward your holy temple. (vs. 4)

But I, with a song of thanksgiving,
will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
Salvation comes from the LORD." (vs 9)

It is strange to hear Jonah singing about the future when it is hard imagine him having a future. He was already fish food. What future could he possibly have?
Jonah should be dead already, but he is not. He has been granted life for a reason. There was a purpose God has for him. His hope for the future is based on God's work in the past.
In I Samuel 7. Israel came together to pray at a place called Mizpah. While they were there, the Philistines planned to massacre them. Before they could pounce, God send thunder, causing the Philistines to panic. He delivered them from certain defeat.
Samuel ordered that a stone be erected and called the stone "Ebenezer"—"this far has the Lord delivered us." From that time on, whenever Israel doubted God's ability to protect, they could look back and remember that at this spot, God's words rang true.
Thus far had the Lord delivered Jonah, too. In the last three minutes, he was saved from death. In three days, he was not digested. In spite of his failing and sins, God had not abandoned him. Why not believe that God has a higher calling for you, too?