Smooth Sailing

"For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth"- Matthew 12:40 (NIV).

The amount of days and nights was the only commonality between those two events. Jonah had been running from God, finally obeyed God, and then was mad at God's decision to spare Nineveh; unless it was Jonah's decision to tell the crew of the ship, tossed about in the storm, to throw him overboard; he was the cause of their plight and only with his removal could they be saved. In truth, that was a sacrifice. We know where Jonah was those three days and nights, but Jesus wasn't in the belly of a fish. The doxology says Jesus descended into hell. Hell is complete separation from God. That's the punishment for sin: death and separation. We usually only think of His death on Easter, but we need to remember the separation. It wasn't just on Good Friday, it was for three days. There is no temptation known to man that Jesus did not also endure, but He did experience something believers will never experience; Jesus experienced hell. Our life may feel like a ship tossed about in the storm, but with Jesus our future is promised to be smooth sailing.