hope for genocidal maniacs means hope for you and me

“For I knew…” — Jonah 4:2

I did a little online research yesterday on the Assyrian empire.

The Assyrians were a major Semitic-speaking Mesopotamian civilization that evolved from a small city-state (Ashur) into the world’s first true "global" empire. At their peak during the Neo-Assyrian Empire (c. 911–609 BCE), they ruled a vast territory spanning from Egypt and the Mediterranean to modern-day Iran.

The Assyrians are often remembered as the most brutal civilization of antiquity. This isn't just a modern bias; they wanted to be seen that way. They pioneered a strategy historians call "calculated frightfulness" — using extreme violence as a psychological tool to force cities to surrender without a fight.

Public Displays: Assyrian kings famously decorated their palace walls with stone reliefs depicting horrific acts: flaying the skin off of enemies while they were still alive, impaling prisoners on stakes, and piling skulls into towers outside city gates after beheadings.

Torture as Policy: Their annals boast of cutting off hands, noses, and ears, and blinding captives. These records were intended to terrify potential rebels.

Mass Deportation: They forcibly relocated millions of people across their empire, at times engaging in attempts at extermination.

So you’re probably wondering why I would look into such a gruesome people, and then share it here with you as a new year begins. Good question.

The answer is because God looked down on a people like that and decided, “They need saving, and I’m going to offer it. I will send someone to go tell them just that, a man whom I will task with proclaiming hope for them. That if they’ll repent, and turn to me, they’ll be forgiven, saved, and not destroyed. That last bit being exactly what they deserve, but what I, in my mercy, will withhold.”

I read about this yesterday in my daily liturgy where I came upon Jonah 4:1-3 —

Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. He prayed to Yahweh, “Please, Yahweh, isn’t this what I said while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. And now, Yahweh, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

Jonah didn’t want to go and proclaim a message of repentance to the Assyrians. And honestly, with what we know of the Assyrians — something Jonah in that time was intimately familiar with — who among us would? That’s why he’s furious. He didn’t want to see revival among genocidal maniacs, and with what he knew of God, well, revival was a very real possibility with the kind of message he was being sent to proclaim.

But what Jonah missed is what so many of us miss when looking at the sinners around us, those that we count as the worst of sinners. Namely, we miss, we forget, that we are — all of us — horrific sinners. Because even one sin against an infinitely holy God justifies our destruction.

However — this God, our God, looks down on genocidal maniacs and offers them hope, which means hope is available for you, and for me. Because — and take this in now, be stunned, be amazed, and ponder and meditate on this — our God is….

“a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster”

In Jesus, our God relents from sending disaster on Assyrians, on genocidal maniacs, and on us.

And Happy New Year.