Noah & A New Beginning

Today on Week 1 Day 5, I finished the story of Noah. I have often marveled that children's books tell the story of Noah as though it were perfect reading material for children. I think the reason it gets told to children is that it features lots of animals! When we read the story as adults, however, we find that it is a story of destruction and judgment. It is sobering and even disturbing to think of God bringing about such widespread destruction. God was grieved that his creation - the creation he had made so lovingly, the creation in which he took so much delight, the creation to which he had given freedom - had gone so awry. God had placed humans in 3 fundamental relationships - 1) God to human, 2) human to human, 3) human to earth/animals - and as Genesis 3-5 illustrates, brokenness had pervaded all three of them.

Creation had gone so wrong that God decided he needed to wipe it out and start again. But God didn't entirely give up on his creation. God chose one family, the family of Noah, as the remnant who would find safety in the ark until the flood was ended and then repopulate the earth.

After the flood water recedes, something amazing happens that seals the fate of God's creation forever. God decides to never do something like this again. Rather than giving up on his creation gone awry, God recommits himself to it forever:

"Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done." (Genesis 8:21)

Genesis 9 describes this commitment on God's part as a covenant. A covenant is a promise between two parties to commit to an ongoing relationship with one another. (It can be a little more complex than that, which I'll get into later, but that's the basic idea.) God makes a covenant with Noah, his descendants, and with every living thing, including the animals:

"I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth." (Genesis 9:9-11)

God promises to be creation's God forever. God is promising to protect it and never give up on it, no matter how bad things get. No matter how grieved or angry God gets about what happens on the earth, he will not use his divine power to simply snap his fingers and destroy all life again. Instead, God will find a way to redeem creation from the brokenness that has pervaded it on every level.

A covenant always has a sign as a reminder to its two parties of their commitment to one another. God sets the rainbow in the sky as the sign of this covenant that he makes with Noah and creation. Some say that God is setting his warrior's bow in the sky, indicating that he will not use violence against creation anymore.

I ran into a rainbow recently in a very special place. When I was in Israel in November, we visited Mt Tabor, the place of the transfiguration, where Jesus' glory was revealed to the disciples. When we drove up the mountain, it was rainy and foggy and just miserable out. We gratefully went inside the church to get out of the weather. Fr. Kamal, our guide, showed us a window with 2 peacocks, which he said were symbols of the resurrection, because when they lose a feather another grows back in its place, and because their feathers form the shape of a rainbow. Between the peacocks was a chalice with a brilliant sunburst behind it, complete with a tiny rainbow. Fr. Kamal said that when the sun is setting, the sunbeams stream through the western windows and light up this window, which faces east.

I was kind of disappointed that we wouldn't get to see the window that way due to the weather. When we left the church, though, the clouds had broken, and the sun was shining brilliantly through them. As we turned and looked back at the church, we saw a glorious double rainbow off to the north, glowing on a background of dark clouds. I felt as though the story of the transfiguration had been brought to life - this gray cold day had been completely transformed into the most beautiful days I had ever seen. And the rainbow served as a reminder to us, yet again, that God keeps his promises. God has still to this day honored his commitment to his creation and is still, after all these millennia, at work redeeming it. Thanks be to God. 

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Resources:
I have gained more sensitivity to the themes of Covenant and Kingdom in the Bible through the teaching of Mike Breen, who leads 3dm, a movement of churches that are seeking to focus on discipleship and mission as their core purpose. Mike calls Covenant and Kingdom the two "DNA strands" of the Bible. One of my goals in reading the Bible this time around is to be alert to how both of those strands weave their way through the Bible. I also like the analogy that Covenant and Kingdom are like two lenses of a pair of glasses that we put on when we read the Bible. I want to learn to read the Bible with my Covenant and Kingdom glasses on during this year. I will blog about both of these themes and where I see them crop up in the text.

Mike has written a book called Covenant and Kingdom, in which he works his way through the Bible pointing out where these strands show up. The book has been so popular that it is currently out of print. 3dm will be printing more, but in the meantime there is an e-book edition at the link above.