Reading about Noah in public
Yesterday I found myself reading the story of Noah in a Doctor's office while I waited for an appointment. As I read aloud (and thought about the people overhearing it), it struck me how revolutionary the story is. Although the story involves an enormous boat, lots of animals, and a rainbow (all kid-friendly themes), it is ultimately a story of sin, judgment and mercy.
Tonight at dinner I asked Elisabeth some questions about the Noah story to see if the main point of the story was registering with her. I asked her, "Why did God send the flood?" She replied,
"Sometimes the forecast is for rain, and sometimes the forecast is for sun."It made me happy that she sees that God is the author of everything, including the weather, but it also made clear that the flood as judgment hadn't impressed her. So we talked a little bit about why God sent the flood as judgment and why in mercy He told Noah to build an ark. The expressions on her face changed entirely as she began to see what the story was really about.
This encounter was even more vivid to me, as I had read in my devotions just yesterday that this kind of wickedness was not limited to Noah's time. God said through Ezekiel that the people of Jerusalem were so faithless that "even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord God" (Ezekiel 14: 14). This was not the only time that wickedness reigned, or that judgment came!
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that reading the Bible on its own terms is revolutionary. Reading aloud in public was the gracious occasion of this realization: the message with which we are entrusted simply is not polite dinner conversation. It is the message of sin, wrath, judgment and mercy. The reason for the ark was the flood; the reason for the cross is the wrath of God against sinners. I needed to be reminded of that.
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3 comments:
I would love to know how you explained this, "So we talked a little bit about why God sent the flood as judgment and why in mercy He told Noah to build an ark." I always struggle to explain concepts like this (that are at the same time profoundly simple and incredibly complex) to little ones.
Both of Elisabeth's children's Bibles have a succinct statement of the wickedness of the people before the flood, and so I was able to ask her, "What had the people done?" She correctly answered, "They disobeyed." Then I asked, "What was the consequence?" and she was able to recognize, "God sent the flood."
I don't want to pretend that I fully "get it", but I think that the flood is one of the places in Scripture that we see most clearly just how wicked sin is, in bringing such complete, and just, judgment. I think that is what I glimpsed when I read it, and what Elisabeth began to see as we talked about why God sent the flood, and not just about the big boat, the animals and the rainbow.
Thanks, Graham!
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