Genesis 8:15-22

2006.Nov.09 09:16

Give it another try

God said to Noah, “You, your wife, your sons, and your daughters-in-law may now leave the boat. Let out the birds, animals, and reptiles, so they can mate and live all over the earth.” (15-17, CEV)

The smell of the burning offering pleased God, and he said: Never again will I punish the earth for the sinful things its people do. All of them have evil thoughts from the time they are young, but I will never destroy everything that breathes, as I did this time. As long as the earth remains,there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat; winter and summer, day and night. (21-22, CEV)

The flood is over. It’s probably messed with the climate a bit and left an absurd number of dead things lying around, not to mention destroyed all remnants of ‘civilization’ for the time being, but it’s over. And God says, “Get off the boat…and let the animals mate!” It’s a tacit admission that God really does want humanity to give it another try.

After Noah builds an alter and sacrifices, Jehovah makes this desire explicit. He acknowledges first that humans will sin from our youth, flood or no flood. But he states that he will not again destroy “everything that breathes” (Maybe that’s why Revelations takes so many scrolls). It’s like God’s saying, “You people f—ed up, you’re going to keep f—ing up and it really p—es me off, but I am not going to give up on you. I’m going to get friends out of you even if I have to cause you great pain.”

And that’s what strikes me, that Jehovah (it seems to me) establishes a policy from this point forward with regards to humanity that we would rather cause us–as a species and as individuals–exquisite pain than destroy us. And maybe we have Noah to thank for that, although I’d guess it was always God’s intent. After all, it might make the opportunity a good deal more desirable when we’ve seen his williness to destroy.

Why do bad things happen to good people? It’s sort of irrelevant since the only good human has been Jesus. But, it makes sense to me to suggest that they happen because God prefers us to suffer a little while that we might lay down our claims to godhood and humble ourselves before him. Because if we don’t, patient as he may be, he would eventually have to exile us. And considering that God is the provider of all good things…

I’ll take the pain.