Noah Part 1 - Flood Story / Love Story

Many cultures of the world have stories of mythic proportions about a flood that virtually annihilates human civilization. Cultures as far apart as Scandinavians and Polynesians, Australian aboriginals and American Navajo, Celts, Mayans and Thai all tell a story of a great inundation.

The story of Noah is quite literally a watershed event in the Biblical narrative. (Genesis 6-9)  It is catastrophic - human and animal populations are all but destroyed. It is like a reversal of creation – the unmaking of earth. How are we to understand this devastating over-whelming of the earth?

Rooted by the River-bank

I’ve always been impressed by the rugged roots of cedars growing along shale ravines.  Those roots worry their way down through fissures in the rock searching out the waters below. 

I love walking along woodland streams where gurgling waters keep plants alive and healthy despite the constant shade of the over-hanging tree cover.

Flowing streams provide continuous moisture and nutrients for the plants and animals that live along their banks. 

By the Rivers of Babylon

The rivers of Babylon were famous long before the late ‘70’s disco group Boney M sang about them.


The Euphrates River  - Photo by Jayel Aheram

The Tigris River and the Euphrates define Mesopotamia – a huge fertile plain ‘between the rivers’, the cradle of civilization. But Israel experienced Babylon as a wasteland, a spiritual desert, despite its rivers of affluence and so-called civilization.

Babylon’s armies had sacked Jerusalem mercilessly, captured her leading populace as trophies-of-war, and marched them to Babylon. No place could have felt more alien to the exiles than the banks of the Euphrates.

One Foreign Well, Please

A few years ago – well, actually some 27 centuries ago, but in a time not much different from our own, armies strutted about the middle east, conquering and being conquered. Assyria dominated the Fertile Crescent for three centuries until they were overthrown by the Babylonians, then the Persians and then the Greeks.

But in 688 BCE, the king of Assyria was flexing his muscle. In his early years as king, Sennacherib built a palace in Nineveh that was, in his words, without rival. He built a stone-lined canal and the world’s first aqueduct to water his palace gardens, diverting water across a valley from a river 80 kilometers away.

An effective military enforced his control of a far-flung  empire. He overthrew northern Israel and replaced its king with his own puppet.

Thirsty in the Badlands

It was an ill-conceived military venture - Israel's kings marching out to exact revenge on their eastern neighbors, the Moabites, who had recently welched on their annual tribute obligations. This was economic thuggery, royal arrogance backed by military muscle and completely beyond the purposes of God. But this story in 2 Kings 3 showcases a God of grace who does far better for people than anyone deserves.

A seven-day roundabout march through the badlands south of the Dead Sea, left the kings and their armies stranded at the frontier of Moab, without water. In desperation they consulted the prophet Elisha for an oracle from God.

The Invisible but Vital Resource

A recent report by the C.D. Howe Institute on protecting Canada’s groundwater reserves calls them ‘the invisible but vital resource’. That phrase perfectly describes the theme of today’s Wonder of Water post about a fiery Spanish nun.

In her early years as a nun Theresa of Avila (1515-1585) was bored with prayer and luke-warm towards God. Yet she longed to be spiritually alive and to know God in the core of her soul - and eventually came to a place of passionate love for God.

In her autobiography, The Book of My Life, she tells how she grew in her experience of prayer, how God’s love became for her ‘an invisible but vital resource’. Using the imagery of water, she illustrates four stages of this journey.

Tears of Joy

For Valentine’s Day, here is a story of great love and deep gratitude and the most exquisite water we know.

She was a woman who got invited to men’s homes for only one reason. But she heard about another man who was different – a giver not a taker. He himself had a reputation for socializing with people like her and maybe she had met him somewhere – maybe overheard him telling another harlot that God heals the broken-hearted, washes away tears of shame and forgives debts long overdue.

How could she know for sure? And how could she honor him – this man who looked past her disgrace and saw worth in her beyond what she could see? How could she express the gratitude and affection welling up inside her?

Sweet Harmony

Psalm 133 is a lyric gem about harmony in families, societies and nations. It's short but full of wonder, realism and hope.

How wonderful, how beautiful,
when brothers and sisters get along!
It's like costly anointing oil
flowing down head and beard,
Flowing down Aaron's beard,
flowing down the collar of his priestly robes.

Harmony is a wonderful thing. When the whole family is getting along and enjoying each other, it’s a great feeling. It’s heaven on earth.

At the consecration of a Jewish high priest, the nation gathered together as one. The ceremonial oil of consecration was poured over the priest’s head in the name of all the tribes; it spilled down his face and drenched his robes. You could smell the fragrance, you could hear the cheering in unison, you could sense the joyful spirit of togetherness – one nation, one faith, one prayer of brotherhood. Oil flows with exuberance - all for one and one for all.

Leadership Springs

Time was of the essence. The senile King David shivered in the hours before his death, but his scheming son kept his eye focused on his father’s crown. Adonijah was handsome, shrewd and self-serving. Aware that the king favored Solomon as his heir, Adonijah moved quickly to grasp his advantage. (Read 1 Kings 1)

With a small bodyguard, he organized his own coronation. He invited all his royal brothers except Solomon to a lavish feast at the En-Rogel spring outside the southern walls of the city – a country barbeque – to celebrate his accession to the throne and, no doubt, to enlist their support.

But news of his conspiracy leaked out and the prophet Nathan roused the dying king to act. David immediately named Solomon his successor and ordered Nathan to convene the official coronation of Solomon at the other spring – Gihon, a few hundred meters north of En-Rogel.

Extreme Stress

A few months ago the L A Times carried the good-news story about a 30 ton gray whale that had become tangled in a thick snarl of fishing net.

For two days it labored in a Southern California harbor until a marine rescue team was able to set it free.

It took them four hours to soothe the distressed whale and cut away the ropes that had knotted around the whale’s tail and head. It’s hard to imagine such a huge majestic creature held prisoner to a braid of nylon cord. It’s hard to imagine a 40-foot whale helpless and drowning.

Rizpah and the Rain

Suffering sometimes triggers good soul-searching. And a three-year drought set King David on a desperate search for answers.

What he uncovered was a story of treachery and genocide that hadn’t registered a flicker on the national conscience.
See 2 Samuel 21:1-14.

It involved one of Israel’s tribal neighbors, the Gibeonites, who lived east of the Jordan. By ancient treaty, (see Joshua 9) these people had enjoyed protection and immunity from attack by Israel. But David’s predecessor, Saul broke faith and attempted to annihilate them – and almost succeeded.

World Wetlands Day

I used to think that February 2 was simply Groundhog Day.

But apparently it’s also World Wetlands Day – a day to celebrate and appreciate the rich bio-diversity and economic benefits of an under-appreciated wonder of water. Forty years ago on this date, the world signed the Ramsar Convention to protect the world’s wetlands.

I had never heard about Ramsar until this year. I used to think of wetlands simply as wastelands – ugly, mosquito-breeding eyesores on the landscape. I considered them like the Dead Marshes near Mordor in Lord of the Rings whose mists and vapors gave off a terrible stench.

Actually, wet-lands serve us very well. Mud-flats and mangrove swamps buffer the coastline and reduce erosion. Swamps, bogs, marshes and fens are huge sponges that absorb flood-water, filter out pollutants and hold them in the soil, improving water quality. They filter rainwater run-off, minimizing the silting of rivers and streams.