March 5, 2006 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Genesis 9:8-15 + 1 Peter 3:18-22 + Mark 1:12-15
Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jeremiah all stand before us in Lent’s first four weeks,
because it’s all about covenant. Those of us who have marked ourselves with the sign of fire as I spoke of on Wednesday are a people of covenant, and these forty days all lead to the three holy days that establish, confirm, and seal the covenant we have with God, the covenant made with the blood of Christ in the Eucharist. With the wisdom of the church’s readings for the first four week of Lent, we can clarify our sense of this relationship, renew its purpose, and more profoundly realize our identity as God’s chosen ones.
The covenant with Noah is very simple and primitive. It is the first. It is a covenant with all humankind and all creation, everything in the ark, not just Israel. That will not come until next week with Abraham. A flood brings up memories and images of chaos, the kind of chaos we can imagine at the time of creation. In fact, as the flood ends, the story in verses prior to today’s reading reminds us of the third day of creation, when “the dry land appears.” In other words, the goodness of first creation is restored. Creation is repeated. Creation is restored. Along with it, the goodness God proclaims over His creation.
In the simplicity of Mark’s Gospel account today, we get a glimpse of Paradise restored, and with it a hint of what shall come of the life and ministry of Jesus. He lives in harmony with the wild beasts. It is like the beginning of creation before the sin when in that garden, all creation was in harmony and peace.
This is the promise God first makes to this “Settler”, for that is what “Noah” means: “Settler”. He resettles the earth, and then he give thanks. After that, God makes a promise. There is something of a Noah in us all. We are all settlers on this earth, survivors of chaos and sin, called in obedience (Build and Arc) to resettle this earth as God created it.
Forty days and nights for Noah; forty days and nights for Jesus; forty days and nights for us in Lent. We too are a people possessed by the spirit, “driven”, not “led” as Matthew calls it, but “driven” in this life to radical dependence upon God. In that desert, the mission of Jesus awakens in him. His victory over Satan reverses Adam’s defeat and begins the process of restoring paradise. In the desert of this season, a mission must awaken in us as well. We are possessed by the Spirit too. We have just marked ourselves with the sign of it: ashes remaining from the fire of Pentecost!
A people of covenant are possessed by the Spirit, not possessed by Satan, as Mark calls “evil.” That Spirit empowers our deepest, best selves to reach out in warmth, hospitality, healing, hope and deep care for those around us. Like Jesus, our lives in the embrace of God, wrapped in a rainbow reminder, lead us to bring God near to others.
When Noah finally realized what God was doing all he could do was give thanks, and at that moment God made a promise kept for all ages. So it must be for us: obedience, deliverance, gratitude, and a relationship with God in covenant; spirit led, trust in God, living in harmony, sharing in mission. In these forty days, the mission awakens in us, the immediate presence of God changes everything,
and the Spirit drives us into this world on fire with love, armed with forgiveness,
and confident of our identity as God’s Chosen People.