Today's Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 8 verses 6 through 12, 20-21.
6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.”
We can never really escape ourselves and our story.
Human sin had so thoroughly overcome the human species that the LORD decided to start anew with Noah's single family. The floods came and the waters rose and all life -- human and animal -- was drowned save those hidden in the ark. When the rains stopped and the waters began to recede, Noah released a raven out of the shelter of the ark. We are not told why he did so, but if we think metaphorically we know the raven is a bird closely associated with death. Noah wished the raven would fly far away from the ark, dying itself, and leaving its partner without a mate for propagation. But the raven did not fly far away; instead it flew to and fro, probably feeding on the carcasses of the dead drowned in the flood. The bird stalked and mocked Noah and his ark; and so too did death. And when the water finally recessed enough for those in the ark to disembark, Noah made an offering to God. And when the offering's pleasing aroma went up to God what God thought of again was -- evil. And soon after, we see Noah and his family, said to be righteous, propagating the whole sinful human story all over again.
We can not escape the sins of our past. They stay with us. And if we are honest, we would admit that sins are present to us also -- hidden in the ark of the human heart. We would like so much to open a window and make it all fly away. But our sins stay with us. They stalk us. They caw at us like a raven as if, in Philo's words, "pointing to something hidden."
The answer is not escape -- whether in an ark which Noah tried this chapter or through strong drink which he will try in the next. The only answer is to learn to live with it all -- to accept it about ourselves. God makes this decision in the Noah story. God chooses to accept us, work with us in all our complicated folly and fallenness, and never try to destroy us again. We have to learn to chose the same.
At the end of the story Noah sends out another bird, a dove. It returns to the ark with an olive branch -- a sign of peace. The LORD has made peace with us; it is up to us to make peace with ourselves.
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