Psalm 3: "But you, O LORD, are a shield around me, my glory and the one who lifts up my head"
In a previous parish, I had a very sweet and elderly parishioner who told me that in her girlhood she had chosen this verse as her "life verse." I neither advocate nor denigrate this practice. But it is an interesting choice; and she was very much comforted by this verse when she was no longer able to lift up her own head from the pillow. She felt loved and shielded to the very end. Amazing! This is why we read the psalms, my friends! They come back to us to give us confidence in God's goodness when things are hard.
Matthew 3: This is the first we hear of John the Baptist in Matthew's Gospel; but it seems that Matthew expects his hearers/readers to know who John is. He doesn't get much of an introduction.
John proclaims the same message as Jesus: "Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near."
There is a reference to the prophet Isaiah:
"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.'
John baptized those who came out to him from the civilized areas, when they confessed their sins.
He was not so sure about the Pharisees and Sadducees, whom he (memorably!) called a "brood of vipers." He asks these people to bear fruit worthy of repentance; but he doesn't seem to make that a condition for baptizing others. And it is remarkable that the Pharisees and Sadducees HAD come out there for baptism, not just to hassle John.
John points to Jesus and promises that Jesus would baptize with the HOLY SPIRIT and FIRE--and John envisions this baptism to be a sort of violent meting out of justice.
So... in 3:13, Jesus comes to John to be baptized. Which is strange to Christians who have been taught that baptism is for "forgiveness of sins" and that Jesus was sinless. John also thinks it is not right: (3:14) I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" And Jesus says he is doing so now "to fulfill all righteousness," a phrase we might want to talk about.
3:16 says that "the heavens were opened TO HIM (to Jesus, presumably, but not necessary an event to which everyone was privy???) and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said,'This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.'
Who hears the voice? Was this an affirmation for Jesus or was it a confirmation/revelation for everybody else?
Genesis 7-9 So now we're into the saga of Noah. Note how "all the fountains of the great deep burst forth" rising up from below rather than coming down as rain. The near eastern cosmologies envision a firmament holding back watery chaos from around the world.
Note the "forty days" language.
7:19"...all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered...fifteen cubits deep"
"Only Noah was left and those that were with him in the ark" (7:23)
8:1 BUT GOD REMEMBERED NOAH...We have this deep human, universal longing not to be forgotten...
8:6 40 days again...
8:13--When Noah is ready to get out of the ark, it is "the first day of the first month"--a new year, a new beginning. But "the ground was drying," and they had to be patient until the end of the second month.
8:17 The command from God again is to "be fruitful and multiply" like the first creation. This is like a new creation.
8:20 An anachronism as the "clean" animals are offered in sacrifice. Yet the commandments had not yet been given to Moses. Even though Genesis is itself part of the Torah.
8:21 the LORD smells "the pleasing odor" and "says in his heart"--and how does the writer of Genesis or the hearer of these words know about what God is saying in his heart?
"I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done."
Is God saying here that destruction and wiping everything out doesn't work to make the repairs needed to the world? Because the human heart hasn't changed.
God promises regularity in the natural order (8:22).
But the brokenness of things and the impossibility of a complete "reboot" by flood and destruction is clear in 9:2 where the dominion of the human creatures is now accomplished through "fear and dread."
Then we have what is known in Judaism as the Noahic Covenant. Meat for food, but blood is to be a sign of life and given back to the earth rather than eaten.
The sign of the covenant is a rainbow (9:13)
Sons of Noah as the ancestral heads of the major near eastern peoples...
The curse of Canaan (Ham's son) to be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for other peoples has been used to justify slavery of Africans by Europeans.
Noah was one of the last of the long-lived people of the pre-historic/legendary age.
We will probably need to talk about in what sense this story bears truth for people of faith. It is NOT science. We are NOT unfaithful to God if we don't take this literally.
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