My daily Bible readings have recently taken me to the first chapters of Genesis. Today it was Noah and the flood (Genesis 7 & 8). The parallels between Noah and his family confined to the Ark as life as they knew it was changed inexorably and our current situation of lockdown and isolation struck me vividly.
Noah was inside the Ark for the best part of a year. He would have been conscious of the world drowning outside his place of safety, perhaps heard the cries of humans and animals as they perished with him unable to do anything to help. He would have felt the strange and scary movement of the Ark as the waters rose around it, been buffeted by the floods and perhaps even seasick. Could the windows be opened? Not at the start, surely as then the rains would have poured inside. Was it dark? It must have been smelly with so many animals but at least caring for them would have given the humans plenty to do (useful in the days before Netflix). Did they make pets? Teach tricks? Or just wonder what to do with the ever increasing quantities of dung. Perhaps they made well-fertilised vegetable plots, sowing the seeds of the food that was eaten, something to help them avoid scurvy.
Even release from lockdown was gradual. After the Ark grounded on Mount Arafat it took many weeks before the command to leave and repopulate the earth was given. There were even a few unsuccessful trial runs as the raven and the dove couldn't immediately find places to settle (I do hope their partners found them after the general release). Everyone and everything emerged into a new world.
The covid19 situation isn't as drastic as nearly all living creatures being wiped out but there is still a sense of the world perhaps changing, being reordered. Will it be? Will we remember the lessons we've learned about valuing human contact when it's taken from us once we're free to go out and be busy again? Will we take time to smell the roses or will we be so busy with "important" stuff that time speeds by: always so many things to do, so little time, and nothing accomplished that is truly, eternally, worthwhile?
The first thing Noah did was to thank God for his preservation. It took faith to sacrifice some of the few animals that were left. Wouldn't it have been better to postpone the sacrifice until the future looked more secure, the economy more stable?
Noah got his priorities right. He knew who had brought him through, who had given him everything, and who would see him safe into the future (whatever that might hold).
God was there, in control from the start, fully aware of the contents of humanity's heart
("bent toward evil from childhood" (Gen. 8:21)), but still unwilling to totally destroy his creation. Love is powerful. Love takes its time. We could do well to remember that.
