Bible Challenge Day 3

Genesis 7-9, Psalm 3, Matthew 3

I'm writing this blog from hand-written notes I took during a rehearsal tonight, so bear with me if they make no sense.  It's too late and I'm too tired to edit anything, so what I type is what you get.  Talk about trusting in the Holy Spirit to not let me say anything too heretical!

Concerning Noah and the Flood:
I was quite stricken by the idea of uncreation.  Whereas Genesis 1 focuses on God creating order, here he undoes it.  As the firmament opens and the primeval waters flood the earth (remember the ancients believed that there was water both below and above the earth) we are "returning to pre-creation chaos" as the footnote in my Oxford Annotated Bible says.  We further get a parallel as Noah curses his son much as God curses Adam and Eve for their transgressions.  I have no idea what that means, but there it is.  Perhaps we're seeing man take on his role of having dominion over the earth.  God gives man that power earlier in the text, and here we see Noah literally saving every life form on earth while also giving out curses that last generations.

Concerning Matthew 3:

I love the image of John the Baptist as a wild man in fur eating locusts and wild honey.  Deacon Ann Pelletier once told me she liked to think about John eating locusts.  What a weird thing to do.  It reminds me of the crazies on the El in Chicago or in Central Park in New York who have that wild look in their eyes and scream nonsense.  Actually, if I heard someone calling, "repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand" I would walk the other way.  So how do we distinguish the false prophets from the real?  In this case Jesus comes to John, and John even refuses to baptize him at first.  This humility seems a safe sign.  I don't trust anyone who claims to be a prophet and boasts about it.  It seems that most of the prophets have a strong sense of humility.  Of course, having Jesus himself identify someone as important and then God sending the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove helps determine that John is the real deal.