Friday, April 30, 2010

Genesis 6: Noah and Moses

Elie Wiesel, in his book "Sages and Dreamers" sums it up this way, with the flood, God was "starting all over, another draft." God preserves Noah and his family but abandons the rest of creation to the flood. It's interesting to me then that the children of Israel refuse to be abandoned, they cry out to God, they put off all their jewelry in mourning, they plead...and...their cause is upheld by the Lord. They are original squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Israel had sinned. God, who seems to have had it up to here with them, proposes that a glorious angel will lead them to the Promised Land...instead of him. He's had enough. The people respond with a might outcry; ice cream is no substitute for true love and an angel, however glorious, is no substitute for God.
Something has changed between Noah and Moses, and the Bible wants to let us in on it. Not only will Israel not be abandoned by God, they don't even have to accept a beautiful substitute. God's faithfulness seems to be coming into sharper and sharper focus, its glory is growing. We will see the glory of his faithfulness and love most in his son, Jesus Anointed, whom he sends because he refuses to abandon the world ("God so loved the world"). Nor will he send a substitute ("God saw that there was no man...he himself brought the victory." Is. 59:16), instead "the word became flesh and tented among us."

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