For the next few weeks, I want to look specifically at devotional exercises in relation to the season of Lent. And since the season is defined as being forty days, I thought it would be good to look at three other biblical events that turn on the number forty: Noah and the Flood, the Hebrews in the Wilderness, and the Temptation of Christ. These are certainly not the only episodes that involve the number forty, but they do represent three important facets of the Christian life: salvation, purification, and endurance. So if it's okay with you, we'll spend two weeks on each episode, looking at how each theme is developed in scripture.

Water has a dual meaning in Scripture. We today often think of it as symbolizing life, and this is certainly true: for people living in a desert region, water is the most immediate source of life. And both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures use the image of a river that brings life to reveal God's relationship with us and our relation with the world.

But water also has darker connotations, as anyone who has lived around the sea can testify: it can be destructive, deadly, all-consuming. Both sets of scriptures also use the images of storms and floods to symbolize threats to our safety. Look at Jesus' comments about the story of Noah, quoted above: God sent the flood to destroy humanity from the earth, to remove all that was wicked from his sight. Only Noah, a man of great faith, and his family were allowed to survive.

I want to hold off on looking at water as life until next week. This week, I want us to spend our time considering water as a threat from which God must deliver us. We find this theme echoed in such passages as Isaiah 43.2a:

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you.

and more urgently in Matthew 14.30, when Peter walks on water:

But seeing the wind, he became afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, 'Lord, save me!'

Water is fascinating in its double role in our lives: necessary and dangerous, a source of both life and death. While we need it to survive, we only need it in small amounts. Whenever there is a large amount of water, the tables are turned and we find ourselves at its mercy: at best, it threatens merely to consume us, as by drowning; at worst, it will destroy everything in its path, as a storm surge does. Water symbolizes so nicely the precarious nature of our existence here on this earth. We ourselves are mostly water, we need it to survive, and, thanks to modern technology, we can harness its power for our use. But it can just as easily swallow us whole, never to be found again.

The Hebrews knew this: while the earth was without form, there was water (Gen. 1.2). As we've seen before, water swallows up everything. It destroys distinctions between objects or disfigures them. Look at the power of the Grand Canyon: it's beautiful, but what we're seeing is the work of ages of disfiguration by the river on the earth, as if it were the scar left by a blade. We think it's majestic, but this is in part because we are in awe of the process of erosion: all the tons of dirt washed away and carried to the sea, along with anything else that has gotten in river's way.

The Hebrews had a more direct experience of this awesome power. In fact, they had it not once, but twice: when they crossed the Red Sea to leave Egypt, and when they crossed the Jordan to enter the promised land. Twice the Hebrews were impeded from their way by a body of water, and twice God miraculously parted the seas so they could walk on dry ground. Water here is an obstacle, a threat that prevents us from moving forward until God intervenes to lead us to safety. But it is still a serious impediment, and we must rely on God's action to get us through.

This is in part what the story of Noah represents. We focus easily on how God delivered Noah and his family from the destruction of the world, but as Jesus reminds us, their salvation only has meaning in the face of the surrounding destruction. If we are to understand what it means that God saved Noah, we have to understand as well how devastating the flood was to the rest of the earth. If we focus only on the happy elements of the story, we miss the whole picture. The rain that brought the flood did NOT bring life to the earth: it was an agent of destruction, as were the waters at the founding of the world and the waters which drowned Pharaoh's army after the Hebrews had crossed over.

Part of our look at the forty days of Lent, then, is an examination of salvation. If salvation is to mean anything to us, we must understand what it is we have been saved from: total destruction, complete annihilation. We often do not take seriously the power of death in our lives, and in so doing we cannot understand the power of Christ's resurrection. Water has the capacity to destroy us, so that we are lost forever. But God's power is greater, and he wills to bring us through the waters, just as Isaiah has promised, and just as the Hebrews discovered twice. But only through trusting in God will this happen.

This is most immediately evident in the sign of baptism: here we allow ourselves to be submerged, symbolizing our death. We allow the waters to overtake us, trusting that God alone is able to bring us through. Christ tells us that if a seed is to grow, it must first die. Baptism suggests this same sequence: it represents both death and new birth (we'll talk about this more next week). We are baptized into the death of Christ, but this means we will also return with Christ, victorious over all the powers of evil and death.

So where does this leave us for a devotional exercise? I suggest that we look at the ways we use water in our lives and find ways of connecting them with the episodes we've discussed here. The most obvious place would be our daily bath or shower, but you can also think about going for a swim, or even about the rain that falls this week. Whatever suggests itself to you as an analogy for being covered with water, use it to reflect on your salvation. God has promised that he will see you through whatever floods or storms threaten to engulf you. Reflect on your baptism, and renew it in your heart, that you might die to the world in order to live for Christ Jesus.

Next week we'll talk about the flip side of this issue: water as the source of life and cleansing. Until then, write me with what you come up with!

S.D.G.!

In Christ,
steve