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The intent of Pilgrim Processing is to provide commentary on the Daily Lectionary from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The format for the comment is Old Testament Lesson first, Gospel, and Epistle with a portion of one of the Psalms for the day as a prayer at the end.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Timing is everything

For nearly a year Noah is in the ark with his family and the animals, what was he thinking? Surely in some of that time he wondered if the waters would ever roll back, wondered if there would be enough food, wondered if God had forgotten him. Did he know the story of creation? If he did, he must surely have wondered why when it took the Lord only a day to separate the waters from the waters (Gen 1.6-8) and then another day to gather the waters so that the dry land could appear (Gen 1.9-10), did it take 40 days of rain to complete his judgment and then almost another 300 days to re-create the world from the chaos of the flood.

Where in the beginning the spirit of God hovered over the waters, now we have what must have seemed like an enormous ship when he was building it but what must have felt completely inconsequential during the flood, floating on the waters. The original creation was preserved in this one vessel through the righteousness of Noah.

What joy he must have taken in seeing the tops of the mountains again yet the time was not yet to come out of the ark. The sign that it was time to once again resume life was the return of the dove with an olive branch, things were growing again! Noah looked and saw the ground was dry, but after that it was nearly another two months before Noah left the ark. Why? Because he waited until God told him to leave the ark. In all things he waited on the Lord.

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