The Park Forum

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Genesis 7 Listen: (3:18), Read: John 7 Listen: (5:53)

Scripture Focus: Genesis 7.21-23

21 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

Reflection: When the World Goes Wrong

By John Tillman

Why does the world go wrong? Because humans go wrong.

Someone once asked C.S. Lewis, “Why did God make a creature of such rotten stuff that it went wrong?” Lewis responded to the question in Mere Christianity: “The better stuff a creature is made of—the cleverer and stronger and freer it is—then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong. A cow cannot be very good or very bad; a dog can be both better and worse; a child better and worse still; an ordinary man, still more so; a man of genius, still more so…”

Humanity is potentially good, not basically good. Abilities that make possible great good, make possible great wrongs. Made a little lower than angels, humans can delve nearly demon-deep in evil.

When we are surprised by the world going wrong, we have forgotten what the world, and humans, are like. We underestimate our wickedness and overestimate our righteousness.

One reason the flood seems horrific is our assumption that Noah’s contemporaries were, like us, “basically good.” Scripture says the pre-flood world was uniquely evil and grew that way by degrees. The flood was not a snap judgment on an average day, condemning average people. Generation after generation grew progressively worse. Every thought and action was evil. Every street ran with blood. Every sky echoed victims’ cries. When victims cry out and human justice fails, God will act both to save and to punish.

Earth’s evil before the flood and now demonstrates the greatness of humanity going greatly wrong and our need for salvation and judgment. Those killed by the flood were not “basically good” but neither was Noah and neither are we. God has forsworn another flood of water, but there are other judgments. As for salvation, there is only one.

If the state of our souls was basically good, Jesus wouldn’t have had to die. Those saved by the Ark or the cross are saved by grace. The Ark’s salvation was limited to Noah’s construction ability, but Jesus worked salvation on the cross.

In a sin-flooded world, we need not build an Ark, but we must take up the cross. Unlike Noah’s Ark, there is room at the cross for all who will join us. When the world goes wrong, take up and share the cross.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting

Out of Zion, perfect in its beauty, God reveals himself in glory. — Psalm 50.2

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: Two Lamechs

The literal sons of Cain’s Lamech died in the flood…his ideological descendants abound…those who multiply and escalate violence

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Links for today’s readings:

Read: Genesis 6 Listen: (2:48), Read: John 6 Listen: (8:27)

Scripture Focus: Genesis 6.5-8

5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Epiphany: January 6th is the completion of Christmastide, called Epiphany. It means “manifestation” and represents the revealing or manifestation of Christ to the non-Jewish nations, represented by the visit of the Magi to worship Christ. It reminds us that Christ belongs to and came to save all nations and peoples and not merely one race, ethnicity, group, or nation.

Reflection: Resisting the Flood of Sin

By John Tillman

Sin grows. The trickle of sin that started in the garden led to the flood.

Eating forbidden fruit seems like a small thing. Perhaps it was. However, both fruit and deeds have seeds and from small seeds, large things grow.

Sin didn’t stop with forbidden fruit. The plant that grew from that first sin had wide branches and its seeds blossomed into violence when Cain killed Abel. (Genesis 4.6-8) Abel’s trickle of spilled blood became a swelling torrent of injustice and violence. This is demonstrated by Cain’s descendent, Lamech, who multiplied his forefather’s sins, bragging about violence toward men and women. (Genesis 4.19-24)

By Noah’s time, “Every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” (Genesis 6.5) The world was already flooded before a drop of rain fell from heaven—it was flooded with the blood of violence. And every drop cried out from the ground to God. (Genesis 4.10-12)

Noah and his family resisted the spirit of the age defined by Cain’s Lamech. Noah’s father was also named Lamech, but this Lamech was descended from Seth, the son given to Eve in place of Abel. Noah comes from a lineage representing grace, beauty, restoration, and resistance to violence.

Which Lamech are we following, celebrating, or emulating? Are we venerating the violent? Are we praising the prideful? Are we applauding those who prey on the weak?

Noah wasn’t sinless but he resisted the growing evil in his time. Noah wasn’t saved because he was good but because of God’s mercy. Through obedience and grace, he became part of God’s plan of salvation in a sin-flooded world.

We aren’t sinless either. We contribute to the world’s sinfulness in small and large ways. But, like Noah, we can find God merciful. We can, by grace, resist.

Sin always seems like a small thing at the beginning but it grows. Wickedness and evil seek cracks and untended ground for their seeds to take root and grow.

Eden’s curse affected both the ground and human hearts. Weeds crowd out grain and pride crowds out worship. Thorns crowd out fruit and hatred chokes out kindness. Poisonous leaves replace healing ones and poisonous lusts replace healing loves.

Our hearts are vulnerable ground, requiring maintenance and cultivation. Are we letting sin grow or resisting it?

Cultivate resistance. Through obedience and grace become part of God’s salvation plan for our sin-flooded world.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

Protect me, O God, for I take refuge in you; I have said to the Lord, “You are my Lord, my good above all other.” — Psalm 16.1

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: The Floodlight of Epiphany

Epiphany is celebrated on a day but is also a process. Today, we will pray that the light of Christ would dawn, exposing darkness.

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Links for today’s readings:

Read: Genesis 2 Listen: (3:42), Read: John 2 Listen: (3:02)

Scripture Focus: Genesis 2.7-8

7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.

Reflection: Cosmic and Earthy Creations

By John Tillman

The creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 sound different.

Genesis 1 is cosmic, ordered, rhythmic poetry. The Spirit hovers. The Word speaks. Photons, matter, and life forms burst into being ex nihilo, “out of nothing.” Day and night separate each act from the next in a chain of images, like framed paintings on a museum gallery’s wall, or colored panes in a stained glass window.

Genesis 2 is earthy, messy, intimate prose. The actions of creation are less ordered and formal. The Creator kneels in a grassless, soggy plain forming a human from the wet earth. He puts his mouth on the muddy shape and breathes into it, then wipes mud from his lips as Adam takes his first breath. God, the gardener, keeps digging in the dirt. He plants and cultivates trees that provide beauty and health, cuts rivers that supply water to distant lands, forms other living creatures out of the ground, and a co-laborer for Adam from his own flesh.

These two versions aren’t arguing with each other. The writers of scripture weren’t confused or ignorant. They didn’t forget what they just wrote. When you lay these two stories over each other, they fill in each other’s gaps.

Whether you need to be reminded of how grand, glorious, and powerful God is or how near, intimate, and tender he is, Genesis has you covered.

Our creator is both cosmic and earthy. He blows galaxies across the universe and he breathes into our lungs. He speaks to photons and whispers in our ears. He scatters stars in the sky and sows seeds in the dirt—and seeds in our hearts.

From its first pages, the Bible reminds us that the glorious God of Heaven muddied his knees and hands at our making. The God who created calculus and physics also created our emotions and feelings. We are also both cosmic and earthy creations. We need his cultivation.

In this new year, how is your garden? Do you need irrigation for dry soil? Do you need to diagnose diseased plants? Do you need to stop pests from nibbling your fruit? Or do you need to plow it all under and start ex nihilo? Let our garden-planting God guide you.

As we walk through the scripture with him, God will never stop cultivating our muddy, messy lives into the garden he always designed us to live in.

Image Note: The image used in today’s post is of the Butterfly Nebulae, located in the constellation of Scorpius.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

Save me, O God, for the waters have risen up to my neck. — Psalm 69.1

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read The Bible With Us

The best time to join our two-year Bible reading plan is now. What will you hear from God this year?

https://mailchi.mp/theparkforum/m-f-daily-email-devotional

Read more: God In the Dark

God still says “let there be light” and causes the Morningstar to rise in our hearts.