Stephen
Terry, Director
"All Future Generations"
Commentary
for the April 17, 2021 Sabbath School Lesson
"As it was in the days
of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before
the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up
to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen
until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the
coming of the Son of Man." Matthew 24:37-39, NIV
According to Matthew,
the gospel writer, after viewing the splendor of the temple in Jerusalem, when
his disciples asked him about future events, Jesus spoke with them about what
those days would be like. However, instead of pointing forward to something new
and unheard of, he pointed to the past and the days prior to the Noahic
Covenant. Those, who would be lost as a result, would have no idea that day
would be any different than the rest. They would rise in the morning to their normal
activities. They would expect their plans to take place without a hitch as they
had for years. The bride discussing with her caterer the plans for her wedding,
the young couple buying their first home, the soon-to-be mother expecting her first
child, the high school graduate headed off to college, the gardener setting her
plants out into the flower beds to share the beauty of their blooms with the
neighborhood, all are oblivious to any inkling that this day should unfold any differently.
We perhaps see this in
microcosm in the news each day. In the United States we hear in the news of
deranged individuals shooting numbers of people randomly in public places.
Those people likely expected to simply visit the grocery store, attend a cinema
or concert, or one of many normal daily activities or events, not expecting
that the choice to do so would herald the end of their lives. But the derangement
is not limited to individuals. We see deranged governments making war on their own
people, people who trusted to the normalcy of everyday life until something
went awry. This should all inform our awareness that life can change unexpectedly
in an instant. Our health, our security, our plans can all vanish like a vapor.
If we thought about how fragile it all is, it might be overwhelming, so we act
as though each day will continue as the day before, trying to lay at rest the
anxieties gnawing at the back of our minds. Into that complacency, Jesus speaks
and reminds us that there really is a reason to be anxious. Something unexpected
is coming, something we can prepare for and should. That something will be similar,
in some ways, to a cataclysm from an ancient era. The Noahic flood was of such
extreme proportions that several ancient civilizations have flood accounts integral
to understanding their tribal and national origins.[i]
To understand what
Jesus was referring to, we need to examine the circumstances of Noah's time. In
many ways, his story is a metaphor for the ongoing struggle between darkness
and light. Both exist from the very first day of Creation when God separated the
light from the darkness. But in doing so, God created everything as good. The
creation account emphasizes this point repeatedly. But somehow, what was
created good, in many cases, produced evil, from Lucifer, an angel in heaven,
who became Satan, to Cain who slew his brother Abel over a disagreement about
religion. When evil arose in heaven and lying was invented,[ii] open rebellion eventually
broke out and Satan, the dragon or serpent, also called the devil, was tossed
out, along with his followers, to the earth.[iii] While we Christians are monotheists
today, the ancients had many gods and demi-gods who were famous for their power
and authority. Examples of such gods would include Zeus, hurler of thunderbolts,
Aphrodite, goddess of love, and Hermes, famous for speed and messenger of the
gods. Demi-gods would include Achilles, Aeneas, Heracles, and dozens of others,
all being the offspring of unions between ancient gods and mortal human beings.
Perhaps this is reflected in the biblical account of the antediluvian era when
the sons of god and the daughters of men interbred.[iv] This would help explain
conditions then. If malevolent, angelic beings had such power that they could
simply take whatever women they chose and couple with them, I can scarcely
imagine the evil that would produce. The worst horror films of the present are
probably nothing compared to the evil abuses of that day. Satan and his ilk
would certainly have the motive of revenge to do all they could to debase what
God had created in mankind. The Bible tells us that all of mankind eventually
joined this evil host of angels in their rebellion and every impulse for good
that might have once dwelt in the human breast had been replaced by darkness
and evil.[v] Some might find it hard to
accept the idea of these angelic beings mating with humans to produce demi-god
heroes, but just like the flood story, several ancient civilizations testified
about such behavior in their mythologies. Greek, Roman, and Egyptian pantheons
all hold several examples.
Only the family of Noah had not entirely extinguished the light God created.
But even they were not pure, for not long after the flood, Noah cursed his son
Ham's descendants for his imprudent behavior. This serves to add further meaning
to the metaphor of the ark story with a symbolic baptism of the ark in the
waters of the flood, allowing those within to eventually exit to create a new
earth based on the principle of light being ascendant over darkness. However,
as Noah chose to serve the Lord, many of his descendants chose otherwise. Eventually
God had to once again call someone out to carry the torch of faith, and he
called Abram from Mesopotamia to enter Canaan where he and his descendants
would worship and serve God. This patriarchal period was a continuous struggle between
darkness and light. Moments like when Lot and his family were kidnapped and
needed to be rescued by Abraham, or when the cities of the plain where Lot was
living became so wicked that the only recourse for the evil was destruction
were definite low points. Lot's eventual incest with his daughters, another low
point, produced descendants who were a constant thorn in the flesh of Abraham's
descendants. But Abraham remained faithful and was blessed with the miraculous
birth of a son, Isaac, and then experienced the miracle passion drama acted out
on Mount Moriah with the aborted sacrifice of the boy. God revealed through that
metaphor with Isaac what he intended to do for humanity through Jesus, his Son.
Much of what is
written in Genesis is written for future generations. We are blessed to be able
to look back and see the fulfillment of so much that those ancients did not
have the privilege of seeing or recording. Those events have served to flesh
out those metaphors, supplying added insights, allowing us to make cogent sense
of the stories and apply them in a chronologically relevant manner to our time.
The importance of that can be seen with Jesus' direct application of those
ancient accounts to apocalyptic experience. Some have become so attuned to the significance
of that, they find their radar tingling every time something seems to fit the
mold of those coming days. Widespread fetal abortions? Ding! Racial fighting, bloodshed,
and murder? Ding! Indifference toward and even overt opposition to any form of
moral restraint? Ding! Wars, both conventional and asymmetric, across the
globe? Ding! Natural disasters killing thousands and destroying property worth billions?
Ding! Thoughtless polluting of earth, air and water resulting in universal contamination?
Ding! But the question that is most relevant, despite all of this, even children
understand to ask. Are we there yet? As bad as things are, have they risen, or
more correctly descended to the level of the antediluvian world? And perhaps
more to the point, based on what Jesus said, will we even know when they do, or
will we simply see that day, when it comes, as just another 24-hour round of life
as usual?
God made an agreement
with Noah and all his descendants that would transcend time to all future generations.
If they would remain faithful, he would not abandon them. He repeated that
promise to Abraham and many times since. In fact, in the pages of the Bible, he
still repeats that to us today. But as the circling tedium of day after day
claims our attention, does any of that remain relevant? Perhaps it is important
to note that despite the universal evil of Noah's time, coupled with the indifference
of so many toward their creator, God still warned those who were looking for
and serving him by letting them know what was coming. It was only those given
over to the evil dwelling in their hearts and minds who discerned no
significance to the passing days. If those days are indeed harbingers of what
is coming upon us in these times, only those seeking God will even be aware of
the nearness of the hour. But as Noah did not know the exact moment until God
told him to enter the ark, and "then the Lord shut him in," we may not know the
exact moment until it arrives. Nonetheless, if we want to be ready, as the old
song says, "I'll Be Somewhere Listening" for God to Call My Name as he did Noah's.
I hope you will be listening, too.