Forty Days of Flood and Feud

Last Updated on March 5, 2022 by GMC

First Sunday of Lent

Genesis 9:8-15; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:12-15

Lent recalls the forty days of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, and the forty days of cosmic cleansing in the time of Noah’s Flood. 

As Noah’s Ark, containing all “flesh” (basar, Genesis 6:19), floated atop the deluge, Christ, the saving Ark, plunged into the Jordan river and cleansed all “flesh” which he assumed (basar, sarx, John 1:14).

…God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water. This prefigured baptism, which saves you now.

1 Peter 3:20-21

Humanity’s capitulation to the serpent in the garden of Eden was recapitulated and reversed by Jesus’ conquest of the tempter in the desert.

At once the Spirit drove him out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.

Mark 1:12-13

Forty Days in Forty Syllables:

Life was spoken out of chaos and void;
Evil was flushed in the Flood and destroyed.
Noah’s Ark saved all flesh and humankind;
The Christ conquered the serpent mastermind.