I have been looking at perhaps the most well known and vivid story in the entire bible; Noah's ark. Having given some thought to the challenges this story raises in my mind I want to explore its meaning a bit more and see what God is saying to me through it. I think I will skip forward to when the waters recede and Noah steps out.
It must have been a really eerie scene, like some massive disaster movie. Everything destroyed, dead. The soft ground covered in debris. But as the animals come out Noah does a strange thing. He doesn’t kiss the ground like the Pope when his plane touches down in a new country, instead he begins to build an altar.
Try and imagine it from the sheep's point of view. As luck would have it you turned out to be in the category of clean animals so 7 pairs of you were picked increasing your chances and by some 1 in a million chance, you were picked to go in the ark and be saved from the flood. It's like discovering you have a winning lottery ticket. You’ve been cooped up on a boat for a year, contemplating your good fortune. You're let off the ark, squinting in the sunlight, and you are about to go forth and multiply when you see Noah building something. “what is he doing with those stones? Oh no, you have got to be joking!!!”
Sheep feature pretty highly in the bible where they are mentioned almost 200 times. God's people are described as sheep and Jesus of course is the Lamb of God. Each sheep sacrificed pointed to the once and for all sacrifice provided by God's son and as the smoke from Noah's altar wafted up to God it pleased him. Apparently the part of the brain responsible for smells is very deep in the brain. That's why it triggers vivid memories of long forgotton times. Well this smell must have brought Jesus' future sacrifice to mind and cause God to promise to hold back his wrath on this scale even in the face of the greatest provocation. The next time God's wrath would cover the earth it would be as fire, and all those in Christ will be saved.
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