Lent Day 7
by Jewel Gilbert
Genesis 9:8-17, I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
Psalm 25:3-9
Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!
1 Peter 3:18-22, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
Mark 1:9-13 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.
“In the dark times, will there be singing?
Yes, there will be singing.
About the dark times.” - Bertolt Brecht
Let not the veneer of familiarity distort your vision as you read the passages for this week. They cover dark and difficult times. To review:
A massive flood drowns every teenager, grandmother, and bouncing bunny outside of the ark. Noah and his family emerge to see a brilliant rainbow in the sky and thousands of bloated, rotting carcasses on the ground.
The psalmist desperately tries to make sense of a world that feels unjust and overwhelming. He pours this desperation into a song, which appears to have no heavenly response.
Over the course of six weeks, Jesus starves, faces the literal devil, and finds out that a corrupt politician has imprisoned his cousin out of spite.
Viewing these stories from this dismal lens is a deliberate choice on my part. I am purposefully refusing to see that familiar throughline of waters-parting, dove-descending, choir-singing joyfulness.
To interpret these stories by their darkest elements, however, allows me to see how familiar they are. They feel like my own day and time, where:
A disease has turned so many people into corpses so quickly that our nation has repeatedly faced body bag shortages.
The new president has repeatedly and desperately called for unity, but true unity in politics seems impossible to imagine.
The US has the largest prison population in the world, and nearly half a million of the people imprisoned here have not even had a trial yet.
This is not the only way to view these times. I could instead focus on the incredible teamwork of scientists around the world in developing vaccines, or think about how so many people have adopted pets that shelters are empty in some places.
But I don’t want to rush to those thoughts, and I don’t want to read these passages and only think about rainbows and doves. I find myself wanting to sit with the darkest perspectives, to be patient with the pain, to remember the dark and difficult times long before me.
To trust that God is present in this holy darkness.
Jewel Gilbert works as an Internal Auditor by day and enjoys sleeping at night. In her free time, she is a plant and kitten parent, and occasional crafter. Last year she read 118 books, but feels that the number is a bit misleading given her newfound love of graphic novels and her longtime love of poetry collections.