The Jesse Tree Journals

Lectio Divina from the Jesse Tree
GOD’S PROMISE TO NOAH – Day 3 🌈
Genesis 9:1-17

“Be fertile.”

God’s blessing to Noah and his sons seems redundant at first glance, “Be fertile and multiply.” Not only as an echo of the first blessing to Adam and Eve but also for its poignancy. To multiply implies reproduction. Re-produce the original. Make a copy. That much is easy to comply with. The world will tell you today there are many ways to reproduce. But fertility is far less illusive. To be fertile means to make oneself available to reproduce. As in, remain open to life. And not just any life, but human life. And not just once or twice, or only by countries with land enough to support it, but the blessing of God is to “fill the earth.” It is a “blessing” not a command. Population control is the curse. Fertility in abundance is the Blessing.

God’s promise to Noah is a second chance at fertility. Where Adam and Eve may have multiplied and even filled the earth, their descendants failed to remain open to life. For what kind of wickedness could move the heart of God to wipe out His creation except that man would try to murder Him by murdering His image. They rejected the Blessing and where there is no blessing remains only the curse.

“I will demand an accounting: each one for the blood of another, I will demand an accounting for human life.”

Nowhere in Scripture does man make a covenant with God; God is the one who makes a covenant with man. Because He is the only one capable of being accountable to it. And so, the Promise to Noah is a promise to mankind, not to never wipe them out again, but to hold Himself accountable not to do it by flood.

It is the mercy of God to consider man when man is so inconsiderate of God.

“When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will remember…”

In Judaism, there is a different effect of the rainbow in the clouds on the soul of the righteous. Whereas, many take it as a sign of God’s mercy, the Jew knows it also as a sign of His justice. When He sends His clouds to once again pour forth His judgement upon the wicked, He does so justly. For it is the justice of God to keep His promise, “I will demand an accounting.” But when the bow appears in His justice, He promises to remember Himself, “so that the waters will never again become a flood to destroy every mortal being that is on the earth.” The sign of the bow, is a sign for Him to remember. And He is justified by His promise to withhold His wrath, at least by deluge.

Let us then also remember, even more so in this generation that whenever or wherever and by whomever we see the rainbow set before us, it is a sign that our wickedness would demand His justice, but it is the mercy of God that will save us from the fires of Hell.

Rainbow over Divine Mercy Shrine, Philippines.

This year’s Advent Meditations are brought to you through the use of the Jesse Tree Journal by the Disciples In Christ – Education in Virtue at OpenLightMedia.com. Visit their site for a copy of the Jesse Tree Advent Journal and begin your own journey to #EncounterHim