Moth & Ethan

Special 1 year Anniversary guest blog post by Kevan Chandler

There have been two floods in the history of man that have covered the whole Earth. Cleansing waters poured out and drenched the world in its darkest hours.

The first came from the sky, rain – a curious thing that no one had ever heard of before. God told a righteous man, Noah, to get ready. Noah built a boat, and was mocked for his vision. What’s rain, anyway? An old wives tale, I say! A bedtime story to scare the kids! Water from the sky? Ridiculous! Next, they’ll say the moon is made of cheese! What’s cheese? But the world was falling apart, sin was rampant, and the Lord said he would fix it. So, fix it, he did. He opened up the heavens and let the rain fall. The earth, they say, even opened up to release geysers, which was new as well. Water was coming from everywhere and it wasn’t slowing down. God filled the world like a bathtub and then drained it – a fresh start, a new world without all that sin. Let’s try again, starting over with good ol’ Noah and his kids. Surely, things will go better this time! But it was only a matter of days before the righteous got carried away with drink, and everything went back to a big mess. And so it went on for a while
longer – a few hundred years, in fact – until word got around that a savior was coming to clean up again and make everything right. And one day, he came.

Jesus of Nazareth showed up and said he was the Son of God. He showed it too, not just in miracles, but in his attitude and wisdom. Some believed and others didn’t. After all, last time God fixed things, he made a much bigger scene, and this Jesus was so meek and mild. If judgement and salvation – if a flood – was to come from a man, it would be a warrior, right? Jesus was no hero, no gladiator. He wasn’t even that handsome. The press didn’t care about this carpenter and his fishermen buddies. But he was who he claimed to be, and he showed the world what it should look like, and it reacted by killing him. And here is the second flood – as we reflect in this Easter season – that when he died, Christ’s side was pierced and there came forth an
outpouring of blood and water. It was in his death that the second, and the final, cleansing flood was poured out upon humanity. Our sins washed away, a chance to start again. No longer dependent on a somewhat righteous man, prone to fall, but it is God himself through whom this new life comes. It’s not just a rinse, but an entirely fresh beginning, and it is good.

Read more from Kevan at Half-Broken Busy.