Tides

Looking at the wreckage - physical, psychological, economic - from the great tsunami tide in Japan my memory triggered a strangely reminiscent picture that I saw in the Maritime Museum in Liverpool.  It is called 'Waiting for the Tide'

In Hoodless's painting all the big things - the river, the steamer, the famous waterfront buildings - are peripheral to a chugging tug and a pile of stuff that is just lying there, as on docksides things do.  Waiting.

While the tsunami leaves everything washed up and waiting - waiting to be found, waiting to rebuild, waiting to return - other tides are waited for.

This is why, in so much Biblical imagery, the overwhelming wall of water that has so devastated thousands of lives is, rather, a picture of blessing - he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of Yahweh drives along.  The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins, declares Yahweh.

There is a flood that rescues as well as a flood that destroys.