During Lent - the 40 days of Lent - it is worth reflecting on the forty days in Biblical revelation. Forty days is a long time, and 'LENT' derives from the same root as 'Length' in English.
It is likely that when anything happens for a long time it has added significance in the economy of God. The first occurrence of 40 days in the Bible certainly has significance:
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month – on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights.
Genesis 7:11,12
The Great Flood is greatly underestimated in Christian thinking. Although I have heard songs about the animals, and sermons about Noah I have never heard a sermon or seminar dealing with the blatant similarities between Noah's fall (Genesis chapter 9) and Adam's fall. (If you've never considered this - read the two accounts and it will keep you thoughtful through the remainder of Lent - a more useful and Biblical exercise than pondering the fate of kangaroos or Antarctica at the time).
But back to the 40 days of rain. Forty days seems often to be indicative of resetting, or preparation (as in the Temptations of Jesus in the wilderness - the foundational Lenten story). Never, before or since, has God reset his created world as he did in those forty days. Inundation undid almost all breathing created things.
Noah and his family and invited creatures were instantly saved when the Ark's door was slammed shut by God. But while saving may be instant, resetting and preparation for the new never is.
Plainly God would not need 40 days to reset humankind. But he took them. Sin takes some cleansing.
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