The Forty Days: 1. Rain

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.

40 Days: it's raining

As Lent begins, it may be worth remembering that its 40 days are reminiscent of many more such time periods in the Bible.  Many think that 40 days and nights were an expression for 'a long time' but that cannot be proven one way or another.  It is clear that wherever it occurs in Scripture this period of time is of divine significance and not a counting coincidence.

In the UK we have just come through a very wet February.

Genesis 7 may or may not be set in February but (verse 12) the rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.  Was it climate change?  Most certainly.  Was it man-made climate change?  Well, yes and no.

We don't know how the ensuing flood affected polar life, deep ocean life or many other questions but we do know that it judged human life.  It was sent by God the creator but the cause was Man the sinner.

It has been argued that this was the first rainfall, a thought more persuasive if the rainbow after the flood was also the first rainbow as is implied.  But nowhere does the Bible affirm this clearly (e.g. read here).  The significance of the rain days were that they represent a solemn length as ordained by God.  Whilst a day or two might just simply seem to happen - forty days never so.

The current fear factor of the coronavirus stems in part from its length of days.  As week follows week humans get the message that this is something to think and care about.  The forty days of rain were God's message that sin, concerning which humans are notoriously careless, is something to care about.

Lent is forty days for us to give it some thought in drier conditions.