I have never quite understood why some vegetarians will eat fish. I do not see how fish are different from animals as sentient beings nor that a sardine or a sole more or less physically repellent than a sausage or a steak. I would be vegetarian (and not pescatarian) if I had the strength of will to overcome my addiction to pork fat.
Ancient Hebrew thought made a more fundamental distinction; animals -as the name suggests (anima is connected with breath) meant things that breathe; things that have the breath of life in them. The ancient Hebrews can be forgiven for not realising that fish do in fact “breathe” through their gills.
In the beginning of Genesis, it is that breath which completes Creation when God makes man and woman, his final creatures made in his own image; and it is another breath, the spirit moving over the chaotic waters that initiates creation in the beginning. Spirit is the life force driving creation as the breath of God made audible as his words become tangible reality.
So, when God loses patience with the misbehaviour of his creatures and decides to destroy the lot of them- relenting as usual from total annihilation for a few righteous ones, human and animal, he takes away that life force. Water in large quantities was in the Hebrew mind, a destructive and unpredictable force. It is and was immensely powerful and could be seen as the antithesis of benign creativeness and order. Its most deadly characteristic, however, was that it deprived all in its path of breath and therefore life. All that is except the fish who did not really count and perhaps could have no share in sin because they did not (as it seemed) breathe and therefore think, but appeared to act automatically out of instinct. So they were left to share their watery element with the bloated and rotting corpses of the “higher” creatures floating above along with Noah in his Ark and his selected few.
After the forty days of rain followed an hundred and fifty of deprivation, reflection and near despair at the end of which a dove returns to the Ark with a fresh olive branch giving hope and a little assurance, that life is to begin again.
I am not why a dove should represent the spirit of God, but there is ample evidence that at least by New Testament times, it did. After there supportding role in the story of Noah doves appear in the Mosaic Law as suitable animals to sacrifice after the birth of a child and as a propitiation for sin. Later in the Old Testament doves symbolise a sexy cosiness, cooing and comfortably fluffy, but their moaning call is also an echo of human sorrow, and longing to return to God and the righteous life. The ideas of reconciliation, renewal and rebirth run through this imagery and it is, I suggest, for this reason that the Gospel writers use the dove descending on Jesus as he emerges from the water of baptism.
Noah’s dove flies over the deadly albeit receding waters, like primordial moved over the waters of chaos, bringing its olive twig asthe sign of reconciliation. And finally, it does not return, but stays to find a mate and we suppose start a family and begin life again. So too the Holy Spirit brings new life and new hope for a fallen world as it descends on Jesus.
I do not think it is too fanciful to see these parallels in the stories of Noah and those around the baptism of Jesus, but the stories do not match in all respects; the dove/spirit in Mark and the other Gospels instigates the forty days of contemplation and perhaps self-doubt which we recall in Lent; for Noah and his crew the dove brings relief and is followed shortly after by the rainbow, which shines through the clouds like St John’s primordial Word, the light which the darkness could not extinguish. In the Gospels the promise of a new world comes in the bright and let us imagine colourful flowers of the Garden on Easter morning, following the crucifixion in which Jesus breathes his last. It is understandable that the crucifixion has been seen, and depicted as a drowning, although one from which Jesus emerges into light and air.
The Gospels generally, arrange these ideas more closely around the Passover story in which the Israelites pass through the deadly waters only to emerge in the wilderness, where forty years of contemplation, self-doubt and self-discovery are needed before they can cross water again into the Promised Land.
St Mark replays this trope of regeneration, followed by retreat and reflection preceding arrival in a new Eden, a Promised Land or the Kingdom of God in his brief account of Jesus’ baptism temptation and his Gospel announcement in Galilee of the arrival of the Kingdom.
How should these ideas inform our thoughts in Lent? Lent is the preparation for Easter and its 40 days should somehow reflect those damp 40 days in the Ark and the arid 40 years wandering in the wilderness; a time of penitence but equally of expectation – there is a destination. There was hope for Noah and the Israelites and there is certainty for us in the renewal of Easter.
Doris Asher, of dear memory to many of us, told me she was confident that she would be received into heaven, but coming from a generation which believed cleanliness next to godliness, thought she would need some scrubbing before she was fit to be admitted. Purgatory is not a very Anglican notion but it’s perhaps a helpful one for Lent.
It needn’t involve near drowning, nor retreat into any modern-day wilderness (of which there are many). It may, however, helpfully include a spiritual shower, to get back to our basic selves clear of our pretentions and fears; to see who we might be without our foolish ambitions, envies and anxieties. What we see in the spiritual bathroom mirror may not, will not, in my case, be very edifying, but it will be the starting point for a reflection on what really matters in making us fully human and yet an image of God and for what we need to do to make ourselves fitting citizens of the Kingdom God. Some may find giving up alcohol, chocolate or meat helps, but I think it’s more important to try to find the spirit of regeneration in our lives, to spy out the dove with the green twig, the better to appreciate the radiant rainbow which will shine out for us on Easter morning. Amen