People who lived through floods in Houston or on the Mississippi River might have recalled the flood story in Genesis. The water rose up in seemingly endless heavy rains, fed by streams, rivers, and overwhelmed flood control structures.
The world seemed flooded and families moved into shelters, stadiums, or other places for long times in strange surroundings.
In the Genesis story, Noah’s family seems to have been sealed away under a deck with hundreds of animals for many days. We assume that they could not see out, since in the part of the story we are thinking about now, Noah has to release a dove* to find whether the water has subsided. He might have trained the dove to look for leaves and to bring one back to him.
On the first try, the dove returns without a leaf. Noah sticks his arm out of some kind of hatch and brings it into the dark, crowded and smelly interior of the ark.
On the second try, seven days later, the dove returns with a freshly plucked olive leaf, which was evidence that the flood was ending. He waits seven more days (for the land to dry out more?) and sends the dove out again. It does not return. Maybe the sweet green earth overwhelmed the dove’s training to return to Noah.
Is this an Advent story? It’s possible that any story can be an advent story if its characters are trapped in darkness. Then the story might suggest that one way we survive miserable times is in the hope that one day a messenger will arrive to remind us that there is a reason we have been shut in. Now the bright world we once lived in has been cleansed and waits for us. The messenger holds an olive leaf as a sign.
*The raven in verse 7 seems to be part of a different version of the story, along with 8:13-19.
Joe Hall