Genesis 8:1-9:17: Worshiping in God's New World

Have you ever gone out on a limb to meet someone half way?  If you knew the person, maybe you didn’t feel like it was that much of a risk.  But if you didn’t, the experience was probably an anxious one.  There is a period of time when you feel vulnerable.  You’ve laid your cards on the table, and you wait for what seems like an eternity to see what the other person has in their hand. 

That’s probably what it was like for Noah.  He builds the ark in obedience to God, and then he leads his family onto the gigantic boat.  No matter how great Noah’s faith, there had to be that small voice that seemed to get louder with each moment that the rain didn’t come, “God has forgotten you, and you’ll look like a fool”. 

That voice was silenced with the coming of the rain.  Did it start with just the trickle of a few rain drops, and then crescendo into a downpour?  Or, were the full might of the rain and the fountains of the deep bursting forth unleashed in one moment, one powerful deluge?  We don’t know exactly how it happened, but one thing we do know is that God remembered Noah.  When we say that God remembered Noah, it doesn’t mean that for a while God had forgotten him.  In Hebrew, “remember” means to act on a previous covenant, not “to forget”.  God had made a promise to Noah, and in sealing Noah in the ark, God remembers and acts on that promise.  Remembering is not just a corrective action taken after something slips our memory.  Remembering can be proactive in nature.  When we greet a friend with a card on their birthday and they respond, “You remembered!”  Or, when we stand by the graveside of a loved one and promise ourselves that we will always remember the impact that they made on our lives.  Old Testament scholar Brevard S. Childs would say that “God remembering always implies his movement towards the object of his memory”, so that in a way when we say God “remembered” Noah what we are really saying is that God drew near to him. 

When God remembers Noah, He by extension remembers humankind.  When the flood waters subside and Noah worships, God is “reminded” of the positive side of humanity.  Because Noah demonstrated humanity’s ability to be faithful, even if that faithfulness isn’t perfect, God’s heart was transformed.  Whereas before the flood “the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” (Genesis 6:6), after the flood “the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth…’” (Genesis 8:21).  After the flood, the new history begins with an altar.  Noah’s first act is to build this altar and worship God.  It is the first time an altar appears in the Bible.  Lest we think that the construction of the altar sanctions the sacred/secular divide, we should take note that part of worship is obedience not just at the altar, but during the whole period leading up to our arrival there.  While the altar isn’t built until the end of the flood, Noah’s whole life was worship because of his obedience.  Noah was so obedient, that he didn’t even leave the ark until God commanded him to do so.  In the words of noted theologian and church reformer John Calvin, “How great must have been the fortitude of the man, who, after the incredible wariness of a whole year, when the deluge has ceased, and new life has shone forth, does not yet move a foot out of his sepulcher, without the command of God.”   What would the altar have meant if Noah had approached it in disobedience?  What if Noah had come to the altar simply to go through the motions, all the while living his life in disobedience and open rebellion towards God?  Even more important, what does our own worship mean if our lives don’t mirror our actions at the altar?  In worshipping, genuinely and wholeheartedly, we express our gratitude to God for the new beginning that he has brought about, not just in Noah, but more importantly in Jesus Christ. 

As residents of this new world, worship is not just our response to salvation, but something we enter into as we live out our redemption.  In Noah’s case, part of the reminder was not just in worship, but in nature itself.  God places the rainbow in the sky so that when humanity gazes upon it, they will remember their collective experience through Noah of judgment, but also redemption.  When commenting on the rainbow, Franz Delitzsch said that, “Stretched between heaven and earth, it is a bond of peace between both, and, spanning the horizon, it points to the all-embracing universality of Divine mercy.”  Many believe that the rainbow is meant to symbolize an actual bow turned on its side, a weapon of war hung up never to be used again.  According to Franz Delitzsch, “The symbol of divine bellicosity and hostility has been transformed into a token of reconciliation between God and man.”  This is not the only reminder we have of judgment and redemption.  As Christians God has given us two acts which inform our identity as the redeemed people of God.  The first of these acts is our baptism.  When we remember our baptism, we should at the same time remember our identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The Apostle Paul writes to the Romans, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:3-4)  In addition to this initiatory act, we regularly gather together as Christians around our Lord’s Table, all the while proclaiming the truth about what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.  Paul reminds the church in Corinth of this when he writes, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” (I Corinthians 11:26)

These reminders come to us not just to bring comfort concerning what God has done, but to convict us of what should be doing as His people.  They remind us that God has opened up the possibility of a new world.  However, the possibility of a new world will forever be a dream deferred unless we adopt Noah’s faith and obedience for our own life.  God calls us to bring forth a new world where the worth of every human is respected.  God’s image in man is why he saves humanity, and is why the worth of every human must be maintained.  When human lives are taken, John Calvin says, “God deems himself violated in the violation of these persons.”  God calls us to boldly live out the reality that the Holy Spirit abides with us in this world.   Despite our failings, God is committed to His promise to never again destroy the earth with a flood.  Theologian and Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann said it this way: “The only thing the waters of chaos and death do not cut through (though they cut through everything else) is the commitment of God to creation.”  Finally, and most importantly, we are to go tell the world that God continues to save.  The story of the flood shows us that redemption has happened before.  Redemption however, is not limited to the past.  Redemption is in the present as well, with God bearing us through the waters in an ark as sturdy as any ship ever built.  The Apostle Peter would write to a group of Christians persecuted by the world, and encourage them to imagine how they were living as present-day Noahs:

 “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.  Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”(I Peter 3:17-21)

Do we trust that God can bear us through the waters of sin and death just as surely as he bore Noah and his family through the flood?  If we truly trust in God’s redemptive work, will we worship not just at the altar, but with lives of obedience as a present-day Noah?  Or, will we be washed away by the consequences of our own rebelliousness and pride?       

I Peter 3:18-22: Noah's wasn't the only ark

In the previous post, we saw how even in the midst of suffering, we are to “apologize”, or give a defense of our faith.  The reason for this is simple: Jesus Christ did the same thing.  Peter uses some very familiar stories to help us understand what it looks like when we find shelter in God’s grace during difficult times.  Specifically, he uses the story of the ark.  The story of Noah is parallel to the situation of the recipients of Peter’s letter.  They, like Noah and his family, are an oppressed minority.  The reason for the oppression they face is their faith in God, and the trust they have placed in God, that His word is true.  They are waiting for something that has not happened yet, and the waiting is taking its toll.

Consider the parallels between Noah, and the early Christian recipients of I Peter.  Notice the similarities between the ark, the flood, and the baptism that we receive when we begin our journey as Christians. 

-          God provided an ark so that Noah’s family might pass through the destructive waters safely. Similarly, God works through baptism, leading us safely by His grace through death, and out the other side, where we enter into the life promised us in Christ. 

-          We pass through the waters of baptism, of judgment, just as the ark passed through the waters of the flood. We arise unscathed, just as those in the ark came through the waters unscathed.

How exactly does this happen?  Oh, we understand roughly what it would have looked like for Noah to build a great big ark.  We can imagine his family being tossed about inside by the waves of the flood.  We can wonder how nerve-racking it would have been to hear rain on the roof, for forty straight days!  As incredible as the story is, we can envision it in some way, but what about baptism?  What does getting physically wet have to do with our spiritual lives?  It’s hard to comprehend how God’s grace is made manifest in a very physical act. 

The waters of baptism are not magical, any more than the ark was magical.  Sometimes because it’s easier to imagine, we forget about exactly how ridiculous the ark was at the time.  Picture it, Noah and his family out there day after day, week after week, month after month, building a huge boat nowhere close to water, when it had never even rained!!  Despite all the work that Noah put in, the ark was still a result of God’s grace.  He told Noah about the flood, and because Noah believed him, he acted accordingly.  Similarly, God tells us about the coming judgment.  We might think we are doing something by wading into that baptismal pool, but our physical acts of obedience are made possible only in light of the truth revealed to us by God.  Like Noah, we believe that what God tells us about the future is true.  The real question is, like Noah, do we trust God’s word enough to find shelter in His grace?