God sees how men and women tend toward evil, yet He offers grace to one man: Noah, the one known for walking with God.
God sees how men and women tend toward evil, yet He offers grace to one man: Noah, the one known for walking with God.
Advent Day 3, The Flood and the Promise.
A few generations removed from the first man and woman, and no one except Noah seeks God.
God sees man's wickedness.
God peers deeper every intention of the thought of man's heart is only evil continually.
God feels sorrow.
His creation has spurned him.
But not Noah.
Noah walks with God.
Genesis 6:5-9 says, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I'm sorry that I have made them.
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord."
These are the generations of Noah.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.
Noah walked with God.
And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
In some ways, Noah is an anomaly, an enigma.
All the world is going to rot and ruin.
But Noah?
Noah waits on God, the God who is with us.
And God speaks to him.
More than that, God speaks with Noah.
God gives Noah instructions for constructing an ark, and God makes a promise.
I will establish my covenant with you.
And then, silence.
If God speaks additional words to Noah, they go unrecorded.
But Noah gets to work.
Noah builds an ark, something he can barely imagine.
He only knows what an ark is as it takes shape beneath his hands and before his eyes.
Through all the labor and probably a bruised thumb and sore muscles, Noah waits.
He builds and builds, clinging to a promise, I will establish my covenant with you.
As Noah and his sons brush on a final coat of pitch, God speaks again.
Go into the ark, for I've seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.
Noah's waiting brims with activity.
How does Noah's active season of waiting on God change or confirm your perceptions of waiting?
Then, water.
Water rising from the depths and water falling from the windows of the skies.
Water, water everywhere.
Walls and floors of it.
God promises water and water he delivers.
It says, the flood continued 40 days on the earth.
The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.
The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters.
And the waters prevailed so mightly on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.
Only Noah was left and those who were with him in the ark.
And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.
That's from Genesis 7.
Noah and his family and the animals float on the waters for days and days and days.
What did he remember?
What promises might he have clung to as landmarks and homes disappeared from his sight?
Surely Noah and his family encounter dark days.
Days where they wonder whether Noah made the right choice or heard God correctly.
What has obedience gotten them but this floating box of animals?
Then again, what choice do they have, surrounded by waters as they are, but to stay on the ark and hope God will remember his covenant?
Genesis 8 tells us, but God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with them in the ark.
And God made a wind blow over the earth and the waters subsided.
The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed.
The rain from the heavens was restrained.
And the waters receded from the earth continually.
At the end of 150 days, the waters had abated.
And in the seventh month, on the 17th day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
And the waters continued to abate until the 10th month.
In the 10th month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.
God is an absent-minded.
God is both the bringer of the flood and the keeper of his promises.
So what does it mean that God remembers?
Mountains.
The earth began to take identifiable form and shape again.
Noah sent out birds, letting their behavior and actions inform his.
He removes the ark's door, peers out, and beholds dry land.
Does he rush out of the door?
No.
He waits on God, and God speaks.
God gives instructions.
God blesses.
And God confirms his covenant with a sign, the rainbow.
When was the last time you looked at a rainbow and remembered God, the maker and keeper of promises?
Centuries later, another one of God's promises is fulfilled.
Jesus is born.
The promise given to Adam and Eve takes the form of an infant.
And this infant, like the ark and the rainbow renews hope, the baby Jesus confirms God's covenant with humans, like a signature on a contract.
I choose you, God says.
I make my covenant with you.
I will not destroy you.
God chooses us, despite our faulty hearts, because God chooses us.
God keeps choosing humans, despite the inclination of our hearts.
How is Jesus God's promised Messiah, the ultimate example of God choosing us?
Thank God for being the maker and keeper of promises.
Which of his promises are especially dear to you in the season of Advent?
Which one renews your hope in him?
Spend some time with those promises this week.
Invite them to saturate your thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and actions.
Let's pray.
Lord God, you are the bringer of the flood and the keeper of promises.
Thank you for your son, Jesus.
He became like us so that we might become like him.
Thank you for Jesus' sacrifice, which keeps us safe from the waters of sin and death and delivers us to you, our home and our harbor.
Thank you for calling us your children.
Amen.