Facing the Flood
Genesis 6:5-8 and 9:8-17
by Jim Westmoreland
For us to get to the meaning of the promise of the bow in the sky we have to face the flood.
Hurricane Katrina was the eleventh named tropical storm, fifth hurricane, third major hurricane, and first Category 5 hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was the third most powerful storm of the season, and the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded. Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005, and crossed southern Florida at Category 1 intensity before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico, becoming the strongest hurricane ever recorded at that time in the Gulf. The storm weakened considerably before making its second landfall as an extremely large Category 3 storm on the morning of August 29 along the Central Gulf Coast near Buras-Triumph, Louisiana.
The storm surge from Katrina caused catastrophic damage along the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Levees separating Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans were breached by the surge, ultimately flooding about 80% of the city. Wind damage was reported well inland, greatly impeding relief efforts. Katrina was responsible for over $75 billion in direct damages. That, together with the indirect damages of continuing economic losses, make it the costliest hurricane in United States history. The storm killed over 1,400 people. We all became acutely aware of the power and destructiveness of storms and of our powerlessness in the face of overwhelming flooding. Death by water, or death for lack of it, whichever, may well symbolize our deepest dreads.
Floods strip us of everything, even the land to stand on. We can only wait or go under. If we sink, we suffocate. We disappear. Water is one of those great impersonal forces of the earth. Even in our technological abundance we can find ourselves abandoned and helpless before its force.
In the first chapter of Genesis God's spirit is described as moving over the surface of the waters.(1) After God had created day and night, he said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."(2)
Prior to the creation of land there was only a watery chaos. Now, God lets the watery chaos return for 40 days and nights in a great flood, destroying all but those whom he preserved aboard the Ark. All that God had separated at creation was falling together in a collapse.
Why is all of this happening? Why is it that the creation described in Genesis 1, where God pauses as He creates and says it is good, is now not so good. In fact the watery chaos almost completely returns to destroy everything. Why?
In Genesis 6:5-6 we read, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart." And so, at the beginning of humanity, the Creator is faced with the appalling sin of the human race. God grieved over our sinfulness, and he decided to save Noah and his family because they had continued to worship Him, but He would destroy everyone else because of their total rebellion against Him.
Our text is about God setting the bow in the sky as a reminder of His covenant about not destroying the earth again by water. We want to get to the rainbow part, but we have to first face the Flood.
The bow has been popular in other literature and languages and usually indicates some past event. Among the Indians, the bow was laid aside after a contest with the demons. According to the Arabs, Kujah shot arrows from his bow against Tiamat and then set the bow in the heavens as a constellation. In the literature of Iceland, the bow served as a bridge between heaven and earth. Similar usage of the bow is to be found in Hebrew imagery. The lightening bolts are Yahweh's arrows. When the storm is over, his bow, referred to in Habakuk 3:9 f. and Psalm 7:12 f., is laid aside and appears in the sky as a sign that His anger is over. In Genesis the bow, understood as a weapon of war, is hung in the sky following the flood to be the sign that God would not destroy the earth again by flood.
In poetic expression, God laid aside His wrath and placed his bow in the cloud as a sign that He will ever be merciful to humankind. In all of this we are to realize that, without God's providence, without the constant covenanted care and protection of God, human life could not continue for any time at all.(3)
In the Hebrew pre-scientific understanding of the world, the God who made land to appear by separating and holding back the waters of chaos that brooded over the watery deep, will now not turn loose of the waters again to bring destruction of the human race. To look at a rainbow is to remember our own sins and that God has placed his war bow in the sky as a reminder and a promise. We are reminded of his anger toward sin and rebellion against him. And, we are reminded of his grace not to destroy us by flood again.
This is an appropriate story to read at the beginning of the season of Lent, our 40-day journey of honesty. This is the season when we confront our sin and confess our guilt. We have lived in such ways as to make our Creator regret having given us life.
Will Williman says, The rest of the world thinks that we make too much of our sin. Focusing upon evil, sin, wickedness might lead us to negative thinking, might engender in us a bad self-image. We live in an age that believes, not in the reality of sin, but in the need to go along in order to get along. Who am I to judge? We're all doing the best we can. Why must the church dredge up this sordid story of our ill-fated, misbehaving ancestors? Why must we, their heirs in sin, admit to our continuing wickedness?
Because the church is not only about reconciliation, love and comfort. The church is also about the truth. And this ancient story tells the truth about how we got to where we are today. We have been wrong from the first, the very first. Read today's newspaper, listen to the national news. There is so much death, so much chaotic destruction. Not by water, not through the punishment of God, but through our own wickedness.(4)
When we face the flood, when we face our own shortcomings, the story does not end in judgment. "The waters recede, the clouds fade, the sun comes out, and a rainbow arches over the whole muddy mess."(5) God has chosen to walk with us as we journey through life. We keep making our mistakes, but we walk with God under the promise and assurance of the rainbow. Peter creates an analogy between our baptism and the Flood in the 1Peter lectionary text for this week. In our baptism God pronounces judgment on our tendency toward wickedness, and mercy on our future. We repent and are baptized. Noah faced the flood and got a rainbow. God makes possible a new creation for us.
Luther once said something to the effect that baptism takes only a few moments to do, but our whole life to finish. What a sad example it is for parents to bring their children to church until they are baptized and then quit. Jesus came to make disciples, followers of Him. There is no magic water that saves us from our sins. No, when we face the Flood, we confess our sins, we turn around in our behavior, and we follow Jesus as a life style, not as a "one and done" magic ritual.
Renewal is an essential part of our Christian discipleship. We are all tempted. We all get distracted. We all experience highs and lows in our faith commitment. Through the ages the Lenten season has been a time for inquirers to come to know Jesus as Savior. New believers prepare to be baptized, and each one of us who have been baptized can use this time as a time to renew our baptism. We can embrace the mystery of God's judgment and of His love. What needs to be washed away from our life right now? What bad habit, what sinful thoughts, or what dark secret needs to be drowned? What sun needs to shine, what good work needs to be undertaken, what new spiritual practice needs to be started?
The rainbow reminds us of the goodness and mercy of God. Like Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, we too are tempted. Like Noah and his generation, we must face the flood and all the things in our lives that bring God's judgment. And we can give thanks that He gave us the rainbow and He gave us Jesus to remind us of His grace and mercy. Amen.
Century Christian Church, March 5, 2006 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland
www.centurychristian.org
1. Genesis 1:2
2. Genesis 1:6
3. Ralph H. Elliott, The Message of Genesis, St. Louis, Mo: Bethany Press, 1961, p. 70.
4. William H. Williman, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 34, No. 1, Jan-Mar, 2006, p. 42-43.
5. Ibid, p. 43.