Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18; 9:8-13
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
When sin entered the world through the disobedience of Adam and his wife, every man, woman, and child from that day forward was temporally and eternally damned; living though dying, conceived and born in sin inherited from humanity’s first parents. Sin gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death (Ja 1:15).
So it is that humanity goes from bad to worse. Cain, whom Eve thought was the fulfillment of God’s promised Seed, rose up and murdered his brother Abel in cold blood. Lamech, the great, great grandson of Cain, was the first to commit polygamy. He boasted to his two wives, Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold” (Gn 4:23-24). Sin gives birth to sin.
You may not have shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, but I say to you, if you have called your brother a fool, you have committed murder; if you have insulted your sister, you have broken the commandment. The old playground taunt is wrong: words hurt much more than sticks and stones; they cut deeper; they burrow and remain and infect. The tongue is a restless evil, full of deadly poison (Ja 3:8). And with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. To paraphrase for the day, “The fault lies not in our stars, dear Christians, but in ourselves that we are damnable sinners.”
And so from Cain to Lamech, from Seth to Methuselah sin increased all the more and death reigned. Until finally, among those who called on the name of the Lord, was born another son. As Eve presumed of Cain, so a different Lamech presumed of his son. He called his name Noah, saying, Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and the painful toil of our hands (Gn 5:29). Noah’s father believed that he was the one promised in Genesis 3:15. Perhaps because Methuselah had prophesied, by the Spirit of the Lord, that God would deliver them. Through the generations the promise was shared; father to son. Preached within the little Church established by the Lord with Adam and Eve. And the Gospel promise created and sustained faith, even amidst a world in chaos and ruin, when everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Therefore the Lord saw the wickedness of man upon the earth. How every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And He was sorry He has made man on the earth. It grieved His heart. Any and all sin grieves the very heart of God and it must be justly punished. Therefore the Lord God brought flood waters on the face of the whole earth to destroy all flesh, to annihilate man, to utterly wash away all sin.
But Noah and his family found favor in the sight of the Lord. He is righteous before the Lord. Not with a righteousness of his own, not one of works. But a righteousness imputed to him by God through faith. Noah and his family clung to the promise given to their great ancestors, Adam and Eve, preached to Seth and his sons, and their sons’ sons’ sons. The promise of the One who would undo the curse of the Fall, who would trample the head of the serpent, who would restore an unrepairable, fractured creation. Noah and his family, this tiny little church, held fast to the ultimate mercy of a severely just God who decimated the world through a flood.
And for nearly one hundred years Noah and his family preached and taught and evangelized their friends and neighbors and relatives and enemies while they constructed a monstrous boat in the middle of the desert. None converted and man continued in his ways, sin giving birth to sin, maturing to death. But the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man. And on the appointed day the Lord shut Noah and his family, along with all the mentioned land animals according to their kinds, into the Ark.
And after a week, two Sabbaths in the Ark, the Lord God tore open the windows of the heavens and the fountains of the great deep burst forth. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. Every beast, every living thing in which is the breath of life upon the face of the earth, every man, woman, child, and animal, died; was drowned in the catastrophic flood.
But the very thing that proved to be death to sin was also salvation for Noah and his family. For the Ark, this floating coffin in which life was temporarily contained, floated on the face of the waters. For one year and eleven days Noah and his family, this tiny Church, floated atop the flood waters. Surrounded by death, inside teaming with life, the held fast to the goodness and loving kindness of the Lord God. The Lord sits enthroned over the flood, as you sang tonight. Or Sunday, which is known as Reminiscere, “Remember.” The Lord remembered Noah and his family and all the animals. He caused the waters to subside. And Noah, sending out a raven and then a dove, which brought back a sign of life, knew that the earth was inhabitable once again.
In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month in the life of Noah - all these firsts - the Lord established a new beginning for mankind. Noah and his family waited for the Word of the Lord to go from the Ark, opening the door in its side and letting out all the animals. Noah built an Altar to the Lord and called upon His Name, ascribing to the Lord the glory due His name; worshipping the Lord in the splendor of holiness (Ps 29:2). Then the Lord God established His covenant with Noah and his descendants after him; with every living creature on the face of the earth, never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. Never again would God destroy the earth by a flood. And He sets His rainbow in the sky as a sign of the covenant between Him and all future generations.
Now dear Christians, the history of Noah, his family, and the impressive nature of the flood and the Ark contains a tremendous amount of material for discussion. There are apologetic and scientific arguments to be made from this account, which I will hand over to other men and women. Discussions of dinosaurs and fossils, classification and climate change. Our concern for these text is their Christological character. For all Scripture, not mere verses, but entire narratives and people, point to Christ. Even Noah and the flood.
For Christ Jesus is the Seed of the Woman, the descendent of Seth and Noah, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who is Named by His Father as the One who will bring relief from our work and the painful toil of our hands. He is Named Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins; from having to scrape and work to attain righteousness. He shall come from the ground that God had cursed, that is, He shall rise from the dead, leaving death and the devil to rot in the tomb, drowned in the fury of God’s wrath against sin.
At the appointed time Christ Jesus comes to the birth waters of the Jordan to be baptized by John. There, while in the waters, according to St Mark, the heavens were torn open, and the Holy Spirit descended - in the form of a dove - upon Christ. There He alighted and remained, not returning from whence He came. That is, not until Christ, all humanity in One, suffers and dies upon the wood of the Cross. In His final breath He commits His the Holy Spirit to His Father, and suffocates under the flood of the Father’s anger against sin. Then His side is opened and out pours all life. The blood which fills the chalice with His life. The water which spills into the Baptismal font - the flood that drowns all your sin and also raises you to new life with God in Christ Jesus. In Christ crucified you behold the merciful heart of the Father.
Luther saw a remarkable connection between the flood and Holy Baptism saying in his famous flood prayer included in our Baptismal Rite: “Almighty and eternal God, according to Your strict judgment You condemned the unbelieving world through the flood, yet according to Your great mercy You preserved believing Noah and his family, yet souls and all.” He then called baptism a “saving flood” and that the baptized would be kept “safe and secure in the holy ark of the Christian Church, being separated from the multitude of unbelievers.” He gets all this from St Peter who says, 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 [the flood] 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 (1 Pt 3:20-21).
Baptism is your personal flood! Christ is your Ark! Your old Adam drowns and dies (daily even) and you are rescued, safe and sound, in the Body of Christ, from whence comes all life. For He who rose on the eighth day gives you this sign of His covenant, the water and the Word from this eight sided font!
One more thing. That rainbow, the one God gave Noah and which you may see when it rains, also points to Christ; to His coming again in the final judgment when the world shall be destroyed not by water, but by fire. Consider the words of the Revelation to St John: Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me . . . and His voice was like the roar of many waters (Rev 1:15). And again, At once I was in the Spirit and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with One seated on the throne. And He who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald (Rev 4:3).
The word is iris. It is depicted in Church art and icons as a golden circle or halo behind the head of Christ. But not only Christ, also behind the head of the saints. This is the crown given to you, beloved, in your Baptism. The righteousness of Christ imputed to you by faith. For you have died with Christ, drowned with Him in the watery grave and flood of your Baptism. You now live with Him, having been ferried across death’s raging flood, and your life is hidden in His Body, His little Church, though surrounded by death. He has not forgotten you, but shall remember you always. He, the Lord, blesses you with peace.
In the Name of the Father + and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
When sin entered the world through the disobedience of Adam and his wife, every man, woman, and child from that day forward was temporally and eternally damned; living though dying, conceived and born in sin inherited from humanity’s first parents. Sin gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death (Ja 1:15).
So it is that humanity goes from bad to worse. Cain, whom Eve thought was the fulfillment of God’s promised Seed, rose up and murdered his brother Abel in cold blood. Lamech, the great, great grandson of Cain, was the first to commit polygamy. He boasted to his two wives, Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold” (Gn 4:23-24). Sin gives birth to sin.
You may not have shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, but I say to you, if you have called your brother a fool, you have committed murder; if you have insulted your sister, you have broken the commandment. The old playground taunt is wrong: words hurt much more than sticks and stones; they cut deeper; they burrow and remain and infect. The tongue is a restless evil, full of deadly poison (Ja 3:8). And with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. To paraphrase for the day, “The fault lies not in our stars, dear Christians, but in ourselves that we are damnable sinners.”
And so from Cain to Lamech, from Seth to Methuselah sin increased all the more and death reigned. Until finally, among those who called on the name of the Lord, was born another son. As Eve presumed of Cain, so a different Lamech presumed of his son. He called his name Noah, saying, Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and the painful toil of our hands (Gn 5:29). Noah’s father believed that he was the one promised in Genesis 3:15. Perhaps because Methuselah had prophesied, by the Spirit of the Lord, that God would deliver them. Through the generations the promise was shared; father to son. Preached within the little Church established by the Lord with Adam and Eve. And the Gospel promise created and sustained faith, even amidst a world in chaos and ruin, when everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Therefore the Lord saw the wickedness of man upon the earth. How every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And He was sorry He has made man on the earth. It grieved His heart. Any and all sin grieves the very heart of God and it must be justly punished. Therefore the Lord God brought flood waters on the face of the whole earth to destroy all flesh, to annihilate man, to utterly wash away all sin.
But Noah and his family found favor in the sight of the Lord. He is righteous before the Lord. Not with a righteousness of his own, not one of works. But a righteousness imputed to him by God through faith. Noah and his family clung to the promise given to their great ancestors, Adam and Eve, preached to Seth and his sons, and their sons’ sons’ sons. The promise of the One who would undo the curse of the Fall, who would trample the head of the serpent, who would restore an unrepairable, fractured creation. Noah and his family, this tiny little church, held fast to the ultimate mercy of a severely just God who decimated the world through a flood.
And for nearly one hundred years Noah and his family preached and taught and evangelized their friends and neighbors and relatives and enemies while they constructed a monstrous boat in the middle of the desert. None converted and man continued in his ways, sin giving birth to sin, maturing to death. But the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man. And on the appointed day the Lord shut Noah and his family, along with all the mentioned land animals according to their kinds, into the Ark.
And after a week, two Sabbaths in the Ark, the Lord God tore open the windows of the heavens and the fountains of the great deep burst forth. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. Every beast, every living thing in which is the breath of life upon the face of the earth, every man, woman, child, and animal, died; was drowned in the catastrophic flood.
But the very thing that proved to be death to sin was also salvation for Noah and his family. For the Ark, this floating coffin in which life was temporarily contained, floated on the face of the waters. For one year and eleven days Noah and his family, this tiny Church, floated atop the flood waters. Surrounded by death, inside teaming with life, the held fast to the goodness and loving kindness of the Lord God. The Lord sits enthroned over the flood, as you sang tonight. Or Sunday, which is known as Reminiscere, “Remember.” The Lord remembered Noah and his family and all the animals. He caused the waters to subside. And Noah, sending out a raven and then a dove, which brought back a sign of life, knew that the earth was inhabitable once again.
In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month in the life of Noah - all these firsts - the Lord established a new beginning for mankind. Noah and his family waited for the Word of the Lord to go from the Ark, opening the door in its side and letting out all the animals. Noah built an Altar to the Lord and called upon His Name, ascribing to the Lord the glory due His name; worshipping the Lord in the splendor of holiness (Ps 29:2). Then the Lord God established His covenant with Noah and his descendants after him; with every living creature on the face of the earth, never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. Never again would God destroy the earth by a flood. And He sets His rainbow in the sky as a sign of the covenant between Him and all future generations.
Now dear Christians, the history of Noah, his family, and the impressive nature of the flood and the Ark contains a tremendous amount of material for discussion. There are apologetic and scientific arguments to be made from this account, which I will hand over to other men and women. Discussions of dinosaurs and fossils, classification and climate change. Our concern for these text is their Christological character. For all Scripture, not mere verses, but entire narratives and people, point to Christ. Even Noah and the flood.
For Christ Jesus is the Seed of the Woman, the descendent of Seth and Noah, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who is Named by His Father as the One who will bring relief from our work and the painful toil of our hands. He is Named Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins; from having to scrape and work to attain righteousness. He shall come from the ground that God had cursed, that is, He shall rise from the dead, leaving death and the devil to rot in the tomb, drowned in the fury of God’s wrath against sin.
At the appointed time Christ Jesus comes to the birth waters of the Jordan to be baptized by John. There, while in the waters, according to St Mark, the heavens were torn open, and the Holy Spirit descended - in the form of a dove - upon Christ. There He alighted and remained, not returning from whence He came. That is, not until Christ, all humanity in One, suffers and dies upon the wood of the Cross. In His final breath He commits His the Holy Spirit to His Father, and suffocates under the flood of the Father’s anger against sin. Then His side is opened and out pours all life. The blood which fills the chalice with His life. The water which spills into the Baptismal font - the flood that drowns all your sin and also raises you to new life with God in Christ Jesus. In Christ crucified you behold the merciful heart of the Father.
Luther saw a remarkable connection between the flood and Holy Baptism saying in his famous flood prayer included in our Baptismal Rite: “Almighty and eternal God, according to Your strict judgment You condemned the unbelieving world through the flood, yet according to Your great mercy You preserved believing Noah and his family, yet souls and all.” He then called baptism a “saving flood” and that the baptized would be kept “safe and secure in the holy ark of the Christian Church, being separated from the multitude of unbelievers.” He gets all this from St Peter who says, 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 [the flood] 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 (1 Pt 3:20-21).
Baptism is your personal flood! Christ is your Ark! Your old Adam drowns and dies (daily even) and you are rescued, safe and sound, in the Body of Christ, from whence comes all life. For He who rose on the eighth day gives you this sign of His covenant, the water and the Word from this eight sided font!
One more thing. That rainbow, the one God gave Noah and which you may see when it rains, also points to Christ; to His coming again in the final judgment when the world shall be destroyed not by water, but by fire. Consider the words of the Revelation to St John: Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me . . . and His voice was like the roar of many waters (Rev 1:15). And again, At once I was in the Spirit and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with One seated on the throne. And He who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald (Rev 4:3).
The word is iris. It is depicted in Church art and icons as a golden circle or halo behind the head of Christ. But not only Christ, also behind the head of the saints. This is the crown given to you, beloved, in your Baptism. The righteousness of Christ imputed to you by faith. For you have died with Christ, drowned with Him in the watery grave and flood of your Baptism. You now live with Him, having been ferried across death’s raging flood, and your life is hidden in His Body, His little Church, though surrounded by death. He has not forgotten you, but shall remember you always. He, the Lord, blesses you with peace.
In the Name of the Father + and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
RSS Feed