Sermon Cloud

Two boys who happen to be in the same Sunday School class were on their way down to their favorite fishing hole. They had been studying Noah and the Ark at church. One of the boys asked the other, do you suppose Noah did any fishing while he was on that boat for so long? The other boy thought about it a minute and then said, “I doubt it.” “Why?” asked the first boy. “Well,” said the other, “think about it, he only had two worms.”

Like many of our favorite Old Testament stories, the story of Noah and the Ark is one that is a bit curious. We love the idea of Noah building an ark out in the middle of nowhere. We love the idea of all those animals coming two-by-two to get aboard the ship. We love the idea that 40 days of rain could flood the earth, and that in the end there’s a rainbow. The whole story is so picturesque, and yet few us truly understand its meaning for our lives. For most of us it is just a cute story.

If we take it at face value, it is an epic tale of God choosing a faithful remnant to survive some kind of disaster or calamity because of God’s judgment against the wicked. This theme of God providing a way out for a righteous few will repeat itself in numerous ways in the Old Testament. God spared Lot and his family just prior to the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah. God passed over the faithful Jewish families who followed the instructions and painted blood on the doorposts and over the lintels of their homes just before the Exodus. God retrieved a faithful remnant out of Babylon when it was time to restore Israel. There are many other stories as well. A faithful few escape calamity as God’s judgment is meted out.

We are told as the story unfolds that God is disappointed and angry at the level of sinfulness he is seeing among human beings. Only Noah and his family are righteous. So God decides to wipe out all flesh and to start over with Noah’s family. So God calls on Noah to build the ark, and somehow miraculously, just before the first crack of lightning, the animals that are to be spared all come to the ark two-by-two, one male and one female. The rains came down and the floods came up, and eventually the aircraft-carrier-sized ship was lifted off its stands and floated safely away.

Technically, a cubit is from a man’s elbow to the tip of his middle finger. This is averaged to about 18 inches. So the ark which is 300 cubits long is about 450 feet long. The width was 75 feet wide, and the height was about 45 feet high. Having done tests on a vessel of this dimension, it was found to be very sea worthy even in rough seas.

It is quite a story. It is profound enough that many have asked all kinds of questions about how all this came about, and what others must have thought of it. Bill Cosby is one of my favorite comedians, and his three part routine on Noah is a classic. In the middle of these three parts, Bill Cosby talks about the reaction of Noah’s next door neighbor. There Noah is building this ark in his driveway, and his next door neighbor is heading off to work and he looks up at Noah working on this thing and he says, “Hey, Noah. What are you building there?”

“I’m building an ark.”

“Right, what’s an ark?”

“That’s exactly what I said.”

“So why are you building this ark?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“What do you mean you can’t tell? You can’t tell me why you are building this monstrosity next to my house?”

“That’s right. I can’t tell you.”

“Can you give me a hint?”

“A hint? Sure, I’ll give you a hint: How long can you tread water? Ha, ha, ha, ha.”

It’s a great story. We love this story. It’s one of our favorite stories, and we love telling our kids and grandkids this story, but what does it really mean? And what does it mean for you and me today?

First, we have to understand what the Book of Genesis really is. It is a book about origins. That’s what Genesis means. And the stories in Genesis are part of a long standing oral tradition. That is, stories that were handed down from generation to generation told around the campfire and in the tents of the Hebrews. That’s where this story was formed. Genesis can best be understood, by playing the game JEOPARDY. If this story is the answer, what was the question that was asked when the people of God gathered around the campfire at night? The point of all the stories in Genesis is to say something about their heritage, to say something about their relationship with God, and to teach the younger ones to obey God’s rules. So imagine we are sitting around the campfire. If you are able, you can cross your legs Indian-style there in the pew. I especially encourage the kids to do this. Now imagine that you have a marshmallow on the end of a stick and you’ve got it dancing in the tops of the flames. The conversation turns to something that happened that day, and one child asks, how does God feel when someone is bad, or is mean to another person?

The wise old story teller says, “Ah, let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, God saw that the people were wicked ...

In this story we learn lots of things about God. First, we learn that God is not happy about sinfulness. When people treat other people deceitfully, spitefully, violently, and wickedly it really hurts God, and it makes him angry. In this story, God is viewed as being willing to wipe out most living creatures. The reason why creatures have survived to the time of the telling of the story is because God spared both humanity and animals by placing them in the ark. We also learn that wiping out the vast population of the world did not make God any happy either. So God decided to bind himself with a covenant promise to Noah, that God would never again destroy the world by flood. God does love all his creatures. And though he spared some, the wiping out of so many was so hurtful to God that he swore to himself and to Noah, that he’d never do it again. Instead of wiping people out from then on, he would send prophets to teach them how to live properly. And ultimately, God sent his own Son, to not only teach people how to live together, but he died for their sins as well. God decided that he would rather sacrifice his own Son, than destroy so many of his children.

There is so much that can be said about Noah and the Ark. There is, interestingly enough, a flood and animal story in every ancient culture with middle eastern roots. Among the Arabs, the Indians, the Hebrews, the Egyptians, and the Turks, all of these cultures have a flood story, a boat-full of animals, and an ancient hero, who’s faithfulness in building the boat and collecting the animals spared their race and culture, not to mention all the animals. If so many cultures have such a story, the question becomes, was there one great flood, one ark and one surviving family, whose descendants became all those cultures, OR, did some member of each culture manage to escape the flood in some similar way. Or is it such a great literary story, that all middle eastern cultures adopted it as their own.

Archeologists have recently discovered that 200 feet below the shore line of the Black Sea, there are remains of an entire civilization. They have surmised that the Black Sea was once a lake with land all around it. The Mediterranean Sea was at a much higher level. Eventually the land bridge that kept the Mediterranean out, broke free and the flooding effect of that cataclysmic breach filled the Black Sea basin in record time, wiping out all inhabitants of that civilization. If one family had a large enough boat to have weathered the initial flood of water, it is possible that they were the only survivors and the story of that miraculous escape was handed down from generation to generation, with the details getting a bit muddled over time.  

Either way the story of Noah and Ark has served as both a warning to many about their behaviors, and as a message of hope that God promised never again to destroy his people with a flood, and that the rainbow is a sign and reminder of that great promise.

Finally then, what does this wonderful story say to us today. First, it tells us that God truly loves us, and that he cannot bring himself to wipe out an entire population ever again, no matter how sinful they may be. Second, it tells us that God is willing to enter into everlasting covenants, that even if we fail to keep our part of the bargain, God maintains his end throughout. God calls us to live in a covenant relationship with him, and to be as committed to our promises as God is committed to keeping his. Our word should be our bond, and women and men of integrity do not throw around fast promises that they never intend to keep. If we want to be known as persons of integrity, we must keep our word, and fulfill our promises. We must not anger God with our sinful behavior, and we must rely on God to see us through the difficult days of our lives.

Finally, we must be faithful to God’s calling in our lives, so that we are ready to do whatever God may ask of us. We may never be called upon to build an ark, in fact, God’s covenant assures us we never will. But God does still call faithful people into obedience to some pretty crazy things, at least outwardly but God knows what he is doing, and what he is asking. God always has his reasons. Our job is not to question God’s instructions. Ours is to remain faithful, take courage, and move forward trusting God to lead and to provide. And God always does, and always will. Amen.