Text: Genesis 9, Mark 1
In Lent, we are reminded that again and again, suffering and brokenness find us.
Again and again, the story of Jesus on the cross repeats – every time we witness the injustice and are reminded about how we have forgotten to love.
And again and again, God breaks the cycle and offers us a new way forward.[1]
In that way, this time of Lent is a blessing… a gift from God that reminds us God meets us wherever we are… but never lets us stay there.
Our scripture for this morning is the story of Noah and his family.
Noah found favor with God in the midst of a world that had fallen apart.
All the earth was filled with sin and wickedness, immorality and violence.
Again and again, we fail, don’t we?
God was fed up with the whole thing and wanted to start over.
So our Creator went to Noah and asked him to build a boat – a ship large enough to hold his family and one of every kind of animal.
And when the boat was completed, the skies opened up and it began to rain.
God blessed and saved Noah and his family through the flood… but every other person on the earth – all of them sinners – were swept away in the waters.
For forty days and forty nights, the rains fell and Noah and his wife and children were absolutely alone in the world.
But one day, the waters began to recede.
Eventually, the boat settled on dry ground and Noah and his family came out of the boat and the scriptures tell us that God looked around and realized what had transpired.
We often forget when we come to this part of the story that the earth’s population is gone.
We forget that the animals and plants and every other living thing on earth was now dead.
We forget of the devastating force of flood waters, until we go through them ourselves.
I remember vividly what it was like to walk in the neighborhoods of Cedar Rapids following the flood of 2008.
After just a few days of being submerged, the grass and the plants were dying and the stench of creatures that had not escaped was everywhere.
I can’t imagine the devastation after more than a month of floodwaters.
Scripture tells us that God looked around at all the destruction and made a promise – right there and then.
“Never again will I send a flood to destroy the earth and everything that lives on it. No, I’m going to put my rainbow in the clouds, so that whenever the storm clouds start to gather and you see that bow – I will remember the promise that I have made to you today.”
This part of the story – where God changes God’s mind is really hard for some of us to understand.
We don’t like the idea that God acts one way and then turns around and feels bad about it.
We like to think of our God as unchanging and dependable!
But I want to tell you that I don’t think this is story is about God’s uncertainty or remorse.
Many other cultures and religions in the world have a flood story.
American Indians, the Ancient Greeks, Sumerian and Babylonian traditions, among many others, tell of waters being sent by the gods to flood the earth.
Many of these also have a hero who is warned of the coming waters and who preserves the heritage of the people.
So it’s not surprising that the Hebrew tradition, our tradition, has a flood story, too.
What is surprising is that when all is said and done – our scriptures speak of God’s mercy and tell us that destruction is NOT how God is going to save the creation.
It’s almost as if our Hebrew ancestors took those familiar stories of the flood and they retold it with a new ending.
Our God, the God that we follow has made a covenant – a promise – with us.
Our God cares for the creation.
Our God desires life, not death.
It’s almost as if they were saying: the God we follow never would have sent a flood in the first place.
You see, from the very first chapter of Genesis to the very last chapter in Revelation, the message is conveyed in the Bible is that God loves us. God meets us where we are. God wants to redeem us… not destroy us.
This week for Ash Wednesday, we acknowledged our sin and our struggle.
We claimed our humanity and mortality.
We are all sinners… the dust of the earth.
Had we lived in the days of Noah, we would have been destroyed by those flood waters.
If we had followed the gods of the Babylonians, or the Greeks, or the gods of this world who demand performance and success – our only legacy would have been death.
But you know what?
We don’t follow the gods of this world…
we follow the God of the Universe.
And that great, amazing and powerful God looks down upon us,
specks of dust though we are,
sinners one and all,
and God loves us.
God reached down to the earth and took a lump of clay and formed us in the divine image.
Our God breathed his very life into humanity.
Our God is a merciful God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
Our God made a covenant with Noah that never again would all flesh be destroyed by the waters of a flood…
because our God desires not the death of a sinner but a repentant heart.
And that very same God restores all of creation, not by wiping the slate clean, but by meeting us where we are.
God takes on human flesh and is born among us.
We are dust. We are human and mortal and make so many mistakes.
But Christ came to show us a better way.
Just a few weeks ago, we remembered the story of the baptism of Christ.
The way of Jesus begins with a repentant heart and through the waters of baptism, our sins are washed away and we are filled with the Holy Spirit.
God meets us where we are and our lives of dust are drenched with new life.
God speaks to each one of you… You are my child, and I love you.
God meets us where we are… but then refuses to let us stay there.
God refuses to let us return to those old lives and sends us off into something new.
Mark tells us that immediately after Jesus comes up from the waters of his own baptism, the Spirit drove him to the wilderness.
For forty days, Jesus stayed there.
It is a reminder of the forty days the waters covered the earth in the time of Noah.
It is a time we mark through the forty days of Lent.
And we read in Mark that Jesus was not alone.
We are never alone.
Jesus went into the wilderness and God met him there, too. Angels waited upon him.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I sure could use some angels in my life right now.
I need that reminder that God is present in my life.
I need to claim that reality that no matter what happens in the world, God loves me.
That is the opportunity we have in this season of Lent.
With all of the struggles that we face, we also have the chance to know God’s love and presence.
God is ready to meet you… right where you are… to refresh your spirit and guide you through.
And if ever we forget that reality, all we have to do is remember the rainbow.
In the midst of storms that threaten to destroy everything we have built and become, the rainbow shines as a promise that God is with us and will never let go.
I am reminded of these words from Bruce Pewer:
Rejoice in the rainbow.
It is the sign of God’s steadfast love which promises not destruction but hope and reconstruction.
It is on the basis of God’s covenant love that we dare to confront evil;
it enables us to laugh in the face of the evil one,
taking initiative and daring to be pro-active.
Against all the evil you see in the world,
against all the injustice and corruption you observe in our nation,
against all the perverse evil you see raising its sneaky head within yourself,
dare to paint a rainbow!
Paint a rainbow over your frustrating failings and wilful sins,
and over your irksome doubts and ignorance.
Over your sins within family life,
or the ugly compromises you may have had to make in the sphere of your daily work,
set that rainbow.
Project a rainbow over the motley fellowship which is the church,
with its flawed ministers, stumbling leaders and its sometimes passive congregations.
In your mind paint a rainbow
wherever flawed and lost humanity struggles to find a way of its own mess.
The rainbow is a permanent sign of God’s faithful love.
A love which not only creates, but constantly recreates and redeems.
For God so loved the world, God promised never again to destroy it, but to redeem it.
And we see it through the life of Christ, who took what was broken and made it whole.
He found in the poor, riches and in the blind, sight.
He saw God in the lives of sinners.
Jesus lived in the light of the rainbow promise – and showed that new and abundant life is what heals us.
And he died on the cross, so that the love of God might transform even death itself.
In the light of those
promises, may you find the courage and boldness to face the pain and evil of
this world, and respond out of Christ’s love. May you paint rainbows and remind
the world and yourselves of how blessed we are. Amen.
[1] From the Again and Again guide, developed by Rev. Lisle Gwynn Garrity