Day 8
Flood
There are stormy days when the sky weeps. And days when God is grieving with it. Days when the darkness in humankind overcomes the light that once was us.
The thunder drum rolls and the lightning flashes and tears fall and fall and fall. If this stormy dark was all there was, our world would always be in flood. Just as it was this day. Long ago.
“ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.” Genesis 7:11-12
Drops as small as tears became torrents as thick as thunderstorms, and inch by inch the floods engulfed the earth.
God had said He would ‘bring floodwaters on the earth’ when He had first confided in Noah, but when the floods arrive, there are no verbs in the text linking the floods to any direct action by God. Rather than a vengeful act of an angry God, the flood arrives in the story as the result of broken hearted God stepping aside, no longer standing in its way. God is no longer holding back the flood, so the deluge prevails.
And in this moment, this story, there is a sense of God allowing the reversal of His creative act in Genesis 1:6-8, where He had acted to divide the waters from the land, bringing order to the chaos before creation1, now all creation is unravelled and undone, as here in all these aching floods God steps back and allows the flood of human violence, chaos and corruption to be washed away by the flood of nature’s original state.
When God no longer holds the world together, it returns to the chaos from which it began.
In the whole flood narrative of Genesis chapters 7 and 8 (between when God actively tells Noah to enter the ark and when He later tells Noah to leave the ark) God is recorded as actively involved on only three occasions and none of these are bringing the rain or the floodwaters.
God is active in the flood story in just three ways, three ways that whisper His name and His nature, the shape of His beating heart.
Firstly, God directly acts to shut Noah, his family and the animals into the ark to protect them as the floods are about to arrive,
“Then the Lord shut him in.” Genesis 8:16b
Secondly, after the deluge has done its job, God remembers Noah and his living cargo, and then finally He acts to send a wind to push back the flooding waters to save them,
“But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.” Genesis 8:1
God was active in the creation of the world, and He is active in the protection of Noah, but He is not described in the text as directly active in the destruction brought by the flood. He simply doesn’t intervene, doesn’t protect or defend the corruption and violence of humankind.
He steps back and allows the deluge to have it’s way. Inhumane humans had reversed creation by bringing darkness and chaos once more to earth. God does not save humankind from the darkness they have chosen for themselves.
The flood was the physical result of humankind’s spiritual corruption and chaos.
‘Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.’ Genesis 7:23
“The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.” Genesis 7:24
But then in all the stormy dark this light becomes visible on the horizon, this tiny light in all the thickening black. One last light left flickering in a human heart. A heart set afloat, trusting God’s faithfulness, in the middle of a raging storm.
And God’s faithfulness can be trusted. So here the story turns…
“But God remembered Noah…” Genesis 8:1
God remembers Noah and the ark full of life, and moves to put an end to the flood engulfing them.
And there are literary layers to this story, like ocean depths, layers overlaying story, highlighting meaning. The ancient author tells this story through both the meaning of the words and the way the words are structured.
The story at this point is also structurally like a mirror turned in on itself, the first paragraphs mirroring the last ones, the second mirroring the second last ones, and onwards all building inwards to a central point. In this type of ancient literary structure (an extended chiasm or palistrophe) the central point is always the main point2 .
And the main point of this whole story? The point that the rest of the narrative swirls around like a cyclone out at sea? The central point of the story of Noah and the flood?
“But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.” Genesis 8:1
‘God remembered Noah…’. This is the main point. The turning point. The axis point around which this story spins. God turns His heart to Noah and remembers, and turns this story full of darkness and death into a story of life once more.
The point of the flood narrative is not the flood, is not the righteousness of Noah, not even the darkness of humankind. The main point of the flood narrative is that God remembers. God sees and God acts to save.
Wherever we are in all our flooding troubles. God remembers. We are not just a speck in the middle of an overwhelming ocean. We are seen. We are held. We will not sink, will not drown, will not be forgotten. Whenever we reach for Him we will find Him already reaching back.
He remembers.
God was there, present with Noah in every moment, every trial, every testing minute where Noah wondered if the storm would ever end.
It was God who lamented the darkness is humankind.
It was God who called Noah to build an ark.
It was God who shut Noah and his charge into the ark.
It was God who intervened and made sure the flood did end.
And it is God who now promises that the time of mass flooding is done.
There are stormy days when the sky weeps. And days when God is grieving with it. Days when the darkness in humankind overcomes the light that once was us.
The thunder drum rolls and the lightning flashes and tears fall and fall and fall. If this stormy dark was all there was, our world would always be in flood.
But the stormy dark isn’t all there is.
Light arrives in this story. Light to break the dark and refract the rain into all the colours of hope for the future.
“And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Genesis 9:12-13
God owed the world nothing. He didn’t have to bind himself to an oath, He didn’t have to limit His future options. But He did, because He had already bound his heart to humankind. This promise God gave to Noah, was also given to you and I, the promise of a God, limiting Himself for us, Hoping we will limit ourselves for Him, limit our greed and corruption for the sake of this world He has given us.
The sign of this covenant, the reminder God chooses for the contract He makes is the natural phenomenon we see when the sun breaks through a storm, when light shines though rain, allowing itself to become broken by it.
A rainbow is broken light and so are we.
When we see a rainbow, it looks like a bow, pointing upwards to heaven. But actually, from the perspective of Heaven looking down, a rainbow is a complete circle with no end and no beginning. Eternal. Like an everlasting promise. Like a wedding ring covenanting faithfulness.