Flood of Grace

By Rev. J. Bart Day

How distorted are our views of Noah and the great flood! How often we find children’s rooms decorated with quaint images from Noah’s ark as if the story was only about an old man and his family tending the animals while afloat in a big boat. There is nothing cute or fanciful about the Lord destroying the entire earth on account of His anger and wrath toward the sin of mankind. Perhaps our desire to make the flood more palatable is nothing more than our vain attempt to forget the wages of our sin and recreate God in an image more acceptable to the world.

From the primordial waters of life that covered the surface of the deep the Lord now used water to destroy all that He had created. His perfect creation would groan as in the pains of childbirth while those created in His image would suffer, working the land and bringing forth the one who would crush the serpent’s head. Yet in the midst of such judgment and death, the Lord would work His gracious rescue.The Lord would bring life out of death and set the pattern of rescue that delivers us still today through such life-giving water.

Into such death the Lord brought forth life. Noah and his family came out of the ark onto dry ground and a promise, “Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth...I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth” (Genesis 9:11, 13 NKJV).

From death into life through water is the Lord’s way—not only for Noah but also for Moses and all of Israel as they crossed through the Red Sea on dry ground while hard-hearted Pharaoh and all his men drowned in the Red Sea. Water puts to death while at the same time it brings life. Recall the first of God’s creation—the heavens and the earth and even the waters. It is not haphazard chance that our Lord chose to rescue and redeem us through the very physical element that was created together with the crude materials that made up the first of His creation, the heavens and the earth. The water, part of God’s first creative work, even before the first day of creation, is the means by which He will recreate His fallen children by joining them to His death, burial, and resurrection in the washing of Holy Baptism! God would not have chosen another means to rescue us.

All this death and life-bearing water flows into the banks of the Jordan River where Jesus is baptized by John. Ever since the day John baptized Jesus, our Lord has been found in the water. He locates Himself there for you.

Flowing through the desert of repentance is this liquid of life. There your conscience, which burns with the heat of sins committed, finds the soothing coolness of sins forgiven. There your heart, which is dried and cracked under the blazing sun of the Law, finds shade and refreshment in the shadow of the cross. There your mouth, which is parched from the confession of sins, is filled with the sweet drink of the compassion of God. Our Lord is found in the river of Absolution. Come to Him. Drink of Him. Bathe, swim, soak in this fountain of immortality.

Here is the great paradox of God. The signs of death are signs of life for us. There is no way to live other than through the death of Jesus. We are all dying; we can either die alone, or we can die in Jesus whose death brings life. And His life is joined forever to water.

As Noah and his family came off the ark of salvation, the Lord commanded them to sacrifice a burnt offering to the Lord. As the burning flesh ascended into heaven, the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake...nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done” (Genesis 8:21 NKJV).

In our stead, the infant Jesus came willingly and lovingly to taste death for us.The curse had to be undone once and for all. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree” (Galatians 3:13 NKJV). Your Lord has been baptized in blood, sprinkled on the font of the cross by His own sliced veins when a soldier braced himself and thrust his cruel spear upward into the side of our blood-bathed God.

So when you desire life and forgiveness, go to the blood and water for without blood there is no forgiveness. The life of God is in the blood of His Son and that life-giving blood is in the chalice, the font, Absolution. Go there for forgiveness. Go there for life. Go there for God. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Wood and water have become for us life and salvation.

Rev. J. Bart Day is associate pastor and headmaster of Memorial Lutheran Church and School in Houston, Texas.. He would like to thank Rev. Chad L. Bird and Rev. Harold L. Senkbeil for some of the thoughts expressed here. You can e-mail Pastor Day at revday@mlchouston.org.

Luther's Flood Prayer

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, eight souls in all. You drowned hard-hearted Pharaoh and all his host in the Red Sea, yet led Your people Israel through the water on dry ground, foreshadowing this washing of Your Holy Baptism. Through the Baptism in the Jordan of Your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, You sanctified and instituted all waters to be a blessed flood and a lavish washing away of sin.

We pray that You would behold name(s) according to Your boundless mercy and bless him/her/them with true faith by the Holy Spirit, that through this saving flood all sin in him/her/them, which has been inherited from Adam and which he himself / she herself / they themselves has/have committed since, would be drowned and die. Grant that he/she/they be kept safe and secure in the holy ark of the Christian Church, being separated from the multitude of unbelievers and serving Your name at all times with a fervent spirit and a joyful hope, so that, with all believers in Your promise, he/she/they would be declared worthy of eternal life; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. (501)

Luther’s Flood Prayer from the Lutheran Service Book, translation © 2006 Concordia Publishing House. Used with permission. All rights reserved. For more information on the Lutheran Service Book, please visit the following Website http://lsb.cph.org or contact CPH directly at 800-325-3040.