trinity2gen9_flood_5june2016

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A sermon preached by Mr Antony Weiss The Second Sunday After Trinity Christ Church St Laurence Solemn Evensong - 5th June, 2016 Genesis 8:15-9:17 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (Ps 19:14). AMEN. Fr Ron Silarsah pointed out in his sermon at Evensong this time last week that the first seven Sundays after Trinity will take their readings from the Book of Genesis and the Gospel According to St Mark. Fr Ron noted that the Cain and Abel account from Genesis 4 revealed “blood, violence, destruction and ends with rejection and estrangement” before he moved on to the more reassuring account in Mark 3 of Jesus’ calling of the Twelve Apostles.

This evening’s First Lesson from Genesis comes at the end of the Flood narrative; most relevant considering the extreme inclement weather we are experiencing in Sydney coupled with the highest tide for the year peaking this evening at 8:32pm may leave us enough time to toddle out of church after Evensong to safely get aboard the CCSL Ark. Like last week’s Old Testament Lesson the Flood narrative is, on the surface, one of destruction, rejection and estrangement but is it not really heralding more than that?

Noah and the Great Flood is one of the most familiar accounts that can sadly tend to be relegated to the Children’s Bible Story basket or dismissed as the focus of fundamentalists who either seem to be obsessed with finding remnants of the Ark on Mt Ararat (Gen. 8:4) or promoting the Young Earth Creationist movement. One such person appeared in an interview on Channel 7 just a fortnight ago. His name, Ken Ham (ironic to have the surname Ham – the same as Noah’s second son) who is the controversial former Queensland science teacher and the founder and president of ‘Answers in Genesis’ which is overseeing the $100million replica of Noah’s Ark, a project in the middle of a landlocked Kentucky field in the heart of America’s Bible belt, due open to the public on 7th July, 2016. The ark structure (funded entirely by donations) is seven storeys high and is the biggest timber structure in the world…

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But back to Fr Ron’s remark, it reminded me of a time last year I at the cinema and before the film I was chatting to a chap next to me. He asked me what I do and I said that I am a theological student at Moore College. He just looked at his watch blankly…then told me that he is a non-believer however he had just read the Bible from cover to cover. Of course I was keen to ask what he thought and his reply? “Well I think from reading the Old Testament that God was a violent, harsh and cruel ‘so and so’ [not his words].” My reply to him was that I read the Old Testament differently and that I actually believe that it is full of God’s grace where God’s love and mercy are revealed even through the most confronting circumstances.

The lights dimmed, as did this gentleman’s expression and the film commenced…

Well perhaps you too feel that way or may share my thoughts. Yes, the Old Testament world was harsh and confronting but there is no doubt that God reveals His plans and purposes through the Hebrew Bible pointing to the coming of the One who will right what’s awry in the world and bring the faithful to Risen Glory at the end of time as we know it.

Flood stories similar to that recorded in Genesis were well known in Ancient Near East cultures. The Jewish philosopher Philo from the first century BC as well as the fourth century AD Christian historian Eusebius both make reference in their writings to flood narratives however it was not until the twentieth century through the decipherment of ancient cuneiform writings that the Mesopotamian flood stories were revealed, the most renown being the Gilgamesh Epic.

Archaeological evidence has exposed proof that the Gilgamesh Epic was known in Canaan as a fragment of a tablet from the fifteenth century BC was discovered in the Jezreel Valley – about three hundred years before the arrival of the Israelite tribes reached Canaan and about nine centuries before the Genesis flood story was in written form. Although this fragment did not contain the flood portion of the epic, the fact that what was found in Canaan strongly indicates that the Gilgamesh Epic was known in the land of Canaan where the Israelites were to settle.

Hence there are clear similarities between the Gilgamesh Epic and the account of Noah and the Flood. In both accounts; 

The flood is the result of a divine decision.

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One man and his family are saved from universal destruction and devastation.

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God tells the chosen man that a great flood is about to occur and orders him to construct and ark and to take animals aboard.

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The end of the flood is determined by the flights of birds.

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The ark comes to rest on top of a mountain.

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Finally, the man who has been saved from the flood offers a pleasant sacrifice.

Sceptics of the Old Testament draw on these parallels to detract from the Bible’s validity.

Clearly the Genesis Flood narrative shares a common outline of primeval history with its Sumerian and Mesopotamian neighbours but there are substantial ways the accounts from the Bible separate them from Ancient Near East sources.

The Bible however is unique compared to any other ancient texts. Firstly Genesis starts with Creation of the World where everything was good, perfect directly from God’s creative hand. And then after the Fall in Genesis 3 matters began to grow steadily worse through the sinfulness of Man leading to death. This is a period of Un-creation, great sin, brother killing brother and the increasing corruption on the earth as recorded in Genesis 6. What had once been so good had, at Man’s sinful hand, become so bad. The power of sin had contaminated God’s good creation. This led to the Lord’s regret ‘… that he had made man on the earth…. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. (Gen 6:6-7)” God’s divine judgement came with the Flood though it was not God’s last word to the world which He had created for ‘… Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord [and he] was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God…’ It was through Noah that God was to begin afresh, a ‘re-creation’ with this being the first sign of God’s divine Grace triumphing over human sin since the Fall.

God promises that everything contained in the ark will survive and prosper under God’s providence of re-creation, ‘Bring forth with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth. (Gen 8:17)”…

‘And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. (Gen 9:1)’ - an echo of Genesis 1:28 is it not?

So God in this act of re-creation makes a covenantal promise to not only preserve the remnant of His first creation but never again to wipe out every living creature, ‘“I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done…’” (Gen 8:21)

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So clearly God’s deliverance of Noah, his family and the beasts aboard the ark does not come without death. What we see in the Flood narrative and through the rest of the Bible is that God does not rescue His people from death but in fact saves them through death. And not for the last time…

God, fully committed to the welfare of His Creation, Himself walks the path of death through Jesus Christ on the road to Calvary and the Cross as ‘the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (Jn 1:29). We are all well aware through the Passion narrative we experience every Easter that God did not rescue His only Begotten Son from Death but rather through His humiliation and execution on the Cross and Rising in Glory, the sting of death has been conquered and those who trust and obey God just like Noah and those who call on the Lord’s name in repentance will be saved for ‘…there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)’ Well the abrupt coming of the flood serves as a warning about the suddenness of the second coming of the Son of Man which will signal the New Creation. Jesus compares His second advent to the coming of the flood and it too will take humanity by surprise and only will some survive…From Matthew 24:38-39; ‘For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.’ The Genesis flood account is indeed a tale of horrendous and catastrophic destruction that proves God’s hatred of sin, a grim picture of the wrath of God that will be finally revealed at the last day on all those who ignore His demands and live in rebellion to Him. But the Genesis Flood narrative is also one which offers comfort and assurance. The Genesis account points to God’s unfailing Grace and leads us to the Lord Jesus, the One who gives assurance to the righteous and life eternal to those who walk with God and keep His statutes so that on that last great day believers will be preserved unto life eternal saved only by faith in, and through the blood of, the Lord Jesus Christ sharing in that heavenly banquet of the New Creation. + In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

AMEN