“Your Flood Insurance”
Text: Genesis 9:8-17
7-28-2024
In the name of Him who saves us from the flood of eternal destruction, dear friends in Christ. In our Old Testament reading for today you heard the culmination of the story which is often called Noah and the ark. As Noah and his family exited the ark after the great flood, they needed assurance that the threat of destruction was over. That makes sense. It’s like a soldier who has been in fierce combat and survives it. For years after that, whenever he hears an explosion, even if it’s just fireworks, his heart beats faster because he wonders if his that life is in danger again. Noah and his family must’ve felt the same way when rainclouds would start to form in the sky. Would this be the start of another terrible flood? In order to calm their fears, God made a covenant with them and all future generations. He promised to never again deluge the earth with water. As an ongoing reminder of this covenant, God put a beautiful sign in the sky. It was the rainbow. Whenever mankind saw it, they could be sure that God was going to keep His covenant promise.
As a brief aside, there are people (even in the LCMS) who don’t believe this great flood could possibly have happened. Well, all they need do is look at the recent flooding in our area. The rain came so fast that creeks and rivers overflowed in record time. Many people didn’t even have enough time to get their belongings out of their basements as the water invaded their homes. Now, if God can do that with 10-20” of rain in two days, just imagine what He could do in 40 days once He unleashed all the rain from above and subsoil waters below. That was Noah’s situation. You may be familiar with the basics of what happened but there are many aspects of his story that you may not be aware of. As we dig a little deeper, we’ll find that God’s grace and mercy were behind all of this event.
The most obvious question to start with is why did this global catastrophe happen? Chapter 6:5 tells us the answer: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” In other words, sin was rampant and out of control. Mankind was so totally corrupt that God decided the only solution was to wipe out every living thing. On the surface that may sound like a scorched earth policy but it’s not. Humans were on a trajectory of total evil. There was so much violence that the world was on the brink of destroying itself. So God stepped in and prevented that by sending the flood. It was an act of mercy to stop this rapid spread of wickedness which would have annihilated the whole human race.
Noah and his family were proof of God’s mercy. In the midst of His well-deserved judgment, they were spared. Why? Well, Genesis 6 tells us there was something different about Noah. It says he was “a righteous man” who “walked with God.” Presumably that was also true of his wife, 3 sons, and their wives. That doesn’t mean they were sinless. But they were righteous in the same way that Abraham was. He was declared righteous because he trusted in God’s Word and promises. It’s important to note this wasn’t due to any good deeds. God was the doer and the giver. Likewise, Noah and his family were declared righteous. They simply received God’s gift of grace without rejecting it. Sadly, the rest of the people on the face of the earth did not have faith and therefore were not declared righteous. This is what led to their unbridled wickedness and ultimately their destruction.
Here again, some people accuse God of not being fair as if He didn’t bother trying to reach those unbelievers and give them a chance. Is that true? Not at all. The only way you’ll come to that conclusion is by ignoring the facts. Consider this. It took Noah and his family 120 years to build the ark. You can’t tell me that their neighbors watched that massive ship being built—far from any body of water—without asking questions. And you can be sure that Noah warned them about the impending flood. But in their sinful rebellion they chose to stay outside the ark, not trusting in God’s gracious offer of rescue. So, who really was responsible for their deaths? They were. After the flooding in our area one month ago, many people learned a valuable lesson about flood insurance. Some failed to have it because they thought they’d never need it. Now, it’s too late and they have to deal with the consequences. Perhaps that’s a good illustration of what happened in the great flood of Noah’s day. His “insurance” was God’s covenant to protect and preserve him, which the Lord did. All he and his family had to do was trust in those promises and rest securely knowing God had them covered.
Friends, this is much more than just an incredible Bible story. It directly affects you and me. You see; in preserving the lives of Noah and his family, God was protecting the seed of the Savior who would descend from Noah’s son, Shem. God also provided a means whereby the true believers of that day could be saved from His righteous judgement on the unbelieving world. St. Peter saw a direct parallel between Noah’s ark and the Christian Church. In his first epistle he tells us that Holy Baptism “corresponds” to the flood of Genesis. Those waters in Noah’s day were sent as a judgment against the sinful, unbelieving world. Those waters stopped the rampant sinfulness. Something similar happens in Baptism because our sinful nature is likewise drowned, and we are then separated from the unbelieving world. Martin Luther put it this way: “Now Baptism is by far a greater flood than was that of Noah. For that flood drowned men during no more than one year, but Baptism drowns all sorts of men throughout the world, from the birth of Christ even till the day of judgment. Moreover, while that was a flood of wrath, this is a flood of grace...” This truth is reflected in our Baptismal Rite that we use.
And once we are Baptized, where does God place us? In the Ark of the “one holy Christian and apostolic Church.” It is here that we find continued safety from God’s wrath and judgment against sin. Because it is here, in the Ark of the Christian Church, that God announces the ongoing forgiveness of our sins in Holy Confession and Absolution, and it is here that He nourishes and strengthens our faith through His Word and Sacrament.
The early Christians picked up on Peter’s connection of the flood of Noah’s day to our salvation. Around 200 A.D., a Church Father named Tertullian compared the Church to a ship in which believers are kept safe as we navigate through this sinful world. As a result of this description, the ancient believers began referring to the main part of the church (the area where our pews are) as the “nave.” Nave comes from the Latin word which we get our English word “navy” from. And who occupies the nave on a ship? The passengers and crew, which is you, the faithful who come here for worship. Here we ride out the dangerous storms of life that threaten our souls. But we rest secure within because God designed and provided the Ark of the Church and we have His covenant promise that He will continue to protect and preserve us here.
The Lord put a sign in the sky to reassure mankind of His unending covenant of grace and mercy. Isn’t it interesting that you truly cannot locate the beginning or end of a rainbow? Well, due to that flood event’s connection to Baptism, then every time we see a rainbow it should remind us of God’s unending covenant which He made with us in those holy waters. Maybe we should put up a rainbow banner every time we have a Baptism? Sure, some people would misunderstand and think we’re promoting the LGBTQ movement. But we need to reclaim the symbol of the rainbow. It doesn’t represent the perversion of the gay lifestyle. No, it represents God’s covenant of peace and His assurance that we are saved from His wrath. In a real sense, the rainbow is a reminder of your spiritual flood insurance. Earthly insurance companies may fail to keep their promises of covering you in a flooding disaster, but God won’t when it comes to preserving your soul.
You know, it must have saddened Noah and his family to think of the thousands of people who died in the flood because they refused to listen to the warnings of God and flee to the safety of the ark. They didn’t think they needed that “flood insurance.” Many of them were Noah’s family and friends. As Christians, it saddens us also to think of the millions who will perish in God’s judgment that is yet to come upon our wicked earth on the Last Day. Here too they don’t think they need God’s spiritual flood insurance. Consequently, they will face destruction on their own. That’s not what God wants and therefore we don’t want it to happen either. In Noah’s day there was a “grace period” of 120 years while he built that ark. There was time for people to repent, hear the good news of how to be saved, and to join Noah in the ark. Likewise, there is still time today for unbelievers to repent and hear the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. There’s still time for the unbelieving world to join us in the Ark of the Christian Church. And Christ calls upon us to take that message to our unbelieving family members, neighbors, and to the ends of the earth while there is still time. May God grant us the courage and the zeal to share that good news of Jesus as we invite the lost and sinful world to come into the safety of God’s Ark, the Church, so they too may be saved. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!