God doesn't give up (Saturday Easter Vigil sermon)

There are few biblical stories that are as well known as the Flood. When Father Tim and I begin our first communion classes, I spread a dark blue towel on the floor which represented water. I asked If they knew the story of Noah and the Flood. They all responded almost on cue.  Mention old Noah and his ark to the average person on the street and I’m willing to bet that you would get a fairly decent outline of the story-animals, water, rainbows, the whole deal. The story of the flood and Noah and the ark still captures our imaginations.  It’s not at all difficult to find toy arks and Fisher Price animals to fill them. We used that exact set. Our set had a toy Noah himself-wearing a brown robe, and a long, flowing white beard. I think all kids love the idea of all the animals on the boat and the grand exotic adventure that the story seems to signify. I bet we all have at one time or another tried to imagine how all of those animals could fit. Perhaps, how did Noah feed them, or what about the smell of all the manure?

It’s a great story after all; a true underdog tale, don’t we all love an underdog? One righteous man in a world of wickedness with his family and a herd of animals all alone on the raging seas, day after day as the rains pounded down, and the winds blew, and the animals stank, and the people got sick, and the living quarters began to fill cramped. Yet Noah and his ark rode out the storm and made it through to the other side. They emerged victorious, ready to begin afresh. A great story indeed!

Except, there is much more to this story. There is a dark side to the story too. In the prelude to the children’s story version of the Flood, we read: “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So, the Lord said, I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created – and with them the animals, the birds, and the creatures that move along the ground – for I regret that I have made them.

We see written a little later, the nature of the wickedness that so grieved the Lord spelled out more clearly:

“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So, God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.”

I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

Living here in Florida, don’t we all love water. Don’t we all marvel at the awe-inspiring beauty of the ocean? Water is a beautiful thing, and our mastery of various forms of technology allows us to enjoy it in ways that many before us could not. We want to be by the water, we want to vacation where there is water, we want to lie on beaches, go on cruises and on and on.

But in the ancient world, the Old Testament world, the sea had a more sinister symbolic association. The water was something to be combated and delivered from: In addition to the Noah story; we have the most famous story from the book of Exodus, the story we just heard, when God parted the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to pass through and escape Pharaoh’s army. We have this image of walls of water being held back, piled up, while perhaps up to one million Israelites walk across on dry land. And then, when Moses gives the command, the waters come crashing back down in all their destructive force, wiping out the enemies of God’s people. Can’t you see Charlton Heston as Moses holding up his staff?

We remember the story of Jonah where the stormy sea is again an instrument of judgement. It is also a means of getting Jonah turned around in the right direction. In the Gospels we have Jesus stilling the storm and walking on the water. Both times demonstrating His sovereignty over chaos and disorder. Announcing God with us, by doing the things that YHWH did, the things which shaped Israel’s understanding and hope as God’s people.  

The flood is not just an arbitrary way for God to take care of the wicked people that were defacing his creation with violence; as if a plague or fire would have been just as effective. It is a sign of God’s despair and anger at what His world had become. God, with great pain and regret, chooses to wipe out humanity because humanity is destroying itself and His world. The world he called good.

In a sense, the Flood is kind of “un-creation” or at least as close to this as God was prepared to go. Instead of the order and harmony we see in Genesis 1 where the sea is given boundaries and held back, where human beings and nature seem made for each other, nature is turned loose on humanity. What we were meant to experience as a delight and a blessing, will now turn into an instrument of judgement. A sign of God’s sorrow at what his image-bearers had become.

A long way from the nice children’s story and the Noah figurines aren’t we? I’m pretty sure that we won’t find any of this on the back of the fisher price, Noah and his ark box.

The good news is the story doesn’t end in darkness.

The story doesn’t end with God’s sorrow over what his people had done. The flood came and washed away the sin and wickedness.

God provided a reset when He preserved Noah and his family.

The story didn’t end in Egypt, when God didn’t leave the Israelites there in their plight. God heard their cries.

God could have ended the creation story the moment the forbidden fruit touched Adam and Eve’s lips.

God could have ended it all when he saw Cain murder his brother, but He didn’t.

Over the course of history there have been many times that God could have called it all off. Cases of complaining, the Golden Calf, Kings, the Exile, the killing of the Prophets, and many other times since. We shouldn’t be too smug here. I’m certain that we have given Him plenty of reasons to give up on us as well.

However, God doesn’t give up!

God didn’t give up on the people of Israel and He doesn’t give up on you and I either. He leads us through our chaos and dark times. He preserves us through His word and Spirit.

In the beginning there was darkness and chaos.

Through his word God spoke light and He calmed the chaos.

We you entered the church tonight, it was dark. We have kept the church in darkness as a sign of the world without God. The Pascal Candle is the only light shining in that darkness. (Kids what does the candle mean?) I carried the Pascal Candle into the church tonight as a sign of the light coming into the darkness. This is the light coming into the world. The light of Christ!

This is the light that gives us all hope, the only source of hope.

Failing to live up to what we were created to be disappoints God. Despite our evil, God resolves to work with us. Because new beginnings are possible with God. God said, “Be fruitful!” Sin is real, but it doesn’t have to define who we are. God does. We all fall short in various areas of our lives. However, these shortcomings do not need to define us or close off our futures.

Because, God doesn’t give up on His people.