Ninth Sunday After Pentecost - Proper 12
July 29, 2012 - Pastor Adam Moline
Genesis 9:8-17 Ephesians 3:14-21 Mark 6:45-56
Grace, mercy and
peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text today comes from the Old Testament lesson just read, especially
these words, “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all
flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a
flood to destroy the earth.” Thus far
our text.
Dear friends in
Christ. The flood is over for Noah. Finally after months of being trapped inside
of a wooden boat full of animals it is over.
The flood waters that covered the earth are dried up. The months of stale air, and no sunlight are
gone. The ark has landed, and the door
is open. But as Noah goes outside the
ark for the first time, you can imagine his awe and shock. The world that he remembered is gone. The family and friends he had that did not
make it onto the ark are dead and destroyed.
The homes, the cities, the farmlands, everything that Noah had known
from this world is destroyed and buried under the silt and destruction that a
worldwide flood can bring.
Dear friends, as
Noah steps off the ark, he is humbled at the mighty power of God and by God’s
overwhelming just punishment for sin.
There is no doubt – God hates sin.
There is no doubt for Noah – sin will be punished, it will receive its
due reward. The world that Noah had
known, a world of adultery, of murder, of hate and violence cannot exist before
an all-powerful holy God.
And perhaps that’s
what worries Noah most. For Noah knows
and remembers preflood world, and was comfortable with it. Noah himself is no different than his cousins
who died, no different from those whose screams of fear rose over the patter of
rainfall outside the wooden ark. Noah
has sin. Noah is a murderer as far as
his sin is concerned. Noah is a greedy
person as far as his sin is concerned.
Noah in himself has nothing, no not one thing, that should allow him to
avoid this terrible swift judgment of God.
And so Noah has legitimate fear that God will repeat this terrible
calamity upon future generations, upon Noah’s children and grandchildren – you and
me, because Noah knows his descendants will be no better than he is
himself.
And look us, the
descendants of Noah. Our world is full
of chaos and sin. Just over a week ago a
man shot 70 people who had gone to watch a violent movie about the ongoing
battle between good and evil in our world.
12 people were killed in this tragedy.
And that is not all that irks us.
Our nation is divided by countless topics. Who is worse, the people who eat at Chick Fil
A or the people who don’t? Our nation is
at war in several countries. We are in
difficult economic times, and it we quickly get into the blame game, “Its that
groups fault, so lets take restitution from them.” Crime surrounds us, and our world every day
seems a little more dangerous, and we become a little more wary of those around
us.
Noah was afraid of
just and holy God. Dear friends, we too
should be. We are just as guilty. We are just as wrong, just as horrible. We are sinners too aren’t we? God punished the sin of Noah’s generation
with a flood, where all but 8 people died by drowning. God punished them, even as the rain fell and
they cried to the sky asking for it to stop, as they pounded on the doors of
the ark, seeking Noah to open it. Noah
was afraid, and you friends ought to be as well for you are, metaphorically, in
the same boat as he is. A sinner, at the
mercy of a just God.
But dear friends,
that ought to give you some comfort. For
Noah did not perish in the waters of the flood.
He was rescued. God came to him,
and gave him a way out, a way through the waters. A way to cheat death, to stay alive even as
the world perished around him. And with
God’s help, and only through God’s work, Noah passes through the flood
alive. Finally, as he steps out of the
ark, as all the worries about his own sin come crashing in on Noah, God makes
Noah a promise sealed in blood, a covenant.
“Never again! Never again shall
there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
God puts his sign of the covenant in the air, a rainbow, so that when it
rained, Noah would not look towards the clouds in fear for the punishment of
his sin, but instead in the assurance of God’s promises. Never again will mankind be destroyed by
water for their sin.
And there is a
covenant promise for you, a sign lifted in the air to guarantee you that God
will not destroy you in the waters of judgment, but pass you through alive. That sign is not a rainbow, but a cross. A cross on which God himself was nailed. An old rugged cross, on which God himself
paid the price for sin. It’s a cross
where your sin is forgiven through blood, through toil and through
sacrifice. That cross forgives you, and
brings you out of the judgment of God into the forgiveness of sins.
Dear friends in
Christ, it is that cross that is your lifeboat in the judgment of the
world. As Noah passes through the waters
of the flood in a wooden ark, you pass through the deadly waters of baptism on
a wooden cross with Jesus. You go with
Jesus through the judgment for sin, you die with him, you lay dead with him in
a tomb, you are drowned in the deadly deluge, and then brought out of it into
life. All of this, through Jesus.
And since this is
true for you, that promise to Noah is a promise to you as well. Never again.
Never again will your sin destroy you, for you are precious child of
God. Never again need death be your
master, for you are washed in Christ’s blood.
Never again will you drown in the toils of this world, for you have
already been brought through God’s judgment safely. Never again, for now you belong to
Jesus.
Dear friends in
Christ, Noah comes out of the ark, afraid for God’s judgment, just as you so
often are afraid in this world. But God
gives promises to those who are afraid.
Fear not, the Lord is with you!
Fear not, God will carry you through.
Fear not, you have come through the flood with Jesus. Amen.
