Pentecost 9
Genesis 9:8-17
You've probably never heard a sermon
about the rainbow. You probably learned the colors in order as a
child, “ROY G. BIV”. And maybe you've seen it throughout your
life decorating everything from hot air balloons to scratch-n-sniff
stickers. Dorothy traveled “somewhere over the rainbow”. And
folk legends say that leprechauns and their pots of gold await at
the rainbow's end.
Sadly, today the rainbow has been
assumed as a symbol of something that is at odds with God. It has
become the symbol of pride in a lifestyle that turns God's created
order on its head. But we should not let this beautiful and precious
symbol of God's promise go unused by us for that reason. It's is,
first of all, God's symbol.
Genesis 9 takes us to the day just
after the flood of Noah, when God made a covenant with the
ark-builder and his sons. A one-way deal, really, more like a
promise. “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”.
The world had become wicked. Genesis
tells us the thoughts of man's heart were “only evil all the time”.
One can only imagine what that means. I suspect it was a time of
lawlessness and rebellion, a chaos that we can't entirely imagine.
Perhaps an entire world of false worship, violence, and smut of the
worst kind. Imagine Sodom and Gamorrah on steroids, everywhere. God
is patient. He is slow to anger. What great evil must it have taken
to actually grieve God that he had created man in the first place?
So he cleansed this wickedness, quite
literally, by washing it all away. He sent a massive world-wide
flood to set the clock back, and start afresh. And he wiped out all
of mankind, and he did so justly. None survived the devastation but
Noah and his family, that is, his three sons and all four wives.
Eight souls in all.
God made war on mankind, you could say.
He unleashed the fury of his creation against them. He opened the
windows of the sky and the fountains of the deep. His destruction
spanned the entire earth, so broad was the scope.
But now, the flood is receding. The
rain stopped, the ground is drying. The slate is clean and Noah and
his family are safe, ready to begin anew populating the world. The
warfare of the flood is over. God sets down his bow – his weapon
of war. And it's peaceful colors span the entire sky, just as his
promise to never bring a world-wide flood again span all time. The
face of God's anger has now turned, and he shows mercy.
The same God of both justice and mercy
is our God. The same God who hated the wickedness of the world, and
destroyed it, showed mercy to faithful Noah and his family, and
brought them through the worst of it. The same God who brought both
bad news for sinners, also brings good news for believers in his
promise, through Christ.
Jesus Christ, who calms storms and
walks on water. Jesus Christ, the living word, agent of God's
creation, who divided sky from water on day 2, and land from water on
day 3. Jesus Christ, who was baptized in the Jordan for us, turned
water into wine, washed his disciples feet. As he thirsted for our
salvation, he faced death on the cross, and from his pierced side
came blood and water. From him springs forth the water of life,
which quenches our thirst forever. Jesus Christ, in whom we are
baptized, buried into death and raised to new life.
The flood of Noah, which drowned sinful
humanity, pointed to the blessed flood of Holy Baptism, which drowns
our sinful nature, our Old Adam. Perhaps you are familiar with this
connection because of the “flood prayer” of Martin Luther, which
is now included in our baptismal rite.
It's true, we need cleansing. Your sin
– my sin, is just as damnable as the sin of the wicked world
before the great flood. We are conceived and born in sin. We sin by
our actions and inactions. We trample the commandments. We despise
God and hate our neighbor. We fail to do what we ought, and we do
what we ought not do. We are, of ourselves, only evil all the time.
The Old Adam in us is brought forth in his father's image, a
shattered image smeared with the muck of sin. Our need for
cleansing, body and soul, the same. Only let us, in faith, find
refuge in the blood of Christ and in our baptism, and in the mercy of
the one who has set down his bow.
God will never destroy the world again
with a flood. But this world will end, as Jesus warns, and it will
happen soon. The ancient church fathers used the rainbow as a
reminder of this warning, as the colors move from blue to red, so too
the destruction of water is behind us, but the coming destruction by
fire is ahead. This world will melt away. Fire will consume the
wicked, when God's righteous judgment is unleashed once more on that
day.
But as Noah and his family were
preserved, so too will Christ preserve us on that day. For those who
belong to him, whose hope is in him, there is nothing to fear from
any disaster, calamity, or even the end of the world. Christ is
always with us, always over us, always for us.
His cross stands as the symbol of his
promise for us, that the warfare is over. This instrument of death
has become our source of life. A symbol even more beautiful than the
rainbow. A promise more expansive and long-standing. Never again
will our sins stand against us. Never again will God hold us
accountable, for Christ has paid the account in full. Never again
need we fear the wrath of God, for Jesus has spoken. It is finished.
Luther writes,
Our
merciful God always placed some outward and visible sign of His grace
alongside the Word, so that men, reminded by the outward sign and
work or Sacrament, would believe with greater assurance that God is
kind and merciful. Thus after the Flood the rainbow appeared in order
to serve as a convincing proof that in the future God would not give
vent to His wrath against the world by a similar punishment…To
us in the New Testament, Baptism and the Eucharist have been given as
visible signs of grace,
so that we might firmly believe that our sins have been forgiven
through Christ’s suffering and that we have been redeemed by His
death
Whatever clouds gather on your horizon,
whatever rain and storm mark your life in these days, whatever flood
waters threaten to overwhelm you.... remember the rainbow, and the
promise of God's mercy. Remember your baptism, which cleanses you
and connects you to Christ. And remember his cross, where eternal
promises are rooted, and where divine blood was shed to seal you in
them forever. And remember him as you receive his true body and
blood this day, for your forgiveness and salvation.
No comments:
Post a Comment