Genesis 9:8-17

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Sermon Text

Across this Lenten season, we are going to be looking at the different ways that we are sanctified. Sometimes this will take the form of actions we perform and sometimes it will reflect natural consequences of a life lived following the example of Christ. The story, across the scriptures and across our Christian life should be of God drawing close to us, and us in turn drawing closer to God. Every story we tell, every experience we have, these are all just reiterations of the same theme.

The first stories in scripture, the one’s which we are covering in our Genesis class, document on one hand the failures of human beings, and on the other the steadfast love of God. Adam and Eve, blessed with a Garden that had every good thing within it – disobeyed God. Their disobedience introduced death into the world, and the first to suffer its sting was their son, Abel. Abel was killed by his brother out of jealousy, and from that murder evil entered the world in a way it never had before. Sin is first mentioned in reference to Cain’s murder, and the Sin he let through his doorway that day infected humanity with a vicious disease.

We are told that from the days of Cain and Abel to the days of Noah, evil increased in the world. Though we are not given many details, the surrounding context suggests that violence grew and grew across the centuries. People had become accustomed to the violence that was practiced outside of Eden, and now the desire of each person was to get whatever they could – however they could. The offenses were so great, that they are described as something that seeped up into Heaven. God could effectively smell human evil coming off of the Earth, and in the most heart breaking line of scripture, we are told that God regretted ever making humanity when he gazed down at the ante-diluvian Earth.

God’s disgust at human evil was not unlimited, however, and we are given the story of Noah that we all know so well. Noah collects two of all animals, except for some which he may have collected fourteen of, and these animals alongside his family enter a boat. For forty days and forty nights, creation was unmade. The waters locked away beneath the Earth in above the sky in Genesis 1, pour out in Gensis 8. The world was once more formless and void, only a small bit of the old world remained, floating in a box made of acacia wood. Slowly riding on the waves, all that remained of God’s creation.

Slowly, the water receded and the boat landed on a mountaintop. The survivors of this catastrophe climbed out and saw the new slate they had been handed. God spoke to Noah while Noah offered a sacrifice and cut a covenant with him. The Covenant established some general rules for humans to live by – the right to hunt and farm, the prohibition to not kill one another, and to never eat the blood of animals. These all dealt with what human beings were to do, however, God’s part of the bargain is what envelopes the Covenant. God swears never to destroy all life on Earth again, and God points to the rainbow as the sign of this Covenant forevermore. The arc of the rainbow is meant to portray a weapon, a bow pointed up at Heaven, ready to shoot off an arrow if God should violate this promise. God has given up mass slaughter, now begins God’s program of redemption for the world.

Many consider the rainbow to only exist after the flood receded and God made this Covenant. I do not agree with that interpretation. Rainbows are, after all, a product of light interacting with water droplets. The curvature of water droplets, and the prismatic nature of their structure, results in a circular rainbow forming. We only ever see half of it because we’re always at ground level – drones and planes, however, can see the whole thing. This picture is one such circular rainbow.

The rainbow was a natural phenomenon, but that did not make it lack a special quality. The moment God reached out to it and said, “See this as my bow, hung up for good, so that I can never use it against you again.” The Rainbow was transformed. It was no longer just the confluence of natural conditions of water and light, it was a sign of God’s covenant. Just like how water in baptism can become God’s grace when we pray over it, or how bread and juice becomes the body of Christ when we gather to eat it together – the rainbow, through faith, becomes a symbol of God’s everlasting love.

We are asked throughout scripture to consecrate ourselves, a fancy word simply meaning to set ourselves aside for better things. The altar table in this sanctuary is just a table – made of wood and glass – but it is consecrated to serve as the place where our sacraments are delivered to us. The altar rail, again, is just word – yet we have consecrated it as a place where we can kneel and offer our petitions to God. Our lives too should be consecrated, set aside to do as God would have us do. To serve one another in love, to give freely to those in need, and to always be willing to find new ways to better exemplify God’s goodness in the world.

We may look at ourselves as nothing special, the accidents of all sorts of events that simply pushed us out into the world with a certain name in a certain place. Even if that were so, and we accepted our lives as some cosmic accident, that need not divest us of a purpose. We are all called to take part in what God has done, to take up a cross and a yoke that is meant for service. We are God’s people, called by our name, to be what God would have us be. We are not mere matter, we are God’s masterpiece, given new meaning still in our acceptance of our call.

So look in your life at the parts that have not yet been set aside for God. Place them in God’s care. Look to the world around you, and see how nature itself testifies to God’s goodness. And whenever the rain stops, and a bow girds the sky, praise God who loves creation. – Amen.