Our sinfulness causes pain and grief in the heart of
God. After the Flood, God chooses to
respond to evil, not with destruction, but with love and forgiveness.
Lesson
Outcomes:
Through this lessons students should:
1.
Understand that God’s reaction to creation’s
infidelity is one of grief and pain.
2.
Understand that the Flood is an act of
recreation not pure judgment.
3.
Be challenged to respond to evil like God now
has chosen to respond to evil, with love and forgiveness.
Catch
up on the story:
Adam and Eve sinned and the world was forever changed. Men
were cursed to work hard on the land in order to produce means for their
survival. Women were cursed to have great pain in childbirth. But even though humanity sinned, it did not
spell the end for God’s creation that was indeed, “very good”. Humanity continued to multiply and with that
multiplication sin multiplied. The
descendants of Adam were continually evil in their hearts and in their
actions. This caused God to grieve. The world had gone its own way, a way not
pleasing to God. But God had not given
up on the world; rather he wished to start over. Noah, surrounded by all kinds of
unfaithfulness and resistance to the good will of God, found favor with
God.
The
Text:
This text is one of our most cherished and familiar
stories. If you look in any children’s
storybook bible it is sure to be included, complete with cute illustrations of
elephants, monkeys and penguins. The
Flood narrative’s familiarity to us sometimes does us a disservice. While we might read the story to our children
at bedtime, we often forget to probe deep enough into the text to see what is
really going on. Or, we simplify the
story so that it remains only about punishment for sins, or about God’s
salvation for the righteous. To be sure,
the story has elements of both of those things, but it is not primarily about
either of those things. What is the
story about?
The
Setting:
We are not given any specific information concerning the
location or date of the Flood. To search
for a concrete historical location and time for our story would distract from
the narrative purpose of the story. What
is clear is that the world that God had created as “very good” has turned out
to be anything but good. Beginning with
Adam and Eve’s first sin, humanity has begun to assert itself over the guidance
and direction of God. In a fit of
uncontrolled desire Cain slays Able. Sin
compounds and grows. Generations have
passed since Cain and we are told that the world and the hearts of humanity are
evil and that continually. The
wickedness of humanity covers the whole earth.
God’s
Response: Pain and Grief
God decides that humanity’s evil and wickedness has spread
far enough. God will now act to rectify
the situation. God will act to cover the
whole world with a great flood. Every
human creature along with the animals of the world will be blotted out. Here the Hebrew denotes more than just to
destroy those who have been evil, but to cease to remember any longer. The
image has its roots in the preparation of written texts. The world will be rubbed clean in the same
way a scribe might correct an error by rubbing the ink from the page. The same word will be used in 1 Kings where
God will wipe away Jerusalem like a person cleans a dirty dish so that it might
be used again.[1] Mistakes will be wiped away, making space for
something new.
The image is clear.
There will be a fresh beginning.
This is not destruction for destruction’s sake. It is not just judgment on those who have
been wicked. It is the clearing of the
table so that it might be reset with human actors who will not continually work
against the good will of God. The chaos
of wickedness and evil will be wiped away by the cleansing chaos of water.
The reason for this cleansing, however, is not what we might
first expect. All too often the image of
God that we have constructed for ourselves is one that is utterly unsympathetic
towards disobedience and evil. This God
must act immediately and swiftly deal with those who have sinned against
him. While we can agree that sin and
wickedness are antithetical to the nature of God and that God does indeed bring
about judgment on those who work against his good purposes, that is not God’s
primary motivation here.
According to the text, God’s sole motivation for this
cleansing is grief, sorrow and pain.
Three times in three verses we are told that God was sorry or
grieved. The Hebrew word here is yatsav, and it means to hurt, feel pain
or to grieve. This is the root word used
to describe how humanity’s persistent wickedness affects God. In the NIV it is translated as “was deeply
troubled,” in the NRSV it is translated as “sorry.” Here the NIV’s choice is probably the better
one. God, in his inner most parts, felt
pain and sorrow that his good creation has turned out to be so thoroughly
bad. This sheds a different light on the
destruction that takes place in the flood.
It is not because God, in his fierce anger, must destroy what is not
pleasing to him. One commentator has
this to say about God’s motivation, “First,
with amazing boldness the narrative invites the listening community to
penetrate into the heart of God (vv. 6–7). What we find there is not an angry
tyrant, but a troubled parent who grieves over the alienation.”[2]
The stunning part of this narrative
is not just that God would act in such a destructive way, but that God was
sorry that he created in the first place.
We understand this felling all too well.
How often have we made decisions or a series of decisions (seemingly
good ones at that) whose consequences have left us in deep pain and sorrow,
longing to go back and undo what we did?
Our text gives us the very distinct impression that this is God’s state
of mind at the end of verse 7. Of
course, at the end of the day, these word images are Israel’s best attempt at
understanding God’s mind in mind in the midst of such a chaotic event.
Now you might be asking if the view
taken by this narrative depicts a God who is less than all-powerful or
all-knowing? How could God create
something and then be sorry for it?
Would that not mean that God was not in control of what he created? God, in his greatness and power, created a
world founded on love, and love requires freedom. Love is always risky. From the beginning, there was always the
chance that we humans would refuse to be the creation that God wanted us to
be.
Our God, however, chooses to work
within the bounds of love, so that love might be true love, so that we might
freely turn towards God and embrace the one who embraces us first. It always takes more courage and more
strength to love. We celebrate God’s
power and sovereignty precisely because he created us out of the freedom of
love.
The
Emergence of Noah: Covenant and Re-creation
In the midst of all the evil and wickedness Noah finds favor
with God. The destruction that God
brings on the earth will not be total or complete. God will work through a faithful servant to
bring about salvation for creation. Noah
embodies a new possibility for creation.
God will establish a covenant with Noah.
The narrator wants us to look to Noah as one who represents a fresh
alternative to the destruction that sinfulness and willful disobedience
bring. The text wants us to see that, in
the midst of great evil, God is always there, seeking those who are obedient,
offering them freedom from the sin that destroys. Noah is obedient, and the text makes us aware
of this in three different places in the Flood narrative, 6:22, 7:5 and 7:9.[3]
God could have just saved Noah and his family outright. This is not what God does. Wesley states that, “God could have secured Noah, by the ministration of angels without putting him to any care
or pains, but he chose to employ him in making that which was to be the means
of his preservation, both for the trial of his faith and obedience, and to
teach us that none shall be saved by
Christ, but those only that work out
their salvation; we cannot do it without God, and he will not without us…[4]
So Noah, in faithfulness and obedience, sets about
constructing the ark. God gathers the
animals to him. Noah is faithful and his
faithfulness and obedience is vindicated when the rains began to fall. Again, his obedience is vindicated when the
waters rise, when they survive their time on the ark, and when the ark once
again rests on dry land. Finally, Noah
is commanded to open the ark and go forth to repopulate the earth.
One of the first things Noah does after he steps off the
boat is to build an altar to God where he sacrifices one of every clean animal
and bird. God is pleased by this
offering and makes a promise to Noah. God will never again curse the ground or
destroy every living creature again.
This is the promise of a faithful God who knows that his creation will
not be faithful. Has the flood changed
humanity? No, it hasn’t. In spite of the knowledge that the
“inclination of the human heart is evil from youth” (8:21) God chooses to
remain faithful to that which he created.
We have been and always will be deeply set against God’s purposes, until
we are transformed by the grace of Christ.
This is the good news for us! Despite our inclination toward
evil, God has not; God will not give up on us.
God’s resolve is one that always works toward re-creation and
redemption. Destruction will not serve
God’s redemptive purposes, only the self-giving love of God will.
So
What?
Rather than being a tale of God’s wrath and destruction the
Flood narrative is a story of God’s covenant faithfulness with us. No amount of judgment and destruction will
change the continual wickedness of humanity’s heart. God knows this. No amount of wickedness and violence will
change God’s love for his creation. It
is because of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness toward creation that God has
set about to change our hearts in a different way. Fear cannot make a permanent change in a
wicked person’s heart, but love can.
In a way that is so unlike how we respond when someone hurts
or grieves us, God’s response to our wickedness is now one of love. God will not beat our sinfulness out of
us. Instead he takes it on, absorbs it,
conquering it with forgiveness and love.
As Christians we confess that this is what happens as Jesus hangs on the
cross. Jesus takes on the weight of the
sin of the whole world, and the death that sin produced, and vanquishes it by
refusing to retaliate. Love has
won. Love wins.
The challenge for us is to live like this Jesus who is our
fullest picture of God. When we are
confronted with our own world-destroying evil how will we respond? Will we demand that those who have done harm
to us be wiped away like food from a dirty dish? Or will we respond like the God who has
covenanted with humanity to never destroy it again? Will we respond like the God who became one
of us, who conquered our sin and shame through love?
This is the first week of Lent. As we journey toward the Cross and Jesus’
death may we give up our “right” to respond to evil with evil. Instead, this week, take time to intentionally
pray for those who hurt you. Perform an
act of kindness for a work place or school adversary. As you hear news of various kinds of violence
and wickedness taking place here and aboard, pray that your thoughts and
attitudes toward those who perpetrate evil might be an attitude of love.
Critical
Discussion Questions:
1. What
does God look like in this text/Who is God in this text/What is God doing in
this text?
a.
In this text God is both faithful, but
willing to discipline his creation. God
shows us, by not completely wiping everything away and starting completely
afresh, that he is not yet done with what he has created. He may not be happy with what we have done,
or where our lives our headed, but he continues to be our God. He continues to be the God who brings fresh
and new life out of the chaos of the world and our lives.
2. What
does holiness/salvation look like in this text?
a.
Salvation looks like recreation. Even though we have royally messed up the
good world that God has created, salvation is still to be found. As we have fouled up our lives, God has
promised not to just erase us and start again, but he has given us a lifeboat
that brings us to the new possibility of life.
Just as the Ark provided salvation for Noah, his family and the living
things of the world, Jesus Christ provides salvation for us. We can know that God has promised to not give
up on us. In the end, salvation looks
like being obedient. Only this time we
have not been instructed to build an Ark, but to live in right relationship
with God and our neighbors. As we enter
into relationship with Christ, we learn what it means to be obedient.
3. How does an encounter with this story shape who
we are and who we should become?
a.
We can rest in the knowledge that God
has promised never to destroy the world again.
He has done much more than that, he has given us a way and an example to
live by that will create in us new life and we will once again be “very
good”.
Specific
Discussion Questions:
Read the text aloud. Then, read the text to yourself
quietly. Read it slowly, as if you were
very unfamiliar with the story.
1. Our
passage begins by stating that in the time of Noah, “every inclination” of
humanity was evil. Is this still the
case for humanity today? If yes, why? If no, why?
2. We are
told that it grieved God’s heart and he was sorry that he had made
humankind. Why would God regret making
humankind that much? Does it surprise
you that God is depicted as regretting doing something? Why or why not? What does that mean?
3. God
decides to “blot out” people from the earth.
What does God hope to accomplish by doing this?
4. Noah
finds favor with God because he is obedient.
John Wesley points out that God could have saved Noah, his family and a
few animals without having him build an ark.
Angels could have protected Noah.
Why does God have Noah build an ark?
5. Finally
the Flood is over. Noah and his family
are instructed to leave the ark. The
first thing Noah does is to build an altar and offer a burnt offering to God. This is pleasing to God. God then promises that he will never again
curse the ground because of humanity or destroy every living creature
again. He won’t do this because the
“inclination of the human heart is evil from youth.” (8:21) If the heart of humanity is evil from youth,
why won’t God come to destroy like he has with the flood? Was God hoping that the Flood would change
the heart of humanity?
6. The
heart of God, post Flood, is revealed to be one that is steadfastly faithful to
an evil creation. The nature of this God
will be revealed to us through the loving self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ. As a group, take time to discuss ways in
which you might act with steadfastly faithful love to an evil world.
[1] James
Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages
with Semantic Domains: Hebrew (Old Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research
Systems, Inc., 1997).
[2] Walter
Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation,
a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1982),
77.
[3] Brueggemann,
80.
[4] John Wesley, Explanatory
Notes upon the Old Testament, vol. 1 (Bristol: William Pine, 1765), 32.
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