Keeping Afloat -- FPC sermon excerpt
It’s been a big summer for Noah and the ark, with the movie Evan Almighty hitting the theaters. I haven’t had a chance to see it, but I understand there are some riddles that could have been in the movie, but ended up on the editing room floor.
Do you know what Noah said as he started loading the ark?
“Now I herd everything.”
Why did the people on the ark think the horses were pessimistic?
They kept saying neigh.
What animal could Noah never trust?
The cheetah.
What kind of lights did Noah have on the ark?
Flood lights.
Where did Noah keep the bees?
In the ark hives. Get it? The ark … hives.
And finally, why was Noah the greatest financial expert in the Bible?
He floated his stock while the whole world was in liquidation.
These riddles probably deserve to be on the editing room floor.
Our focus today is on promise and hope. Now this might seem to be a strange focus, given the fact that today’s Scripture lesson tells the story of the great flood. The “floodgates of the heavens were opened,” says the Book of Genesis. “And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights” (7:11-12). A flood like this is a terrifying thing — as Stephen Hunter wrote in his review of Evan Almighty, it is the first known “Weapon of Mass Destruction.” Many lives are lost when the waters rise up and sweep across the land.
Part of me would like to think of this story as a fable — a fictional story with a nice moral at the end. But almost every culture on Earth includes an ancient flood story, which suggests that some catastrophic event did, in fact, occur. The details of these stories vary, but the basic plot is the same: An enormous flood kills all but a lucky few.
Older than Genesis is the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh. In this story, a king meets a survivor of a great flood sent by the gods. Warned by Enki, the water god, this man built a boat and saved his family and friends, along with animals and precious metals.
In Ancient Greece and Rome, the story was told of a couple who saved their children and a collection of animals by boarding a ship shaped like a giant box.
Irish legends talk about a queen and her court, sailing for seven years to avoid death when the ocean rises and swamps Ireland.
And here in America, European explorers were startled by Indian legends that were very similar to the story of Noah. According to explorer Robert Ballard, some Spanish priests feared the devil had planted these stories in the Indians’ minds, in an effort to confuse them.
These are frightening stories — tales of death and destruction, and the survival of a few. So where is the promise and the hope to be found?
After the waters dry up, God says to Noah and to his sons, “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” (Genesis 9:8-11).
Let’s take a close look at these words: “I establish my covenant with you,” says God. A covenant is a promise-based relationship, an agreement that is designed to last forever. Humans enter into covenant relationships, such as “the covenant of marriage,” but since humans don’t always keep their promises, these relationships don’t always last. But with God, a covenant is going to last forever, because God always keeps his promises.
That’s good news, at the end of a terrifying story.
Do you know what Noah said as he started loading the ark?
“Now I herd everything.”
Why did the people on the ark think the horses were pessimistic?
They kept saying neigh.
What animal could Noah never trust?
The cheetah.
What kind of lights did Noah have on the ark?
Flood lights.
Where did Noah keep the bees?
In the ark hives. Get it? The ark … hives.
And finally, why was Noah the greatest financial expert in the Bible?
He floated his stock while the whole world was in liquidation.
These riddles probably deserve to be on the editing room floor.
Our focus today is on promise and hope. Now this might seem to be a strange focus, given the fact that today’s Scripture lesson tells the story of the great flood. The “floodgates of the heavens were opened,” says the Book of Genesis. “And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights” (7:11-12). A flood like this is a terrifying thing — as Stephen Hunter wrote in his review of Evan Almighty, it is the first known “Weapon of Mass Destruction.” Many lives are lost when the waters rise up and sweep across the land.
Part of me would like to think of this story as a fable — a fictional story with a nice moral at the end. But almost every culture on Earth includes an ancient flood story, which suggests that some catastrophic event did, in fact, occur. The details of these stories vary, but the basic plot is the same: An enormous flood kills all but a lucky few.
Older than Genesis is the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh. In this story, a king meets a survivor of a great flood sent by the gods. Warned by Enki, the water god, this man built a boat and saved his family and friends, along with animals and precious metals.
In Ancient Greece and Rome, the story was told of a couple who saved their children and a collection of animals by boarding a ship shaped like a giant box.
Irish legends talk about a queen and her court, sailing for seven years to avoid death when the ocean rises and swamps Ireland.
And here in America, European explorers were startled by Indian legends that were very similar to the story of Noah. According to explorer Robert Ballard, some Spanish priests feared the devil had planted these stories in the Indians’ minds, in an effort to confuse them.
These are frightening stories — tales of death and destruction, and the survival of a few. So where is the promise and the hope to be found?
After the waters dry up, God says to Noah and to his sons, “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” (Genesis 9:8-11).
Let’s take a close look at these words: “I establish my covenant with you,” says God. A covenant is a promise-based relationship, an agreement that is designed to last forever. Humans enter into covenant relationships, such as “the covenant of marriage,” but since humans don’t always keep their promises, these relationships don’t always last. But with God, a covenant is going to last forever, because God always keeps his promises.
That’s good news, at the end of a terrifying story.
posted by Henry Brinton | 7:38 AM
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