Most
people know about Noah’s ark.
Unfortunately, I believe that we often teach that story
incorrectly.
In
Sunday school, the emphasis was on the water and the destruction. The point was that God hates
sin and that a
judgment day is coming. While
that is
true, I do not believe that it is the point of the story.
Some
focus
on the dimensions of the ark and then built exact replicas to
prove that it was
big enough to hold a lot of animals.
Many of these replicas exist around the world and they are
interesting,
but I do not believe that the size or construction of the ark is
the point of
the story.
Others
search
Mount Ararat in Turkey looking for possible landing sites or
petrified pieces
of the boat. Again, I do not believe that the landing spot this is
the point of
the story.
At
its
core, Noah’s ark is about salvation.
After
describing a world in which “every inclination of the thoughts of
[the
people’s] hearts was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5), we are
told that
“Noah found favour (or grace) in the eyes of the Lord” (verse 8). That is the point and the
theme of the rest
of the story. The focus is
not on how
some angry God tore apart the world he created.
Rather, the entire is message is that God stepped in and
rescued Noah.
My
favourite verse comes at the start of chapter eight. After the storm has raged for
forty days and
forty nights and after they waited another one hundred and fifty
days for the
water to recede, it says “God remembered Noah” (Genesis 8:1). This does not mean that God
had forgotten him
and suddenly said, “Oh, I have an ark full of people somewhere!” Rather, it means something
like, “God
lovingly cared for Noah and protected him even in the middle of
the biggest
storm he had ever seen!” At
times, we
may feel alone, but God never loses sight of us. Even when our storms rage, he
is right
there. Noah’s ark is about
God providing
safety and salvation.
That
offer of salvation now comes in the form of the cross and our
baptism (1 Peter
3:20-21). However, the
idea is still the
same.
God
wants to save his children (2 Peter 3:9).
That was the message in Noah’s time and that is still the
message today.
Are
you
on board?
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