Noah and his family had maintained their integrity even while all around them wickedness increased beyond description. One day God spoke to Noah. “I am sorry that I gave the earth to man to care for. Every intent of their hearts is only evil continually. I am going to destroy what I so recently created by a great flood of waters on the earth, but I will establish my covenant with you—you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives.”
“I want you to make an ark,” God continued, and He described with exact dimensions the vessel that He wanted Noah to build. As well as the eight in Noah’s family, God instructed him to keep alive in the ark two of every sort of living thing—all birds, all animals, all creeping things. And there would have to be provisions for the family and for all the animals. Talk about the care and feeding of pets! Noah and his sons went to work. As it took shape, the ark must have looked like an apartment complex, its stalls and roosts being prepared for occupancy. Storerooms took shape too, some for provisions, some for waste. Ewww! Poor Mrs. Noah.
The day finally came when the work was finished. Then God told Noah, “Come, you and all your family, here to the ark. Then every sort of breathing animal will come to you. Take a pair of each, a male and a female to ensure that every kind of creature will survive the flood. Of the beasts and birds that are approved for eating and for sacrifice, take seven pairs. One week from today, I will begin forty days and forty nights of rain. I will wash the earth clean by destroying all the living things I have created.” That procession of animals lasted for seven days, then Noah’s family followed them into the ark, and God secured the door.
And it began to rain. Like a waterfall suddenly loosed over the sill of heaven’s window, the rain poured down, and underground waters gushed forth. Inside, the family was safe and dry—and busy too, feeding and watering the animals and cleaning out their stalls (although all the creatures may have been in a state of semi-hibernation—eating and drinking little and excreting little, their predatory natures suspended along with their territorial and mate selection habits).
After the fortieth night, there was an unnerving silence—no rain pounding on the roof. But even though it had stopped raining, those inside would have to wait until the waters receded before they could leave their boat. How long, how long? After 150 days afloat—maybe Mrs. Noah made marks beside the door?—there was a jolt and the motion of the boat ceased. They had landed! Another two and a half months of waiting, and they were able to see the very tops of mountains. Finally, a full year and ten days after they entered the ark, God told Noah, “Leave the boat, all of you. Release the animals and birds so they can reproduce in great numbers.”
As the animals crept and ran and hopped and flew by on their way to freedom, Noah caught some of those that were approved for offering to the Lord. Before he ever dug a well or built a fire pit, he erected an altar of gratitude to God for escape from the floodwaters and release from the clutches of the evil society that had so completely surrounded them. No doubt they knew that the human race would become wicked again, but they had the promise of God’s mercy, “I will never again curse the earth, bringing a flood to destroy all living things. As long as the earth remains, there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.” They looked up and there, from horizon to horizon, was an arch in the heavens, glowing with brilliant colors.
God is making a covenant with us,” Noah explained, “and with our descendants, and with all these birds and livestock and wild animals. He solemnly promises that He will never send another flood that destroys the earth. God has said, ‘I am giving you evidence of my eternal covenant with you and all living creatures. I will send rain clouds over the earth, but I will place my there also. When I see the rainbow in the clouds I will remember my covenant with you and with everything that lives.’ ”
So does the Eternal One need something to cause His remembrance? Hardly. But because we are the ones who need reminding, He gives a sign testifying to His faithfulness. While we are remembering, He is with us, also remembering. He will always be aware of His covenant, and when we see the rainbow, we will be aware too of His covenant loyalty.
Mrs. Noah couldn’t have known then what we know now. From heaven’s perspective, the rainbow, seen on earth as an arc, is a perfect, unbroken circle. God’s love and God’s faithfulness and God’s provision, viewed from His eternal perspective, are complete and perfect. That would have been hard to see when Noah was mocked during the long years of boatbuilding. It would not be easy to keep that in mind when seasickness and animal smells and sleeping in the dormitory made the voyage seem long. It would be especially hard to believe it when later the family structure was torn by Ham’s impudent pleasure at seeing his father drunken and naked. But God always remembers.
When we wonder, sometimes, why things turn out as they do, we can look at the rainbow and have our hope restored. God does all things well. All earth has a promise; all creation groans for redemption. If we wait long enough, we will see it. He will without fail cause the “ark” of our lives to ride high during the turbulent storm. He will eventually open wide the closed door. He will bring us out of a closed-up circumstance to a new and fruitful place. And then He will fling the rainbow into the sky to tell us, “See, I told you!”
MaryMartha
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Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com
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