NOAH

Genesis 6-9

Over the past few days in the Liturgy we have been introduced to Noah.  It is in and through Noah that God's extends an opportunity of life and love through all of humanity.

On Tuesday we encounter the reality in which God is grieved by humanity and chooses to wipe out from the face of the earth all that He had created.

God was disappointed in the one's he loved.  We have all been in that place, that place of disappointment and frustration with the decisions our loved ones had made.

Like God our hearts have been grieved.

Love is broken but not beaten, however, for in Noah humanity gets a reprieve, a second chance.

We are told that Noah stood out from his generation, from his society.  He was upright and pleasing to the Lord.  Thus, in Noah God sees a seed bed of goodness, hope, mercy and forgiveness.

Thus, to Noah and his household creation gets a second chance.
God extends an opportunity of newness rather than let the disappointment determine his course of actions.  Love is broken but not beaten.

Yesterday in the Liturgy we encounter the water subsiding and Noah stepping forth from the Ark after a seriously long time being pent up as they say.  The first act is to erect an altar and make a sacrifice of praise and thanks to God.

Now it is a good and desirable thing to give thanks to God when things go our way.  It is good to give thanks and praise when things are pleasing to us and what we expect out of life.  But this is just one part of life.

We also must endeavor to give praise and thanks to God when things are not necessarily going our way, when the circumstances are difficult and displeasing.  Here too in this environment praise and thanks must be a pleasing aroma to God.

When we thanks God for goos things the happen to us we are loving God for our sakes.  But when we thanks God when things are displeasing then we learn to love god for his own sake and this id the path way of maturity in the life of Faith.

Each day in all circumstances, like Noah, we must erect an altar of praise and thanks to God in our hearts and allow it to truly become the source of strength for our life and love as we journey forth.

In today's liturgy, creation begins anew.  Noah's sons are told to 'be fertile and multiply and fill the earth."  These were the same words give to our first parents.  Except this time something is different.  There is a consequence to the fall that continues to effect humanity.  We are told that "dread and fear of you shall come upon all the animals of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon all creatures that move about the ground and all fishes of the sea; into your power they are delivered.  Every creature shall be yours to eat..."

In the beginning , there was no fear between man and animals but rathe harmony.  There was also no eating of flesh only plants.  Now things have been turned upside down.  The flood can not undo the fall.  The external waters on the earth still do not effect the internal reality of man.  We need something more.

The bow in the sky though reminds Noah and his family of God's promise to never destroy the world by flood it also reminds them that something  more is need, something more shall come, on the horizon of tomorrow as the future unfolds an answer to the internal struggle of man from the fall shall be given.  Until then, the not yet of redemption lingers.

Which brings us to the gospel.  Jesus ask the question, "who do you say that I am?"

And the answer harkens all the way back to the time of Noah, "you are the Christ the son of the living God."  You are the one who will come to bring redemption internally where the external waters of the flood failed.  Jesus says he will give us life giving waters.  He comes to empower us and restore us.

The rainbow in a way points to Christ.

Hope has arrived in him.  He is bringer of the new covenant and establishes his church which is the the new ark by which redemption becomes fully accessible not only to man but to all of creation as we are told by St Paul, "all creation yearns for the children of God."  once we have been was he din Jesus, something int he world is changed for the better, for ever.