In 2004 the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” predicted dire consequences that would devastate our planet because of climate change. One of the movie posters showed an image of New York City being submerged by a rising ocean. Millions of people are trapped in a watery grave. It’s a frightening image.
In 2012 the movie “2012” explored how the world might end if ancient Mayan calendars, supposedly predicting the end of the world in 2012, turned out to be accurate. One of the movie posters showed the scene of a flood so epic that the water slid over the top of the Himalaya Mountains. It’s a horrifying image.
But we don’t need Hollywood to generate our fear floods. We’ve witnessed events just as horrifying in real life. In 2004 the Indian Ocean Tsunami slammed into cities and villages near the Indian Ocean. The water killed 230,000 people in 14 countries. Waves nearly 100 feet high hit coastal communities.
Then in 2011 the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami pummeled Japan. Waves reached heights of over 100 feet and travelled as far as 6 miles inland. More than 16,000 people died in the disaster.
The emotions and feelings we experience as we witness these scenes and remember these calamities are the same ones we should experience as we read the biblical account of the Flood recorded in Genesis. The biblical flood is as terrifying as anything on the movie screen or the newscast. Unfortunately, some well-meaning toy makers and mild-mannered Sunday School teachers softened the edge of what is truly a very scary Sunday School Story.
Perhaps the first image that pops into your mind when you think of the biblical Flood is a toy like the one made by Fisher Price. The Flood has been downgraded to a delightful story with cute animals, a bald Noah, and a fun ship that doubles as a bath-time toy. I remember the hours of entertainment I enjoyed with my own children as we played with a set like this one.
But the reality of the biblical Flood is very different. It’s worse than any tsunami in human history. It’s more devastating than any Hollywood computer-generated special effect. Here’s how Genesis describes what happened: “on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights” (Gen. 7:12 ESV). God was undoing what he had done in Gen. 1:9 where he separated the waters from the land. Water now floods down from the sky on the land. Water now gushes up from the ground onto the land. Everywhere you turn, water is coming at you.
The author continues: “The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth…And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered…And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.” (Gen. 7:18-22 ESV). The highest mountains were covered. Every living thing died. The biblical Flood is one of the scariest Sunday School stories ever told.
The Flood is so scary, in fact, that it’s led some to call God a “moral monster.” Former Church of Christ preacher John Loftus wrote a book entitled Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity. In his book, Loftus calls the God of the Bible a “moral monster,” in part because of the Flood. Loftus gave up on his faith because of stories like the Flood.
Events like the Flood led renowned atheist Richard Dawkins to write, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynist, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomanical, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully (p. 21).” Dawkins believed the God who created something as scary as the Flood was a God not to be followed.
What do we do with these critiques? What do we do with the Flood? Is God a genocidal bully who carelessly and callously wiped most of the human race and the rest of creation off the face of the earth?
It turns out that there is a monster in the Flood story. But God is not that monster. The monster in the story is us.
The author begins by telling us how “man began to multiply on the face of the land” (6:1). This language is reminiscent of God’s call in Gen. 1:28 for humans to “multiply and fill the earth.” Yet in Gen. 6, it’s not just humans who are multiplying and filling the earth. It’s their violence. It’s their corruption. The selfishness and sinfulness of humans is multiplying and filling the earth.
The earth, it seems, is already flooded. Before God turns loose one drop of rain, the planet’s already awash in a tidal wave of violence and corruption. There’s actually two floods recorded in Genesis. There’s God’s flood. But prior to that there’s this human flood. The human race, all of life, and the entire planet are threatened by the surge of violence and corruption of humans.
Here’s how Genesis describes this first flood: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” and “the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence…all flesh had corrupted their way on earth…the earth is filled with violence…” (Gen. 6:5, 11-12 ESV).
Before a single drop of God’s water touched the earth, the earth was already drowning in a deluge of viciousness–and the hearts of humans were its headwaters. Nothing, it seemed, could stem the tide of this tsunami of wickedness. The human species, and every species, was in danger of being wholly drowned by this wickedness.
The earth was like a city neighborhood overrun by drug lords, gang leaders, and criminals to the point that police could no longer contain the swarm and families within the neighborhood were as good as dead.
The earth was like a tiny country run by a dictator so cruel and menacing that citizens had little future and even less hope.
The earth was like a home ruled ruthlessly by parents so uncaring that if the Department of Children Services knew about it they’d bring a police escort and remove the children immediately.
Steven Pinker is a cognitive scientist at Harvard. He wrote a book entitled The Better Angels of Our Nature. In that book he explores the history of slaughter, rape and torture among humans. He finds that in spite of how bad things are today, ancient tribal warfare was nine times as deadly as war and genocide in the 20th century (“The Decline of Violence,’ Christopher Dickey, Newsweek (9/21/13), 91-92. Genesis 6 affirms that finding. War, torture, and slaughter were so overwhelming in the ancient world of Genesis 6 that something had to be done.
God’s dream, unveiled in Gen. 1 and 2, of a planet filled with loving humans and beautiful creatures was unwinding. The entire project was in danger of collapsing under the weight of the selfishness and sinfulness of humans. Their wickedness and evil—our wickedness and evil—was a deluge that could not be stopped.
So what does God do? God could just give up on humans at this point. He could wash his hands of us. God could just let the very few who have not yet been consumed by this violence be overcome by it. God could just walk away.
But he doesn’t. Instead, God launches a rescue operation. God reaches down and rescues a family and many animals from this inundation of iniquity. The Flood reveals a God who rescues humanity from a flood of evil. What God is doing in Gen. 6 is delivering not merely demolishing. He’s doing rescue not merely wrath. He’s saving not merely razing. God sees a family and many animals just about to be overwhelmed by this flood of evil. He sees the 100 foot waves rolling toward this family and these animals. Their doom is certain. So what does God do? He reaches down and rescues them.
David was one of the writers in the Old Testament who understood this perspective on the Flood. He understood that it’s not the story of a bad God. It’s the story of a good God who rescues those in danger of evil. That’s why time and time again David pictured God as the God who rescued people from the flood of evil.
Psalm 18 is one of those times. The Psalm is one of several which symbolizes suffering in life as a flood. Caught up in a deluge caused by enemies around him, David describes how “In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.” (Ps. 18:6 ESV). Then God “sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters. He rescued me from my strong enemy…” (Ps. 18:16-17 ESV). As David is about to go under from the mistreatment of his enemies, he remembers Gen. 6. He remembers this God who reached down and pulled a family and some animals to safety. And he begs God to do the same for him.
That’s why later David could write in Ps. 124, “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side–let Israel now say–if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us, then they would have swallowed us alive, when their anger was kindled against us; Then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us, then over us would have gone the raging waters.” As David remembers the history of God’s people, he remembers the continual floods they faced—floods of evil, floods of violence, floods of corruption. And time and time again, David remembers how God, just as He did in Gen. 6, plucked his people from the flood to safety.
In 2010 photographer Mary Chinds won a Pulitzer for one of her photos. It captured the harrowing scene of a construction worker reaching out to save a woman caught in the surging waters of a dam in Des Moines. Dangling by a makeshift harness, Jason Oglesbee reaches out to draw the woman out of the torrent.
That is what God is doing in Gen. 6. He’s drawing a family and some precious creatures out of the torrent of aggression, depravity and vice that fills the earth.
The image of God in Gen. 6 is the image of a monster. Instead, it’s really the image of a mother. When the author says in v. 6 that God’s heart grieved at the flood of evil he saw on the earth, the word “grieve” is the same word used earlier in Gen. 3 to describe the sensation a mother has when she gives birth. The use of the word here is intentional. The author wants us to think of God as a mother. This is not merely the pain of anger and wrath. This the pain felt by a mother for her children.
In addition, the word “ark” points to this image of God as mother. The word “ark” is used 26 times in the account of the Flood. But it’s used only 2 other times in the Old Testament. Those two times occur in Ex. 2. There, a Hebrew mother has given birth to a son. Pharaoh has decreed that sons born to Hebrews must be killed. Pharoah’s rage fill Egypt like a flood. Not even the babies can escape. Thus, when this Hebrew mother gives birth to a son (who turns out to be Moses) she seeks some way to rescue him from the deadly wrath of Pharaoh. So, she makes an ark. In Ex. 2, the word is translated “basket.” But the word is “ark.” She makes an ark, places baby Moses in the ark, and sets it out on the water. That’s the same word used in Gen. 6. The God of Gen. 6 is a mother seeking desperately to save her last remaining children from the evil that threatens to overwhelm them.
And just like Moses’ mother, The God of Gen. 6 ends up saving his children through water. He plucks this family and these animals and sets them in a basket. And he casts that basket on the water. This water serves as a barrier between them and the wickedness on earth. And as they float safely, God goes to work. He cleanses the earth. He scrubs the earth. He scours the earth. He removes every threat. And once the neighborhood is safe, once the country is dictator-free, once the home is rid of its abusive parent, he sets his children free.
This is why Peter would later use the flood to talk about baptism (1 Pet. 3:20-21). Peter was writing to people caught up in their own kind of flood. The world they lived in was challenging. Christians were suffering. Peter writes about how Christians reading his letter have “been grieved by various trials” and how they are being “tested by fire” (1:6-7). He describes the devil as a “roaring lion” who seeks to “devour” his readers (5:8). Peter’s readers are being hit by a deluge of human and demonic forces. So Peter reminds them of the God of Gen. 6.
Peter writes about Noah and the ark “in which a few, that is, eight persons were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you…” (3:20-21). Peter remembers how God reached down and lifted this family and these animals to safety, and how God created safety for them through water. In the same way, Peter now writes, God does this for each person who comes to God in faith. Through baptism, God reaches down and delivers us from the flood of evil within the world, and, from the flood of evil within our own hearts. Because God knows that what caused that deluge of depravity in Gen. 6 still exists today. The human heart can still be a headwater for a surge of sin. So, in baptism, God renews not simply the planet. He renews our hearts. He rescues us from foes without and within. Every baptism recalls the story of the Flood.
And even today, that God of Gen. 6 desires to do the same for you. Through baptism, he desires to rescue you from the evil within you and the evil without you. He wants to reach down and pluck you to safety. Last Sunday, Allison VanHoozer was baptized during the Connection service. Today you can make that same decision. You can experience the flood of God’s love and his rescue today through baptism.
But he also desires to do this for you in an ongoing way. Just as David sang about in the Psalms, God is there for you today. And if you feel like you’re about to go under, God is there for you. If you feel like the problems of your life are about to overwhelm you, God is there for you. And if you’ll just ask him, God will reach out to you and rescue you.
Let’s use David’s words from Ps. 18 this morning to do just that. Close your eyes as I lead us in prayer:
“4 The ropes of death entangle us; floods of destruction are about to sweep over us. 5 The grave wraps its ropes around us; death lays a trap in our path.”
If you can identify with those words this morning, say this to God right now, “I’m drowning Lord.”
“6 But in our distress we cry out to you Lord; yes, we pray to you God for help.”
If you need his help this morning, say this to God right now, “I need your help God.”
“You hear us from your sanctuary; our cry to you reaches you ears. 16 You will reach down from heaven and rescue us; you will draw us out of deep waters.
If you believe that this morning, say this to God right now, “You will draw me out of deep waters.”
These is so good story
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