Water and Wood

Homily for the First Sunday of Lent

The story of Noah’s Ark which appears in the Book of Genesis is, perhaps, one of the best known and most beloved stories of the Bible. It just might be one of the most misunderstood stories of the Bible as well.

Noah is one of the people to whom God talked directly and who was tasked with one of the largest construction stories. God was angry and even more disappointed that his beloved created world and heaven itself have become a den of iniquity. Wicked sons of God – rebellious angels – had started taking human women as their concubines. Consequently, God decided to destroy all of creation by bringing upon them a catastrophic flood.

However, there was one man and woman who, with their sons and their sons’ wives, had not disappointed God through this sinful behavior. God instructed Noah to build an ark, a huge boat out of gopherwood which is to be made seaworthy by covering it both inside and outside with pitch, a thick, black substance like modern day tar or asphalt.

Once the ark is constructed, the very first example of a forty-day experience takes place as the heavens open and rain falls for forty days to flood the earth and to exterminate all of creation. Noah and his family are to load the ark with seven pairs of all the clean animals and one pair of all the unclean animals of creation. Today’s first reading tells us what happens once the flood has receded and Noah and his family are able to open the ark and release the animals back into the world.

In the first example of a covenant relationship that appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, God then promises never to do this again. “Never again will I curse the ground, nor will I ever again strike down every living being, as I have done. This is the sign of the covenant that I am making between me and you and every living creature with you for all ages to come: I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”

In the First Letter of St. Peter, he explains that this story is symbolic and proleptic. It speaks to one of the mysteries of our faith. In this story, the ark saves eight people as well as the animals of the earth. The floodwaters are regarded as the chaos that existed before creation and are the source of death. The ark was constructed of gopherwood, most probably the wood of a cypress tree. However, when God sets in motion the history of salvation, the wooden ark and the floodwaters become symbolic of the death of Jesus on a cross and the sacrament of baptism. While eight people were saved by the ark, Jesus saves all humanity by dying on a cross of wood. While the floodwaters destroy all living things, the waters of baptism become the means through which humanity gains eternal life. All of this is set in motion when God sends his only begotten Son to preach that the kingdom of God is at hand. Salvation is available for everyone who repents and believes in the Gospel.

The first Sunday of Lent always tells us the story of Jesus in the desert where he fasts for forty days. This cycle of the Sunday lectionary uses the Gospel of St. Mark, the shortest of all four Gospels. His Gospel connects the story of Jesus with the story of Adam. We are told that angels ministered unto Jesus during his time in the desert just as angels ministered unto Adam while he was still in the Garden of Eden. Jesus is the new Adam. In the Book of Genesis, Adam sins through disobedience. In the Gospels, Jesus – the new Adam – saves us through obedience to the will of God.

Lent is upon us. This special time is set aside for us to repent and to place our faith in the Gospel. At the end of our forty days, we will once again pronounce our baptismal promises. The forty days of the season of Lent and the fifty days of our celebration of Easter remind us that while God has promised never again to destroy the earth through floodwaters, we have promised to live according to God’s commandments. Baptism is central to our celebration of both seasons. It is during this particular season that the church draws us back to the baptismal font and recalls our adoption into the family of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus. While the floodwaters brought to death to humanity in the Book of Genesis, we rise out of the waters of baptism with the promise of eternal life.