On the same day that the disastrous flood waters snatched people away in Houston, I saw a picture of a rainbow. The two together caused me to open my Bible and read again the story of Noah and the great flood.
Virtually every tribe on earth has a flood story, not exactly the same but similar. Why? I suppose because there was in fact some great flood that nearly wiped out the human race. An amazing story. Remembered. Interpreted. Recounted again and again. In Asia, Europe, the Pacific, North America, Africa. What they tell varies a little from one tribe and culture and language to another, which is not surprising. The existence of all these other stories only tends to strengthen our own, and people everywhere believe there was a flood.
My point here is not to convince anyone of historical facts behind the story so I will not recount recorded evidence, though I can’t resist mentioning that I myself have picked up seashells in the Jordanian desert.
According to the Old Testament, the Middle Eastern version of the story, just a few generations after God created the human race, God began to regret that he had done so, because “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”
The next sentence surprises me every time. “The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.”
You know the story and can imagine a little, as I do. God decided to wipe man off the face of the earth. But there was a problem—the one good man God knew. That was Noah. He was righteous, “blameless among the people of his time,” so God resolved to save Noah and his family and a boatload of animals. That took a lot of planning and doing and coordinating.
There was communication required. Noah had to understand the plan.
There was Noah’s stubborn faith as he built that preposterous boat, according to precise specifications. The laughter of the neighbors.
There was the collecting of food and packing it for the long absence from the fields. There was the gathering of the animals into the vessel. The threatening clouds. Then the rain, relentless downpour, the water rising, lifting up the ark, swallowing the tallest trees, covering the mountains. And the ark floating, drifting. One day the sun, another the top of a mountain visible. The water slowly receding. The waiting. A hopeful, patient Noah opening a window and sending out birds that come back, finding no place to rest. Every seven days the little spy flying away, until one day it brings back a leaf and another day does not come back at all.
When at last the ark settles down on solid ground, Noah and his family come out and celebrate. And right away God makes a promise. Never again. “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.”
So the human race got a second chance. This turns out to be a biblical theme. A merciful God keeps giving us a way to start over.
Having declared His own intentions, God then announced humanity’s side of the bargain. “From each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.” For second chances require tolerance. On one side of the new deal, God will not kill us, even though we are bad. And on the other side, we are not to kill one another, even though we are bad. Simple and fair.
Then a rainbow appeared in the sky, bright arc of colors, diaphanous and ephemeral, and God declared it to be a sign of the covenant he was making between himself and all living creatures. The rainbow would come and go, subject to its own magic, and whenever we saw it, we would know that God remembered.
Never again would there be a flood like that one.
As I read it today, the story of the great flood is a lesson sent to every tribe by a God of peace. It tells us that we have to live with the people we think are good and the people we think are bad, the people who agree with us and the people who don’t. God will not again destroy those who do wrong, nor did he give us authority to do so. Some people are evil. We all have evil in our hearts. We may think we are good and the others are bad. Our opinion is not going to be a valid excuse for killing one another.
To keep this promise, God as to live with the risk of man’s free will. He has to trust us with His creation.
I don’t mean to trivialize the suffering of Houston. A flood is a terrifying force and in this one people lost their lives. But every flood now is a sample of what God could do but won’t, the way the rainbow is a sign that God loves the world and remembers his promises. Even a cloud could be a reminder that we don’t have to fear the rain, or God.
People the world over exult in rainbows and accept them as messages of hope. This we should do without forgetting that God has trusted us to take care of one another.
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