Genesis 6:5-22; 8:6-12; 9:8-17 Noah, flood, rainbow
This story is in all the children’s Bibles. We can buy carved Noah’s arks at the wood market in Lilongwe, Malawi. It is easily portrayed in art, and everyone I know gleefully smiles and points when they see a rainbow. However, this is not really a children’s story.
God sees wickedness on the earth, and decides to start over. Noah finds favor, but the rest will be blotted out. So God wipes out most of creation. Animals two by two, one family, a large boat, lots of rain, a raven and a dove, and finally a rainbow round out the story. We’ll hear a variation on this story again and again. Outside Sodom and Gomorrah, then at Mt Sinai with a golden calf, God decides that people, humans, creation, in part or in whole, aren’t worth the trouble.
Imagine, if you will, that was the whole of the Gospel. That every time wickedness was great, God just started over, with a small bit, a remnant, following a violent reset of creation. Imagine that the only thing keeping us from being evil was a fear of destruction. We don’t tell kids the whole story of Noah’s ark. Why would we act as though an angry God is the whole of the story?
