We Need a Hero: How Noah shows us Jesus

Always looking for the hero

Hurricane Ian hit Florida and then South Carolina this week. There was a lot of devastation and heartache and brokenness. In the middle of it all, came stories of rescue and healing. You may have seen the videos of a cat being rescued and a dog being rescued in the middle of the storm. Even more dramatic.. a firefighter in Naples rescuing a man whose car was being carried away by the surge of water into the city, having to break the back windows of the car in order to save the man’s life. There was a TV reporter who dropped everything and went into the water to save a woman whose car was being overcome by flood waters. She crawled out her back window and onto his back and he carried her to safety. A private group rescued a woman on one of the barrier islands who only had six inches of space between the water and the roof.

These people who risked their health and their lives to save others in a flood are being called heroes. No need for a big Hollywood screen. We see heroes in real life. Those videos go viral. We live in a culture desperate for heroes. We spend billions telling ourselves stories of heroes, comic book heroes who save the earth from aliens, or pilots who save us from sinister nuclear plots flying airplanes faster than the speed of sound. Billions of dollars spent, hours of screen time watched because we all want a hero. We long for Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne to come save us from our own misery. Who will rescue us from the bills that can’t be paid, the relationship that crash and burned, the job that is pointless. Where is the TV reporter? Where is our firefighter? Where is our coast guard?

It does raise the question: what is a hero? Just like everything else these days, the definition is disputed. Some believe a hero is someone who puts themselves in danger and enters risk on behalf of another. Some go as far to say that a hero is someone who is willing to give up their life for the greater good. Problems arise when people put themselves in danger or give up their life for what they believe is greater good, when it is fairly obviously evil. One definition I like is one that Barna came up with in studying the subject a few years ago:

Heroes are ordinary people who rise to the occasion, displaying courage, integrity and humility

This sounds like many of the other definitions, but this definition highlights one unique feature: ordinary people. Heroes come from the ranks of the ordinary. People like all of us. Using that definition, many in Christian circles have taken to finding heroes in the Bible. People who did the extraordinary. People who went above and beyond, displaying courage and integrity. We’re going to spend the next few weeks retelling these stories of Bible heroes.

But we are going to do it with a fundamental difference, one that isn’t a surprise to us here at the Table. The whole Bible is about Jesus. And if the whole Bible is about Jesus, then these stories and these heroes should teach us something about Jesus.

And our first is a familiar story to many of us. The story of Noah. As we have read this morning, Noah is a guy who spent 120 years building a big boat, and then the rains started and the water in the earth broke loose and the entire earth was covered in water. The water kills everybody on the planet except 8 people. Noah and his family.. his wive, his two sons and their wives, eight people were saved. As well as many animals who found a home on that boat.

That sounds like a sci-fi movie. Everyone dies except those who were fortunate enough to get on the boat. That’s the story we know and read in our Christian pop culture. There are other details, but those are the basics. We even have a life-sized boat in Kentucky built to the same specs as the boat in the Bible.

If that’s all we can say about the Noah story, then we have missed the point of the Noah story. We are in chapter 9 this morning because this is all the stuff that happens when Noah finally leaves the boat about a year after the rain started. When we tell this part of the story, if we tell it at all, we tell it as if it is simply a post-credit scene. It’s not the main point. We’re done with that. We’ve answered the question,

“What was it about Noah that helped him overcome the odds and save himself and his family in the greatest natural disaster the earth has ever known?”

Noah becomes the hero. Of course he’s the hero. He had the spiritual fortitude to listen to God when others didn’t, he built the boat, he collected the animals, he saved his family from disaster. There are numerous clues throughout the entire story about how all of this went down, and it is not quite like that. Verse 8 here in our text this morning says this:

Genesis 9:8 “Then God said to Noah and his sons with him,”

God speaks

The first three words are all we need to know about where the spotlight should be in this story. “Then God said”. God is speaking. God spoke at the very beginning of this story, telling Noah to build the ark because judgment is coming. Humanity is wicked and God plans to start over.

Genesis 6:5 “The Lord saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time.”

Things are so bad, I’m going to start over with you, Noah. God then acted on his speech. The story tells us that God shut the door of the ark. This isn’t Noah’s doing. God shuts the door, God sends the rain, God opens up the earth. God floods the world. Now, at the end of it all, God is speaking again. This hasn’t been Noah’s doing. This is God’s doing.

And when God speaks now, it’s not with the threat of judgment. There is none of this when Noah leaves the boat. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite:

Genesis 9:9 ““Understand that I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you,”

God promises

7 times in the next 10 verses God uses the word “covenant”. I’m establishing, I’m making a covenant. I’m making you a promise. The promise isn’t just for you… it’s for your descendents. It’s for everything that has breath. Every living creature. I promise you. There are no sweeter words to the ears of Noah and his family. I promise you. I promise you I will never destroy like this again. I promise, I promise, I promise. The God who spoke judgment, the God who acted, is now speaking grace. He is speaking mercy and life. 7 times. I promise.

Just think how this sounds. Noah and his family have been on a windowless boat for about a year. They lived through 40 days of unbelievable noise of storm. They get off the boat and I can assure you, there are signs of death everywhere. The world is a waste. It is not all green and garden-like in the pictures. Death is still their context. And it is into that Post-Traumatic Stress that God says “I promise”. And he says it again and again and again. It’s what Noah and his family need to hear in that moment. It’s what they will need to remember and hang on to… when life begins to look like it did before the flood. When misery returns. When bad days show up again. They need to know that God is a promising God. God is a gracious God.

God guarantees

Then God puts the rainbow in the clouds.

Genesis 9:13 “I have placed my bow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”

It’s not just God’s speech. God’s promise comes with a visible, tangible sign. The rainbow… the rainbow in the clouds. This bow is mentioned only two other times in the Bible and both times, it is in reference to the rainbow that is the glory around God’s throne. We’re not talking about your run of the mill rainbow. God seals his promise with his own glory. His own identity. The Creator is putting his own glory on the line, the glory that is as brilliant as all of the colors of the spectrum. The very same glory that would lead his people through the waters of the Red Sea. The very same glory that would dwell among His people in the Tabernacle and Temple. That glory. His very own Glory-presence is the guarantee that this will never, ever happen again. His glory is the Promise.

You see… Noah is not the hero of the story. The hero of the story is the one putting his own glory on the line. How did we get here, Noah? Noah didn’t shut the door. Noah didn’t save His family. Noah didn’t bring him out of the ark and Noah isn’t making the promise. This is all God’s doing. God makes the Promise to never again do this and he repeats it. God puts his bow in the clouds. Because this is God’s work. This is God’s salvation of Noah. God is the hero here.

We have the books, we have the movies, we have the videos.. and Noah is the Hero. We do this because when life turns upside down, when the flood of our own sin overwhelms us, we believe it is up to ourselves to save ourselves. We’re tell ourselves that God picked Noah because of how good Noah was… what a nice, moral and upright man Noah was. The Bible doesn’t say this. At the very beginning it’s this:

Genesis 6:8 “Noah, found grace with the Lord.”

Grace. Grace is never earned. You cannot be good enough to win over God’s grace. God chose Noah just because, and Noah placed his faith in God and His Promise. Against all of our self-sufficiency this story tells us that when humanity was on the line, it was up to God to save and give grace to Noah and his family. God is the Hero here.

When life is on the line. When our salvation is on the line. When sin and self-sufficiency and self-salvation come calling, when I’m tempted to try and control everything in life and I get frustrated when I cannot, this story says “no”, you’re not your own hero. You and I are not the heroes of our own story.

God is making good on His Promise

This is the first place that the word covenant is used in the Bible, and where an explicit sign, the rainbow is given with the covenant. This becomes the pattern for all covenants in the Bible. Abraham, Moses, David… Again and again God is going to put his glory, his name, his identity on the line. Because all of these Promises are connected to the one big Promise, the Promise made to our first parents that God would send a Hero, an offspring of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent and take care of the sin problem.

As Noah stands there, looking at that magnificent bow, Noah is being reminded of God’s promise and God’s grace. It is through Noah God is going to make a new start, a new beginning. It is through Noah that God is going to make good on the Promise to Adam and Eve. All of this is God’s doing because all of this is about Jesus. This is Jesus. The whole story. The water, the judgment, the ark, the salvation, the Promise, the rainbow, the glory, even the door… it’s all here.

Who is it that is draped in rainbows in splendor and glory on God’s throne in Ezekiel and Revelation? It’s Jesus. Noah can’t see all this, but what he does know is that, no matter the death all around him, the absolute desolation of judgment and destruction. there is a Promise from God and there is a bow in the heavens. The Promise is will be realized through Noah and his family. The Messiah is coming through Noah and his family. And it’s that Messiah who has been with him and had him all along.

The New Testament writers pick up on this, especially Peter. The boat that saved Noah and his family through water is a picture of Jesus. And it’s not just a picture of Jesus… this is Jesus at work closing the door and saving them from the water.

Jesus is the Hero of Noah’s story.

Laced through the Promise and the rainbow language of this story is the language of creation. The covenant isn’t just with Noah. The covenant is with all of creation. Again and again the covenant is connected with all living creatures. This is the Creator himself making the promise. This is the glory of the Creator himself. This is grace being poured out on Noah and creation by the Creator himself. A Creator who loves his Creatures so much, that at some point he’s going to come and die. The Creator is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The Noah story is an absolutely clear picture of our salvation in Jesus. Jesus saves us from our sin and from the penalty of our sin, just like he saved Noah and his family from the judgment waters. But in a twist that we will never be able to fully comprehend, Jesus saves us from judgment by taking that judgment himself. We are safe in the boat of salvation, because Jesus died in the waters of judgment. We don’t deserve the boat. We don’t deserve salvation. We want to be our own saviors. And Jesus dies on the cross, Jesus dies in his own flood, so that we won’t ever. He gets death. We get forgiveness. We get life.

This is what we are saying in baptism. Baptism is a re-creation of the flood and judgment. Jesus dies in the judgment so we don’t have to. We are saved like Noah… through water, Peter says. Baptism is glorious. Baptism is where our new life starts. But it’s also a picture of judgment. The judgment of water that Jesus went through, that we go through with Jesus, before being raised to life. Jesus gets death. We get forgiveness. We get life.

That’s the kind of savior we have. This is our Hero. That’s the kind of Jesus you have today and tomorrow. Any time you see a rainbow, yes… revel in the way the sun is hitting the rain and making something beautiful. But also see this: Jesus is for you. Don’t look at the rainbow and think… I need to be more like Noah. No… see the rainbow and know and believe that Jesus is your salvation. Jesus is where your faith is and hope is, even when life is a mess and broken. Look at the rainbow like Noah looked at the rainbow. This is Jesus making good on His promise that you are forever safe with Him. Remind yourself that we need a Hero and Jesus is that Hero.

Let’s Pray.

The rainbow, the colors, in the Bible aren’t just about glory. Oh they are… the bow is God’s presence with His people. And that Presence is Jesus himself. But that bow and that Presence is always accompanied by the idea of blood and sacrifice. Shortly before God puts the rainbow in the sky, Noah builds an altar. On that altar, an animal dies. An animal that survived the flood precisely for this occasion. The animal dies because Noah is a sinner. And so this story has glory, has promise, has God’s presence and grace for His people. But it also has sacrifice. A reminder that our salvation always, always, always comes through a Creator who dies for the creature. That’s this Table for us this morning. This is our Ark, our Hero, for us.