Sermon Tone Analysis

B-O-W

THE BOW IN THE SKY

“Red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue, I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too.” - a song made famous by W. Carter Merbreier, a Lutheran Pastor, better known to the kids of the greater Philadelphia area as “Captain Noah” with his “magical ark”- a morning children’s program on WPVI TV Channel 6, often on in the background as my brother and I were getting ready for school.

He was a local competitor to the likes of Mr. Rogers, Captain Kangaroo, and Winchel Mahoney, and got better ratings than any of them.

The set was an ark upon which he and his wife, “Mrs.

Noah” taught children lessons of love, acceptance and faith.

Pretty bold for a secular TV station during the early 1970s!

Of course, the rainbow has been co-opted from what God intended.

While used as a logo for various “special interest groups” today, the true meaning of the rainbow is that it is a promise from God.

If you pay attention, it is very curious.

Noah and his family have just been saved by the flood from the evil world.

Everything had been destroyed.

By the way, there is overwhelming scientific evidence that the earth had been covered in water— such as the strata in places like the Grand Canyon; Fossils in places that they ought not be, and the like.

If you want a lot more detailed information, Google “Ken Ham”.

You can read his marvelous research.

God makes Noah and his family, and by extension the whole world— including you and me— that he would not destroy the world again with water.

The same water that is necessary to make a rainbow when the sun hits it and does its ROYGBIV refraction!

Notice, God does not say that He will never destroy the world again— He is clear that He will, on the last day, with fire.

But He won’t destroy it again with water.

The question is: For whom is the rainbow set in the sky?

The quick answer is, “for us” so that we remember God’s covenant.

But the right answer is, God placed the rainbow in the clouds for HIMSELF.

“When the bow is in the Clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.

God makes the rainbow a reminder to Himself that He has covenanted with the crown of his creation, mankind, that He would not flood the entire earth at one time ever again.

Noah is the first one in the Bible to ever hear God utter the word, “Covenant.”

In our minds a covenant and a contract are the same thing, a conditional arrangement that says if you do this, I’ll do that.

If you pay me money, I will put a swimming pool in your back yard.

If you don’t pay me, I don’t have to dig the pool.

If you don’t put a pool in my yard, I won’t pay you.

But a covenant, a true Biblical covenant, is not like that at all.

When God makes a covenant, He binds the promise to Himself.

It is not conditional.

When God says “I will never leave you or forsake you”, He means it.

Even if I turn my back on Him, even if I walk completely away from God, He will never walk away from me.

Because He has bound His promise to Himself, not to our response.

Marriage, beloved, is a covenant.

It is the closest gift that God gives us here on earth to understand His love for you.

I love you, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death parts us.

Nothing in that promise about the other person holding up his or her end of the “bargain.”

No 50/50 arrangement here.

Marriage binds your promise to yourself.

It is never conditional.

This is why divorce is so destructive.

God makes a covenant with Noah and you and me about water.

That He will never use it to destroy the earth again.

He sets the rainbow in the sky as a reminder to Himself that He has bound this promise to Himself.

His Word is true.

Yes there have been floods— really bad ones.

Just last week they had to close down Hershey Park because of the storms that flooded it out.

But it’s not the entire earth, as it was in the Days of Noah.

ONE New Covenant

God makes many important covenants in the Old Testament.

For instance, He makes a Covenant with Abraham that he would be the father of many nations.

He cuts a covenant with Israel on Mount Sinai: I am the Lord Your God, who brought you out of the Land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and then gives them the commandments to follow out of love for them.

He makes other Covenants as well.

That would be a good word study for you to do if you want to really get into the Bible this Summer.

But Jeremiah begins to talk about this “new covenant” that God is about to forge with His people.

A covenant where they could do nothing to deserve it; nothing to keep it; nothing to initiate it.

The writer of Hebrews, quoting Jeremiah, writes:

The writer to the Hebrews goes on to say,

What is this covenant?

What is its sign?

The new covenant is salvation by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

It is through Him, with Him and in Him that we have forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.

This is now the one and only covenant that God has cut with you.

He cuts it not with a knife, as He did of old, but with water.

As the world was flooded and all life ceased, save Noah and his family and the life upon the ark, so He takes your life.

That filthy, wretched, know it all, opinion laden, hating, angry, sinful, separated-from-God-self and drowns it out until the bubbles stop.

Dead.

Drowned.

The things drowned are the exact things that keep you from receiving the covenant that God gives freely in His Son.

Baptismal drowning knocks you off of the throne of your life and replaces you with Jesus.

And then He brings you out of the flood.

He saves you by the Flood, which Peter declares is totally and completely fulfilled in Baptism.

And how does He do it?

He puts you in the ark!

The ark is the Church.

There is no salvation outside of the Church.

It is being gathered together, by the Holy Spirit, around Word and Sacrament, where the Word is divided rightly and the Sacraments are administered according to Christ’s command, that there is life.

No lone ranger Christians.

No sole canoes and kayaks in this water.

You must be in the ark.

But that is exactly what this New Covenant does.

God Himself places you in the ark by the Holy Spirit.

That one who calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies us.

That one given you in the flood of Baptism.

That one who has bound you into Christ Jesus,

WALKS ON WATER

Our Gospel brings back the water.

This time, the Sea of Galilee.

It is stormy, once again.

However, this time, the storm is not scaring the disciples.

It was bad, the text says that they were making headway “painfully” but it was nothing like that storm we heard about a few weeks ago where they all thought they were going to die.

They were out on the water between 3am and 6am— known as the “fourth watch of the night.”

It’s a scary time.

It’s when people are usually sleeping at their deepest level.

And, out in the water, they see someone walking toward them.

I’ll say that again.

Someone walking toward them.

Of course, we know it was Jesus.