The Rainbow and the Cross

Scripture:

Genesis 9:8–17 NLT

8 Then God told Noah and his sons, 9 “I hereby confirm my covenant with you and your descendants, 10 and with all the animals that were on the boat with you—the birds, the livestock, and all the wild animals—every living creature on earth. 11 Yes, I am confirming my covenant with you. Never again will floodwaters kill all living creatures; never again will a flood destroy the earth.” 12 Then God said, “I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come. 13 I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth. 14 When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, 15 and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life. 16 When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth.” 17 Then God said to Noah, “Yes, this rainbow is the sign of the covenant I am confirming with all the creatures on earth.”

40 Days and 40 Nights

Can you imagine what would happen if we got 40 days and 40 nights of snow?

Heavy snowfall is considered around .5 inches per hour.

So, if we were very lenient and measured .1 (a tenth) inches of snow per hour (which would only amount to .01 (one hundredth) inch of rain) that would still add up to

1.2 inches per day.

10.4 inches per week,

and a grand total of 48 inches (or 4 feet of snow).

That is what 40 days of gentle snowflakes would mean for us.

What if God kicked things up a notch and gave us heavy snow at .5 inches per hour?

That would mean

12 inches of snow per day

84 inches of snow per week (7 feet!)

and a grand total of 480 inches of snow (40 feet!)

Alexa tells me that is about the height of a 3-story house

It would cover everything and we would be living in underground, or under-snow cities, if our houses did not just cave in under the weight.

Can you imagine what they would think in Texas?

Those people, some of whom are seeing snow for the first time in their lives this past week.

They would be surprised, excited, confused, nervous, and more and more terrified as they realized they were not prepared and did not know what to do with all that snow.

If you have watched or read the news, you have heard the stories of trauma they are going through, many who have never experienced anything like this in their lives. It is a disaster, and even though we can send people into space and robots to other planets, there are times when we get put in our place and are reminded that we are not God. Every day we have is a gift, not a guarantee.

Noah had been through trauma

We tell this story to our kids and draw cartoon pictures of all the animals.

However, the real story is something more like the Titanic.

It is a tragedy, there is so much death and destruction, and it made on Noah and his family forever.

Today we are going to see that it made a mark on God as well.

Thesis: God invites us into a covenant of mercy as we begin our season of Lent together.

The Second Covenant

The first covenant was God’s covenant with Adam and Eve.

They were given life and the garden of Eden.

In return, they were to care for it and multiply it across the earth.

They messed that up, and instead of life and goodness multiplying across the earth, sin and death multiplied, making things that were wild worse, instead of bringing them into right relationship with God.

The first covenant was broken and there was nothing humanity could do to get it back.

God was heartbroken

God has feelings.

We read a few weeks ago in Bible Study that when Jesus stood outside the tomb of Lazarus, he was both angry and disturbed to the point of shaking in grief - even though He knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the grave.

Perhaps Jesus was so upset about the suffering and death of Lazarus that His human heart could barely contain it.

How much anger and sadness would God have felt then during the flood?

Better still, how much anger and sadness must God have felt about the state of the world before that He brought the flood upon them?

People aren’t right

If I say to you that “people just aren’t right these days”, you can probably come up with 10 different examples of that in under a minute. We all see the mess. We all see the injustice. We all see sin.

Our struggle is that we don’t see ourselves. We don’t see how our own sin adds into the mess around us. We want to view ourselves in isolation, quarantined away from the sin of the world, safe and secure in our own homes.

But we are people, and people aren’t right. The Bible tells us so.

Romans 3:23 NLT

23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

That doesn’t mean that we aren’t God. It means that we aren’t even living up to His standard for a normal human being. We’ve lowered that standard from A’s, B’s, and C’s as passing grades to claiming that we should get a pass just for showing up and not getting caught doing anything too bad. We need serious help learning and growing into the people God created us to be, but instead of asking for help, we decide we just don’t care.

People aren’t right, and we are people.

We are part of the problem.

Seeing clearly

If we cannot see our own sin, we will not see the mercy God is extending to us.

The rainbow is that symbol of mercy, but we don’t see it without experiencing the rain first. It is the sign, after the time of darkness, that the sun will indeed come out again, bringing it’s light, it’s warmth, and a new gift of mercy for a new day.

The Sign

The rainbow was a sign to show that death had happened, but new life was about to begin.

It functioned much like the cross is a symbol that death happened but new life is about to begin.

What did Noah do to receive that symbol?

It took years of service, following God to build the ark and prepare for God to send the animals to him.

Then he spent a year on the ark, during the rains and storms, and then waiting for the water to subside.

Did he earn that salvation? No. But Noah accepted the invitation to it by building the ark, getting in it, and staying in it.

What did Noah do with the symbol once he received it?

He got drunk. I think he never wanted to go through that experience again. Perhaps he didn’t even want to remember going through it the first time.

He wanted it all to be over and probably never set foot on a boat again for the rest of his life.

His children abandoned God, even though they had experienced salvation from the judgment God sent down upon the world.

We don’t know all that happened, but we know that Sin came back into the world, and it started with Noah himself.

God gave Noah that sign, that symbol of a covenant relationship with Hiim, and the rainbow is not mentioned again for over 1,000 years.

The Cross is our rainbow, our promise of mercy.

What did we do to earn it?

Nothing. We accepted the invitation to salvation that Jesus gave us, left our old life behind, and followed Him wherever he led us. Jesus became our Ark Himself. We find salvation, in Jesus.

The cross is the symbol He gave us.

What do we do with our cross?

We pick it up and follow Jesus.

Our cross is not to show off or give to others

It is our symbol that our old life has died and that we are following Jesus into new life.