B, Lent 1 - Genesis 9:8-17 "A Re-Creative Covenant"

Refraction of light causes light to be bent and through different degrees of bending comes various colours on the spectrum of light.   God created water droplets to refract light showing it to Noah after the flood.  We see the result of this still today, when standing between the sun and a rainy sky to see a rainbow in the clouds. 

When we stand on the ground, we only see half the refracted circle of light, which is a rainbow.  Become elevated in the right position, one would see a full circle of colours being produced from the sun shining on a backdrop of falling water droplets.

God caused this wonderful display to make humanity a promise!  He says, “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”  And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations:  I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” (Genesis 9:11–13 ESV)

God’s promise to all living creatures is called a covenant.  God establishes the covenant with Noah.  When we enter into a covenant, usually the agreement is made between two parties, but the rainbow covenant is different.  God makes the covenant without any input from Noah or his sons.  God’s covenant with Noah is a one-sided agreement.

Even today the covenant is still binding since it relies only on God’s word.  However, other covenants are broken because they rely on both parties keeping the agreement. 

Humanity sees the rainbow as a symbol of hope.  A rainbow flag was used as early as the sixteenth century as a symbol for the peasants’ cooperative movement in the German Peasants War.  In the nineteen sixties the rainbow peace flag became a common sight.  Today when some see a rainbow flag displayed, they immediately assume it as being a symbol for diverse sexuality.

However, the rainbow seen in the sky, surpasses all human flags or cooperative movements.  After a storm has passed over, a rainbow can allow us a breath of relief, to come outside once again, to give thanks for the rain, or  to begin cleaning up the damage.

But the transcendence of the rainbow, as a covenant of God, gives us even more relief than knowing a storm has passed.  And it does so, not because of what we remember when we see a rainbow, but what God sees and remembers!  We hear, “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.”  (Genesis 9:16 ESV)

God not only makes a one-sided covenant, but he also makes an everlasting covenant!  Regardless of what humanity sees in a rainbow, God sees and remembers his promise to all living creatures of the earth, forever!

The refraction of light comes from a source of pure light.  The light of the rainbow comes from the light of life, God the Father who transcends all life, and from whom all life is lit and living. 

The light of life shines God’s love upon us.  The love of God is pure light, and it shines on all humanity, regardless how humanity views love, and refracts it into the coloured corrupted desires of the human heart.

In the days of Noah, the love of God had been fractured,  and people had completely fallen away from him.   Humanity continued in the pursuit of pleasure, that saw Adam and Eve, fall.  The sons of God, those born to Seth, and the descendants of Adam’s other children who followed Seth, were attracted to the daughters of man, those born to Cain and his followers.

Attractive here means good.  The sons of God saw the daughters of man as good.  This was greater than a lust over good looks, but a temptation and turning from God, continuing humanity’s pursuit of good and evil knowledge,  just as Adam and Eve had turned from God at Eden.

Therefore, in the days of Noah, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.  So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”  But Noah found favour in the eyes of the LORD.” (Genesis 6:5–8 ESV)

So, God made a covenant with Noah, and after he rebirth the earth in the flood, he put the rainbow in the sky.  God sees the rainbow and remembers he will not flood the earth, despite humanity bending the bow of God’s covenant!  Refracting it into a fractured rebellion against his light in a corruption of colours.  

Despite the many colours of humanity’s knowledge of love.  Despite those Luther opposed who sought to climb up to God in love for the “greater good”.  Despite those today whose knowledge of love is governed by what feels good.  God sees the rainbow and remembers his covenant!

But you who see the full circle of God’s love sees his Son, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  You know the coloured light of your emotions, your will, and your deeds are tainted.  Even if we became wholly inclusive in our diversity, collecting together all our colours once refracted from the original pure light of God, we know our colours are contaminated with impurities.  No longer do all the colours of the rainbow reverse in refraction back to the pure light of God.  Our colours combine to block out God’s light and create darkness.   Whatever colour we refract, we identify as sinners!  We know God’s light gets bent in us!

When God sees the rainbow, he remembers we are dust, and to dust we shall return.  He sustains us in this life as we suffer in it.  Yet we hear and trust, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.”  (1 Peter 3:18 ESV)

God commanded Noah to build the ark, and in faithfulness to God, he built it.  Noah was maligned when he did not join others in their flood of debauchery.  He suffered for it, but God saved him through water.

Jesus Christ is the light of God.  The Holy Spirit gives the life of God in Jesus Christ!  God shines the full gamut of light in Jesus Christ.  It’s the full circle of Christ’s light that shines on us in baptism.  Here, Noah is a picture of Christ for us.  “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.  Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, …through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”  (1 Peter 3:20–21 ESV)

In these days when it has become illegal (in Victoria, Australia) to reflect on certain sins, according to God’s Word, we live under God’s re-creative covenant.  Not only do we know God will not kill all flesh through a deluge.  But we also know in the waters of baptism, God has made a greater covenant with us.  In Christ, we too will be raised to see the colours of God in his eternal dwelling.  This will be the full circle of light Christ once shone on earth, that the Triune God will shine in heaven forever!  

See these colours, revealed to John, recorded in Revelation chapter twenty-one.  “The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, like clear glass.  The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald,  the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst.  And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.  And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.  And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.  By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it,  and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.”  (Revelation 21:18–25 ESV)

See the re-creative colours of God’s eternal covenant with you, refracted with water and the Word through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.