Listen to the talk here – recorded 2nd June 2024 (NB moderate audio quality), or read below:

A number of biblical characters – including Noah – blazed a trail ahead of Christ – somehow pointing to or depicting key aspects of Jesus’s character, purpose or ministry. Other words and phrases to describe this are ‘prefiguration’ or ‘type of Christ’ or ‘forerunner’. These are like echoes that go across the Bible showing us something about Jesus, and acting as signposts towards him. See also Not So Sorry and Single which looks at Ruth’s story.

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Meaning-making creatures

We are meaning-making creatures. We look for meaning, and God appeals to this part of our design by hiding ‘Easter Eggs’ or symbols – for those who are looking; like an artist, filmmaker or writer might hide them in their work. Throughout the Bible these hint and speak of the conclusion of the story; and of our ultimate hero and protagonist, Jesus.

God is happy for these mere humans; imperfect, created beings to be the first to demonstrate what his son came to fulfil. They go ahead of him. God didn’t need his own son to be there, right from the outset – first in line, dominating or pushing to the front…Jesus came after them all. They showed us first, what Jesus would be like – which he later fulfilled.

Adam was the first ever human, and Noah came 9 generations after him. Adam’s family line went: Adam – Seth – Enoch – Keenan – Mahalelel – Jared – Enoch – Methuselah – Lamech – NOAH.

Genesis 5v29 says that Lamech, Noah’s father: “‘named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labour and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.’”. 

So here’s one of our first clues. Because what does this tell us? In part; Noah, like Jesus, would provide comfort and relief from the consequences of the fall and the problem of sin. 

The Human Condition

Things had got really bad in the 9 generations since Adam. Genesis 6v5 says, “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart were only evil all the time”. 

Here the human condition is laid out for us. If you read this verse slowly – it is exhaustive in explaining just how bad things were, it leaves no stone unturned in underlining how consumed humans were by wickedness and evil.

‘Every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart were only evil all the time.’ 

What did God say when he created Adam? That it was ‘very good’. But the goodness of the first human had been utterly consumed by evil. There was no good left in him whatsoever.

Genesis goes on to say;  “The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.”

I find this extraordinary because to me it reveals the transparency and vulnerability of God. These are recognisably human responses and emotions. It’s easy to overlook how human God is – obviously he’s not human, but we are made in his likeness. We can forget that he experiences feelings like joy, disappointment, anger. Here he feels REGRET, and his heart was DEEPLY TROUBLED. These are big emotions. Let’s imagine what that’s actually like – for God to regret something he’s done and to be deeply troubled. Think back to those times of regret in your life, or when you have been deeply troubled. It’s not nice.

Regret means feeling sad, repentant, disappointed about what you did or weren’t unable to do. But is also rings of despair: the complete loss or absence of hope.

God was facing the mega failure of Project Earth – it was created to be this incredible expression of the love experienced within the Godhead. He was about to lose everything he’d created. There was a spiralling moral cost to his project, humanity was haemorrhaging morality.

Catastrophic failure

God was facing a catastrophic failure. What is that? 

When we talk of catastrophic failure we often think of things like machines, rockets, aeroplanes, buildings and structures, pipelines, technology… or submersibles. The definition of a catastrophic failure is – ‘a sudden and total failure which cannot be put right, and from which recovery is impossible’. And a catastrophic failure often leads to something called a ‘cascading systems failure’ – where all interconnected systems fail too. A computer would completely crash, a building would collapse, a pipeline would rupture, a submersible would implode with no survivors.

God’s creation had developed a deep flaw, it was the problem of evil and sin that had taken root and it was causing this catastrophic failure – it could not be put right and was beyond recovery. The free will God had given Adam and Eve meant that humankind could choose whether to obey or disobey God. And the result of the Fall – their disobedience, had compounded; wickedness upon wickedness upon wickedness – to become a screaming feedback loop.

Genesis 6v7 says “So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I REGRET that I have made them.”” (Interestingly the whole of creation is implicated here.)

Genesis 6v11-12 explains further. It says “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.” So God said, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.””

The word that stands out here to me is VIOLENCE. What is violence? Violence is intentional destruction. The World Health Organisation offers an insightful definition of violence which is: “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.” So if the earth was full of violence according to that definition, it was absolutely dreadful. People were doing violence to themselves, to each other and to their communities.

God had give humankind dominion over the earth, they were to steward it but they had misused this power, turning it over to violence. Like I said earlier, all the good there had been was now consumed by wickedness. The inevitable trajectory of everything on earth was already destruction – before it was ever flooded it. So at this point there was no option other than to pull the plug. And the sooner the better. 

But Noah…

Then we hear these words: ‘But Noah’. This is the game changer. Genesis 6v8 says: “But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord”.

One man, among the entire human race had found favour in God’s eyes. Along with his family. Noah used his free will to choose to live righteously and to follow God.

Genesis 6v9 tells us more. It says: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.” To remain blameless in those days was quite a feat, with everything that was going on. And because of that choice, Noah became God’s lifeline. He restored God’s hope in humanity.

This points to Jesus. Jesus went voluntarily to the cross. he presented himself to God, surrendering himself saying: “Here I am, I have come to do your will”. Yes he was the son of God, but he too had free will. Noah had chosen the same.

So our righteousness and obedience create possibilities for God. Our faith and faithfulness enable God to move. 

The earth and the human race was already burned up and destroyed by wickedness. But Noah was a single glowing ember, one righteous man. He was the smouldering wick, and the bruised reed. And here we glimpse one of God’s ‘WHYs’ – In Isaiah and several of the gospels it says “A bruised reed he will not break, a smouldering wick he will not snuff out…” until he has brought about justice and victory – ultimately in Jesus. But he wasn’t going to snuff out even the vaguest hope that things could continue.

Righteousness and Relationship

Like Christ – Noah is a singular saving figure in his generation. Noah’s righteousness restored him to relationship with God. Jesus did this ultimately but Noah points to the restored relationship that comes through Christ’s righteousness. God talks with him. They are friends. ‘He walked faithfully with God.’ Here God is talking with Noah, sharing himself, his disappointments and then also his plans. Noah gives God hope, and from that glowing ember, new possibilities are born.

This story shows too how we’re partners with God in his plans and purposes. God prepared a life raft for Noah and his family. Yes he saved them but at the same time Noah’s righteousness offered God the potential to redeem humanity. He saved God right back. That feels a bit sacrilegious to say that, but this mutuality is really evident. Jesus does this too. This mutuality is a principle that runs through scripture, it’s integral to God’s values and to his design-rules. It’s at the heart of marriage and relationships: mutuality, mutual submission, mutual saving. God wants participants, collaborators, and volitional followers, friends, lovers. It was a huge risk encoding free will into the core of creation, it can and did go so very wrong but when people choose God, the outcome is awe-inspiring and wonderful. And as Noah signals, it was worth the risk. 

Instructions for an Ark

So God gives Noah instructions to build an Ark. The Ark itself points us to Christ as well. He is our Ark. He saves us as we place our faith and obedience in him. While Noah built a physical ark, Jesus through his death and resurrection was building a spiritual ark with eternal significance. It would mark an end to the problem of sin forever, ending the wickedness in the hearts of humanity. It was complete Salvation.

This also sets a precedent; that God is an Ark Builder. His inclination, his leaning, and his nature is always towards providing rescue. He will delay judgement as long as possible – he is merciful. We need to participate, but he will always provide the means of rescue. Jesus is our Ark – our rescue. 

Warren Buffett; a businessman, investor and philanthropist, who is known for his business know-how and wisdom (he’s also incidentally the 9th-richest person in the world and 93 years old). He cam up with something called ‘The Noah Rule’, which is that ‘predicting rain doesn’t count; building arks does’. And this rule is seen as key to surviving adversity. He described how his company, Berkshire Capital had a terrible year after 9/11 happened. He’d actually predicted many of the market events that happened before that terrible event in September 2001 (and as a result). But he acknowledged that he “didn’t convert thought to action”, and he violated what he termed ‘the Noah Rule’. 

For him the rain came, but he hadn’t built an Ark. 

Bias to action

Genesis 6 v 22 says “Noah did everything just as God commanded him”. Noah built an ark. This took trust, faith and obedience – born out of his righteous and relationship with God. This was the same for Jesus as he approached the cross. 

Faith has a bias to action. It’s called obedience. As it says in James, ‘faith without action is dead’. Faith is action. Why was Noah featured in the Hebrews ‘faith hall of fame’? Because he built an ark… Hebrews 11v7 says “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.” 

He was the forerunner of faith – he demonstrated what faith in action can accomplish. Jesus later would do this again and again (and other figures too). Jesus demonstrated this in miracles but also through his whole life. He was characterised by faith in action and his life on earth culminated with the miracle of resurrection. Death could not hold him. Acts 2:24 says “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him”. 

And as the waters rose, with Noah and his family and all the animals inside the ark – did this not also foreshadow and point to Jesus’s death and resurrection? These echoes across the Bible.

Standing alone

So, the rains came down and flood came up. And in Genesis 7v23 it says, “Only Noah was left and those with him in the ark”. And there’s something here in there being a certain ‘aloneness’ in following God, and his righteousness. Earlier, Genesis describes how Noah was alone in his generation, in this moment he stands alone too.

And I’m also conscious of the silence there must have been. Water is quiet. The silence would have been deafening, you would feel so alone. Jesus too stood alone on the cross, raised up in death.

And I think that this silence points to Easter Saturday. That bleakest of days – forever marked by Jesus’s death. The disciples thought it was all over. Perhaps floating on that silent sea, Noah did too.

And for me, I imagine zooming out and looking at the earth as if from a satellite or space station. Not that they would have existed then! And seeing the entire earth submerged; no land, no nothing, just water covering the earth. And perhaps even indistinguishable from the vastness of space around it. The earth had all but ceased to exist. And then seeing this tiny pinprick, barely visible. The Ark. A seed of hope – all but dead – floating on that vast sea, but full of possibility nonetheless. It carried all the potential for new life.

Seeds of Faith

The ark was like a single seed, with all the DNA locked inside for life, packed with potential. A tiny mustard seed.

God is both at the vast macro level – the Universal. But he is also in the minute – in the micro level. He came to earth as a tiny foetus after all. And from the vantage point of space in the moment, the ark is a literal but microscopic seed of hope in the midst of despair and destruction. One seed of faith, one person, one possibility. 

Where does God see possibility? Wherever there is faith, there’s potential for God to move. Even in death and destruction, God will find potential. In a seed, in an ark floating with no obvious hope of making landfall, in a tomb even. God’s potential has no limits; no ceiling. No devastation is too great. All that is needed for God to move is faith, even faith the size of a mustard seed.

A New Beginning

What does this mean for us? When you think it’s all over: you’ve exhausted all your options or things have gone beyond the realms of what’s humanly possible, remember that faith makes it possible for God to move.

And that changes everything: it changes illness, infertility, loss, trauma, grief, hopelessness, death, failure, unemployment, homelessness, broken relationships, desperation and despair. Because Noah shows us that wherever there is faith, there is the potential for God to move. And to create a new beginning. 

© Alexandra Noel – all rights reserved 2024