Noah – a Beautiful Promise of the Covenant

Noah’s flood is another story that is often caricatured into a children’s story.  Yet, the story of the Flood is filled with meaning.  The Flood shows what happens when humanity chooses to live without God’s limits. God’s law establishes order in the universe, and in the human heart. When God removed His limits from Creation, He allowed chaos – the waters above – to return to earth.  The absence of the Law of God brings chaos – uncreation. 

The story of Noah is also a story of God’s mercy and of His faithfulness to the Covenant He made with humanity at Creation. God reveals His mercy by preserving Noah and the inhabitants of the Ark. He “remembers them,” keeping them in Creation and preserving them from chaos. God thus preservs the original Covenant of Creation despite humanity’s forsaking of it.  His Covenantal promise to Noah – the sign of which is the rainbow – is not just that He will not flood the world again (author James Baldwin plays on the misunderstanding when he writes, “God gave Noah the rainbow sign – no more water, the fire next time”) but that He will never revoke the Original Covenant – the Covenant of Creation – because of humanity’s sin.