Noah and the Flood
GENESIS 6
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry 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 ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch… For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.
BEYOND THE CROWDS
The earth was corrupt, but Noah was not. He was righteous and walked with God. This is the type of person you should be when the flood comes, and it will come. This is the type of person your family needs you to be when winds and rains strike hard against your home. And they will strike. Like Noah, you may end up not just saving yourself, but your family, too. You might even save the world.
You must be righteous, walking the narrow road to salvation. The number one distraction from this narrow road is what Catholic authors have called “the clamor of the crowds.” You must not conform to the crowd, their shouts and screams, their short tempers and wild accusations, their dismissals of others, their fears, their hates. Do not follow the crowd. Their destination is destruction, as Christ says:
“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matthew 7:13-14)
These words of Jesus illustrate what it means to be “righteous and blameless” in God’s sight. Walking the path of righteousness is narrow, hard, and seldom tread. This is what Noah’s story communicated in such a powerful way. “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight…” Yet Noah was not. Be Noah.
But that is easier said than done because walking the path of righteousness and entering through the narrow gate into life is lonely, trod by few. Being Noah often means walking alone. Are you secure enough to do that? Noah walked alone because he first “walked with God.” You need His friendship, favor, and grace to go down the straight and narrow. To do this, you must understand that the crowd is governed by two overarching principles:
The Principle of Conformity. This fear-of-sticking-out compels conformity and naturally leads the crowd to reject those who stand out too much or who stand up for themselves or others. This self-corrects, keeping people in check and the acceleration going full steam ahead.
The Principle of Cover and Conceal. The crowd covers over the person to protect individuals from their own consciences, for the things people say and do in the crowd they would never do alone. Individuals think to lose themselves in the mob willingly.
These two principles amplify the very worst characteristics of those involved. They feed off the crowd’s temporary anonymity and become brazen. You see this in senseless riots after a championship game. These folks would never break windows or set fires, but in the crowd, they surrender to insanity. They laugh and cheer one another on while their city burns around them. They are, as the story says, “filled with violence” and “that every imagination… was only evil continually.”
Let us turn again to the words of Jesus Christ. At the end of the famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says to his audience, composed of both “the crowd” and “his disciples”:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27).
Who is wise and who is foolish? Those who do or do not live their lives according to the teachings of Jesus Christ. But notice what happens to both the wise and the foolish: the rains, the floods, and the winds will beat upon both persons’ houses. No one escapes the storms of life. The storms will come. Noah knew this. The crowd did not. They “had corrupted their way” but Noah “walked with God.” Stay on the path.
JUDGMENT COMES
We need to address God’s judgment. We do not like thinking about God in these terms. We say to ourselves, “Yikes! This God is angry. Seems kind of extreme to kill everyone in a flood!” We think we do not want such a “judgmental” God. We do not want to admit that God takes stock and requires everyone, without exception, to render an account for his or her life. But He does, and that may be scary, but you really, really want Him to. Here are five reasons why.
God is a righteous judge, but you and I are not. We easily judge other people without knowing their story and motivations or the situation we are so quick to assess. God sees the heart. God knows all things inside and out, so He alone can judge righteously.
God takes vengeance, not us. We are terrible judges, so how much worse will the outcome be if we take vengeance! St. Paul says to “never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’”
God’s wrath is His withdrawal. His wrath is fully expressed when He gives the evil what they want. He lets the full consequence and burden of sin, hate, and violence overwhelm those who want nothing to do with Him. When God departs, your world falls apart.
“Those who live by the sword will perish by the sword.” That is an iron law. Violence begets more violence, vengeance more vengeance. The demonic spirit exalts itself by tearing everything else to pieces, and they find they cannot hide and are overcome by evil, too.
God always saves a righteous remnant. These are the hidden ones known only to Him who keep the faith. Noah’s family will pass through the waters of death, destruction, judgment, and purification. Our generation may be crooked, but we are still called to walk with God.
MORAL APPLICATION
Every ideal is a judge over us. The gold medal is an ideal of human competition that judges everyone else as unworthy, except the winner, and no one feels the weight of judgment more than Silver Place. This can be crushing! The weight of the ideals of parents can crush their children’s spirits. Fear of failure paralyzes so many. Yet, when we open the New Testament, we find the Son, Jesus Christ, is “to Judge the Living and the Dead” as we say in the Creed. The Judge is The Savior. As the Catechism states:
Christ is Lord of eternal life. Full right to pass definitive judgment on the works and hearts of men belongs to him as the redeemer of the world. He "acquired" this right by his cross. The Father has given "all judgment to the Son." Yet the Son did not come to judge, but to save and to give the life he has in himself. By rejecting grace in this life, one already judges oneself, receives according to one's works, and can even condemn oneself for all eternity by rejecting the Spirit of love. Catechism #679
God sends the flood, but also the corruption itself begged for the flood, too. It continues the Cain and Abel story, where Cain’s refusal to offer a worthy sacrifice and instead murders his brother for the audacity of being righteous, yet Abel’s blood cries out to God for vengeance. In Noah’s story, the violence of the wicked increases to the point where it is all they can imagine, so violence is of course their end. And again, in the Book of Exodus with the conflict between Moses and Pharaoh, Pharaoh starts Egypt’s judgment by murdering Hebrew babies and ends with Egyptian firstborn sons dying instead.
This is not a silly children’s story. The Judgment, the Flood, and the salvation of humanity through righteous Noah is serious business. Even if the whole world is damned, you must keep the faith.