Genesis 8:1-22: "1 Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. 3 And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. 4 Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. 6 So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. 7 Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. 8 He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and drew her into the ark to himself. 10 And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark. 11 Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. 12 So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore. 13 And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and indeed the surface of the ground was dry. 14 And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried. 15 Then God spoke to Noah, saying, 16 'Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.' 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. 19 Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark. 20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, 'I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.'"
Then God remembered Noah. These are the words of glad tidings after all of the words of destruction that were spoken of by God. God had shut Noah and his family up into the ark. There they remained throught the 40 days and nights of flooding, and throughout the entire time it took for the waters to recede from the Earth. I am sure that after being boxed up in the ark, with no place else to go, that Noah and his family were ready for it to all be over with. They were probably even tempted to think that God had forgotten about them. Perhaps, they even felt they were going to live out the rest of their lives in the ark. But Moses in his first book, commonly called Genesis, tells us that God remembered Noah. This is a proclamation of God's grace and mercy.
And in reality this was God's plan all along, to save Noah and his family, and thereby save the whole human race. God destroys that which is evil and corrupt, so that that which is righteous and pure may have free course and abound. Here again, in this narrative of Noah and his family, is a picture of our Lord Jesus. Our Lord and Savior takes the corruption and the evilness of mankind, all of his sinfulness, both original and actual, and destroys it on the tree of the cross. Then he places his holy family, that is all of Christendom, His lovely Bride, into the holy Ark of Christendom. There He doles out the gifts that He won by His death, that is, forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation, through the means of grace, that is, those means by which He imparts those gifts. Those means include preaching, absolution, baptism, communion, and the mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren. Through these gifts the Holy Ghost, creates and sustains faith and life in all those who use them and trust that God actually works through them.
In this way, God remembers us. He remembers our lost and fallen condition, and having shut us up into the holy Ark of Christendom, through baptism, and the other means of grace, brings us out of the Ark and onto the dry land of our heavenly home. By these gifts He shows His grace, that is, He freely gives these gifts, without any merit or worthiness on our part. He also shows us His mercy by these gifts, that is, He doesn't treat us the way we deserved to be treated, which is with punishment and eternal death, but rather gives us the reward that belongs to Him, which is life and salvation.
This evenings reading ends with another proclamation of good tidings. That is that God will never again destroy the Earth. The One True God declares:
"I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease."
That means that God will not only not destroy the Earth, nor will He let it be destroyed. Until the Last Day, God will keep things going; both "seedtime and harvest, cold and heeat, winter and summer, and day night." This passage is a declaration against all the global warming fanatics. God, in His divine providence, that is, in His watching over all creation, all the time, will not let anything happen to it. Even on the Last Day, God will not destroy the Earth, but rather, replace it with a new one, as our dear Lord Jesus relates through the Blessed Evangelist St. John in His Revelation.
These cries of the end of the world, and utter destruction of the world, are really no different from the cries and sorrows that could have arose from being cramped up on the ark. They are the cries of the faithless, who only trust in themselves their abilities. True faithfulness never trusts in itself. It's absurd if you think about it. "Have faith in yourself." That's like saying, "Have faith in your faith." Faith needs an object to grasp onto, to believe in, it never believes in itself. That is why for Noah, his faith grasped onto to his Savior and God, and he believe that He would save him. Noah truly believed that God would not forget him, that God would not destroy him, nor keep him cooped up in the ark for the rest of his days.
Such faith is what is lacking these days. We need to stop trusting in ourselves, there is no salvation there anyway. You cannot trust in what is corrupt, to bring about purity. Instead we should rely on God, trust in Him that He will deliver us from all harm and danger, that He will guard and protect from every danger. Even the dangers of "global warming," nuclear holocaust, meteors crashing into the Earth, the poles reversing polarity, or whatever other danger the faithless ones want to put in front of us, in order to lead us away from our reliance on the One True God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
He has promised that He would not leave us nor forsake us, that He would always guard and protect us. Noah stands as an example of God's grace and mercy. He did not forget Noah, He will not forget you.
May God's peace be with you!
Deacon Dulas
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