Sermon on First Sunday of Lent - Clarendon Team Online Service – Sunday 21st February 2021
Genesis
9:8-17
It’s good to
be with you again and reflecting on today’s passage of scripture. I have chosen
this particular passage from Genesis as it seems to me to be a most appropriate
piece for us, not only as we are beginning Lent but also because the rainbow is
such a very strong symbol during this long period of the pandemic.
Let’s just
remind ourselves of the context in which we find this scripture. The Great
Flood is over, Noah, his family and all the animals with him in the Ark have
been saved after forty days and forty nights at sea. God’s wrath upon the sinful people of the Earth
had been so great that he had decided to “wipe the slate clean”. Destroy all he had created except for the one
righteous man and his family and those other creatures collected together by
them. You all know the story so well that I need not repeat it here.
Whenever I
hear the story of Noah and the Flood I can’t help myself but think about the
film “Evan Almighty”, starring Steve Carell, in which our hero, Congressman
Evan Baxter, hears the voice of God calling him to build a big boat in his back
garden – mirroring the story from Genesis. All his neighbours and fellow
politicians think he is nuts but he saves the day when a new and poorly
developed dam bursts flooding his town.
He becomes the hero but only after much derision and loss of face and
office. Imagine the jibes and ridicule
which the original Noah must have suffered - not only from his friends and
neighbours but also his family – yet he doggedly pursued what he felt God had
called him to do. That is something for us all to reflect upon; is God calling
us to do something different and unusual – something which others might think
odd but which is, in fact, part of God’s plan for us and for others?
Turning back
to our particular piece of scripture today, I think this is one of the most
descriptive and beautiful passages in the whole bible. I know that whenever I look upon a rainbow in
the sky, even though I do understand its scientific explanation and properties
– the splitting of white light through the prism of raindrops into its
constituent spectroscopic colours – it still amazes me and fills me with a
sense of awe and wonder and, because it is often seen after rain or a storm, it
invokes a sense of peace and well-being.
That is
indeed the message which God is giving in that beautiful vision – of peace and
well-being and of course, beauty; and especially after the storms and upheaval
of the Great Flood which had gone on before.
It was the sign which God gave to seal the Covenant, the promise that
never again would he deal with the sins of the people with such a cataclysmic
event as that which they had just been through.
Indeed, as we know, that Covenant was followed through later by the New
Covenant or Testament so that instead of punishing the people in such a way he
would send his only son, Jesus Christ, to take the punishment for us. Not only
that, instead of calling individuals such as Noah for specific individual
tasks, building the Ark for example, anyone could now be called and blessed
with the Holy Spirit. They only had to ask through prayer and devotion.
I said at
the beginning that this piece of scripture was particularly appropriate for
this time and this place. We are not
suffering from a global flood, although the heavy rainfall we have had over the
last week may make us think that another one is on the way, but we are
suffering from a global pandemic. Some might think that it is God’s way of
punishing us but I don’t believe that for a second. If anything, the pandemic
is a strong warning to us by putting us in our own “Arks” of isolation, giving
us an opportunity to reflect upon what we have been doing to our planet and to
each another. One only has to watch some
of the TV documentaries with people like David Attenborough and Simon Reeve to know
that we are in danger of doing untold irreversible damage to our fragile planet
without needing God’s wrath.
As well as
the rainbow, another image which is indelibly printed on my mind’s eye is that
wonderful photo taken by the astronaut,
Bill Anders, during the Apollo 8 mission around the Moon. It is called
“Earthrise” and shows a gibbous-phased beautiful blue and white planet rising
over the horizon of a desolate lunar landscape. Anders recited the first words
of Genesis as other words failed him at the time but later described his realisation
that the Earth is just another spacecraft, like their own three-manned command
module, but containing 3.5 billion people – the entire human race. That photo became the logo and icon of so
many environmental agencies.
Today, the
rainbow has become a symbol for the work of the NHS staff who are risking their
own health for the benefit of ensuring
good health for those millions they are serving. It is also a symbol of
diversity and equality. It has also been
adopted by the Greenpeace activists as they seek to halt climate change and
save endangered species. It is, and
remains a reminder that we have been left by God’s only Son’s sacrifice and the
coming of the Holy Spirit to look after our world and each other. To remind ourselves that the free will which
we have been given is to be exercised wisely and in accordance with God’s
promise that he will not intervene in such a devastating way again. He has left us to look after our own
spacecraft, ourselves and all those creatures he saved.
May God bless you and keep you faithful, so that you may soon safely step out of your own Ark, perhaps to a new and different world, but hopefully a better one for us all.
Amen
MFB/155/18022021
