5yr Old and a Puddle

I love the story of Noah's Ark.  There is no more quintessential children's story in scripture than Noah.  It's a story that I think is a lot of fun.  When I did this on Sunday morning, I wanted to know what everyone knows about this story.  So I gave them a little quiz.  You can see the questions below, and I'll add a little explanation to them.

So here's the thing about this question.  It depends on where you are reading in the story.  In Genesis 6 Noah is told to take a single pair of each animal.  However, in Genesis 7, he is told to take 7 pairs of clean animals and birds, and 1 pair of unclean animals.

To answer this one, remember that it only rained for 40 days and 40 nights.  The flood waters stuck around for a much longer period of time.

I think this is one of the most important parts of the stories.  In Genesis 6:9, it says this about Noah,

These are Noah’s descendants. In his generation, Noah was a moral and exemplary man; he walked with God.

This is the point that becomes important in the story.  There are lots of details in this story that folks like to remember and hold onto.  Most of them aren't that important.  One of the better analogies that I've heard, and started using, is that this story is like when a 5yr old tells about the time he fell in a mud puddle.

 When he tells it, it's probably going to start and stop a few times, he'll focus on details that aren't very important to the story.  Like the cool bug hanging out on the rock by the puddle.  The size of the puddle will change over time (getting bigger with each telling), and some details will change mid-story. 

All of that is what happens when a 5 year old tells a story.  For them its about the story, but also about learning how to tell stories.  They still don't have that figured out.  They are learning, through trial and error, how to tell a story.  That means that they aren't going to get everything right. 

And that's okay.

We tell stories for lots of reasons, but mostly because they are important to us.  They shape us, and form us, they tell our history, and they show what's important to us.  That's something that is still important for us, even to today.

This picture is from the cemetery at Hardin Missouri.  In the Great Flood of 1993, this was the community whose cemetery was washed away.  The story of the flood is one that is still important for that town.  Life is marked by before and after the flood, and the stories that come with it.

What's important about Noah's story is why we still tell it today.  Every culture from back in Noah's time has a story about a flood.  Most, however, are relegated to the history books, but we still tell this one.  Why?

We tell it because, for the first time, God makes a covenant with his people.  Noah and his family are just beginning to no something more about God, and because of that, they survive the flood.  Because of that, they grow in their faith.  They know they have a God who is very different from anything they had ever experienced before.  They can put their faith and trust in him, and they are beginning to know God's love for them.

We will see this reinforced several more times throughout the Old Testament.

Each time a new covenant is made, God's people grew a little more.  Over time, and into the Gospels, we would see the ultimate fulfillment of that promise in Jesus Christ.  Now, we know far more about God than Noah did.  But it was because of Noah that we started on this journey.  Noah didn't have to know a lot, but he had faith and trusted God.  Because he had faith and trusted God, he could overcome the flood.

Noah's story is driving to the promise of the rainbow.  In many ways, even though we are many thousands of years removed from that time, we are still driving to the same rainbow.  What we can know is that we have a God who loves us, wants what is best for us, and is worthy of our faith and trust.  Through him, we can overcome all the floods we find.