The Hero of Genesis

Any way you cut it, the story of Noah is odd.

A man who has never seen rain, much less a flood, spends decades building a boat, because God told him to. When it starts raining God shuts the door, and Noah and seven of his family are safe from the water. Then, when Noah arrives back on dry land, or maybe better, when dry land arrives back on Noah, he builds an altar, then plants a vineyard, get's drunk, gets naked.

I mean, what now? It's another part of Genesis that would never pass the censors as a tv miniseries, and if it did, would suffer the ire of noisy evangelicals.

So what's going on? Well, naked man sins with fruit, we've been here before right? In fact that's how the story started to go wrong. Adam and Eve took the fruit, it opened their eyes and they knew that they were naked. Blood was shed to cover them, and they were promised that one would come from their union who would crush the serpent, so it's with expectation we meet Cain and Abel...but no, and Seth...but it wasn't him. And then things get worse and worse, until the moment the LORD regrets making man. That's pretty serious.

But along comes Noah, a righteous man. Maybe Noah will crush the serpent, maybe he is crushing the serpent under the weight of the waters. But then we end up just where we started, the head of the human race sinning with fruit.

Why? Because Genesis isn't a story about Adam or Noah, or Abraham or Joseph, it's a story about Jesus. As we read of the misadventures of these men, it should make us look beyond them, beyond ourselves, to Jesus. He really is our only hope. The LORD started everything all over again, decreation, flood, one man. And look what happened, exactly the same thing.

The answer to the world's problems isn't in human leadership, it's not in human ideas, it's not in human strength. That's gets us sinning with fruit. But Jesus was faithful in the face of temptation, Jesus came out the water and obeyed God. Don't look at Noah, or Shem, Ham and Japheth to crush the serpent. Look at Jesus.

And also, when you look at each other, don't make room for judgement or jealousy. Adam's fruit sin caused him to put clothes on, Noah's caused him to take clothes off. Sin doesn't treat John the same as Jane, it doesn't look the same in everyone's life. Don't be jealous of the man with clothes, he's got his own struggles. Don't judge the naked man, you're no better.