Genesis 8:20–22 (ESV): 20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
I had a little theological breakthrough in Thursday Morning Bible Study last week and I’m hijacking my lectionary text blog to write about it — this is not our sermon text for Sunday — we have been reading Genesis in Bible Study and just worked through the story of Noah and the Great Flood. I have to confess that I have struggled to understand God’s redemptive plan after The Fall. I decided to trust God in spite of my questions and unbelief, but I have had a lingering question. We have an eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, Trinity of a God. Through God’s omniscience, God knew what Adam and Eve would do, what Caine would do, that humanity would become violent and corrupt, that God would flood the earth, save the Israelites from bondage in Egypt and exile in Babylon, give them the Law so they could stay in relationship with God and each other, watch them fail over and over at keeping the Law and finally send us Jesus. I wonder, why didn’t God just incarnate after the Fall? Why did we need all that sinning and bondage and wandering and breaking the Law and smiting and redeeming? Why didn’t God just give us Jesus after Adam and Eve fell?
Well I think I may have come closer to figuring it out based on one obscure little verse we read last week, Gen 8:21. I’ve read it dozens of times, but never really noticed its depth and promise before now. After wiping out all humanity save Noah and his family, God gives humanity a second chance and lands Noah, Mrs. Noah, and the kids on dry land with the instructions to make more humans. God wasn’t holding God’s breath to see if the new humans would fail, God knew they would fail. “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Instead of permanently destroying all creation, taking control of humanity, or deciding to take away our struggles, God decided to go all-in with us. Remember, God is revealed in 3 persons, so Jesus is a critical part of God’s going all-in — God knew after the rain dried up that God through Christ will have to take care of our sin himself, that he will need to suffer and die, and still our Trinity went all-in. This is ground zero of God in our works, God walking alongside us in our pain and sin and joy — loving us, guiding us, grieving because of us and with us, hopefully laughing a little with us. The First Commandment isn’t just “You shall have no other gods before me.” It begins, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” God wants to be our God. A few thousand years after Noah, God will dive the rest of the way into humanity by becoming human right along with us, experiencing us first-hand, and will take care of us once and for all, continuing to be all-in until he makes all things new. Romans 5:8 echoes Genesis 8:21 —While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
I think about this from my perspective as a parent. We know before they come into our lives that our kids won’t be perfect, and we know that they will need to find their own way and will challenge us unto our last nerve. And still we went all in with them the moment we met them, and we are with them in their pain and sin and joy, we love them, guide them, grieve because of them and with them, and hopefully laugh a little with them. We choose to love the sometimes hard-to-love. We want to be their parents, putting them in God’s hands and trying to be the kind of parents God has modeled for us in deciding to love the imperfect Noah and his progeny.
So I don’t think the time between the Fall and the Cross was an experiment, it was not a test, it was not a failed attempt at letting humans try to be righteous. It was God’s decision to build God’s family; to let humanity be who we are and to love us so much to be willing to die for us in Christ. It was God’s decision to simply be our God.
Silverdale Lutheran 