Build me an Ark
This last year we have spent in Isolation. Cooped up in our homes in close proximity. Everything including feeding ourselves and holding onto our jobs has been a challenge. We have been in deep water, as the expression goes. We have experience in life that enables us to relate to the scriptures, if we spend the time meditating on them, as Psalm 1 implores us to do. Isolation helps us to see what is important and what is not, what we should work towards and what we should ignore.
Noah and his family were in isolation. In Old Testament scripture, 40 days is a way of saying a period of time, in essence God’s time. Noah went into the Ark and after seven days, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, then when the rain stopped it was another 150 days before the Ark rested on Mount Ararat, then 40 Days later Noah released the Raven, and then a Dove and seven days later the Dove again and then seven days later they opened the doors. (Seven Days means in the fullness of time).
Noah was 600 years old when he entered the Ark, and had spent many years building the Ark. During those 600 years it had never rained, and nobody believed what Noah was saying to them. The point is that this was not an instant thing, it never is, but each period was there for a reason. Each phase of our lives is working towards our salvation.
The wages of Sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life (Romans 6:23). This is the message of Noah’s Ark, as St Paul would say (much later), “ For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor 1:18),
This is the meaning of the story of Noah and the Ark, the Ark is a symbol of building a life of faith in Jesus Christ our Lord. God made a Covenant that – “all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)
Thus says the Lord: “Build me an Ark, choose life, I have called you by Name, obey my commandments”
Question: How has this last year helped you to see things differently, what priorities have changed?
Let us pray.
Lord God you call us to faith in you,
strengthen this faith that we may endure the storms of life in confidence that we have new life in you and that you have come that we may have life and life in all its fullness. Amen
