Scanning the terraformed landscape of a post diluvian world, the most striking feature that may have caught Noah’s eye was the corpses of man and animal strewn about, bloated and pale, and beginning to smell. Far from the typical Sunday school artistry, the actual remnants of the flood had a lot more silt and boggy ground, and considerably fewer smiling animals. And over that world shaved clean of growing things, a bow bent in the sky, a colorful spectacle juxtaposing the canvas of the world splotchy with shades of beige and still wet.
This sign, as Genesis tells us, signifies a covenant heaven made with the earth that never again will all flesh be wiped out with flood.
This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
Genesis 9:12-16 (ESV)
Noah certainly felt relief from this promise, I imagine, having just lived through the greatest tectonic upheaval the planet will ever know. But if he were a cynical man, he may have been wondering what else God had up his sleeve; perhaps some plan hidden in a word play or suspended in innuendo. Was he promising he would never flood the world again or that he would never wipe out all flesh with a flood again? Which part of that promise was the rainbow meant to signify? After all, there are lots of ways to smoke humanity other than a flood – disease, famine, or unleashing that cowled Angel of Death that would smote all first born in Egypt in one wild Saturday night.
Prophets of old answered this questions for us: Yup, God has plans and it involves yet another terrestrial deluge. But this time the flood will not be coming to take the breath out of man, but breathe life into him. It will not start with rumbling cumulonimbus and pregnant skies, nor with the fracturing of the deep, but with a fresh spring bubbling out of the temple.
Ezekiel, he of the wheel-within-a-wheel fame, saw in a vision a tiny stream issuing forth from the Temple of God. Curiously, there was no end to the source, and soon it began to cascade down the steps and puddle in the dust.
Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east; and behold, the water was trickling out on the south side.
Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits, and then led me through the water, and it was ankle-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was knee-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was waist-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. And he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?”
Ezekiel 47:1-6 (ESV)
God is doing a new thing with water. It does not thunder down from above in sheets, neither does it crash in throbbing tsunamis snuffing out life. This time, it starts as a small stream, trickling amongst the toes and soaking the socks. Then, as the living water continues to gush forth through the centuries it will steadily rise to the knees, sucking jeans to calf muscles. After a while, the cold water rises to the naval and dunks the undies, showing no sign of slowing. Finally, the stream swells to become a river, deep enough to swim and send feet stretching for rocks, with swift currents tugging down stream. Not only is the water swelling continually, but it is of such quantity and quality that even the vast oceans are diluted of their salt and sweetened.
And he said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and enters the sea; when the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh. And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.
Ezekiel 47:7-9 (ESV)
Living water, huh? Where have we hear that before? Jesus tells us what this living water will rush from the belly of anyone who believes in him.
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive
John 7:37-39 (ESV)
Interestingly, Scripture nowhere contains the phrase “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But since the Holy Spirit inspired these prophets to say what they did, we will take it on faith that this is the point they were collectively getting at. After all, the Bible makes clear Christians are the temple of God (1 Corinthians 6:19), where his Spirit lives, and from this temple the living water flows. This living water is the Gospel of the Kingdom of God that inundates the world and will one day, as Habakkuk foretold, cover the earth with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Apparently these prophets had a thing for floods.
Perhaps I am reading into God’s covenant with Noah, but I smell something clever. He’s got plans and those plans are to grow a kingdom and wash away wickedness through the slow and steady stream of the kingdom of God climbing up the tree trunks through history. The first flood wiped away the wickedness from the earth; the second will establish righteousness on it. Each time a rainbow bridges the sky God is reminding us of his promise that he will never again flood to kill. But he has serious plans to drown us with life.
Thought Butter 