Lent 1- Christ as the ark that saves us from destruction

 

Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15

Our readings today are inviting us to think about baptism. Lent arose as a time of preparation for baptism at Easter.

Our gospel reading is once again circling back to the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. It is a gospel reading we had in Advent, when we focused on John as the forerunner to the expected Messiah. … We had the reading again in Epiphany, where we focused on the revealing of the Trinity as we heard the voice of the Father declare Jesus as the beloved Son, as the Spirit descended on him like a dove.

And now, as we enter Lent, we have this gospel reading once again. This time we also read about Jesus being tempted by Satan in the wilderness, though we aren’t presented with the detailed temptations that we get in Matthew and Luke. We just see that he was tempted for forty days, and was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him. … Some have seen this as referring to Jesus being the second Adam, who is tempted by Satan just as the first Adam was, though this New Adam didn’t give in to the temptations of Satan. … Others have seen these temptations in the wilderness as related to Israel wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, which was often thought of as a time of purification and testing before entering the Promised Land. … There are a number of connections to the Old Testament that have been made with this time of temptation.

After Jesus is tempted in the wilderness, his public ministry begins and he starts proclaiming the good news of God, saying, 

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news”.

Our other readings also point us towards Baptism.

Our reading from Peter is speaking about Christ suffering unjustly and his accusers being put to shame when he is vindicated in resurrection. … This is part of a more general point where Peter is teaching his people to not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse. He tells them to be willing to suffer when they have done nothing wrong, and he uses Christ as an example of this undeserved suffering.

As a part of making this more general point, Peter makes a mysterious reference to Christ preaching to Spirits in prison after he was killed on the cross, but before he was resurrected. While his body is dead in the tomb, he goes to preach to imprisoned spirits. Those spirits were said to have been disobedient, and from the time of Noah. … From this reference, Peter expands to speak a bit more generally about the flood. He speaks about God’s patience. The world had become full of evil. We read in Genesis 6:5 that, 

“The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.”

 … The flood was a means by which the world is sort of un-created by the waters of chaos. God allowed time to build the Ark, which would be the means by which the creation would be saved from the flood. …

Peter speaks about the flood story as a prefiguring of Baptism. … God has been patiently allowing time for the Gospel to spread and for people to respond to it, just as God patiently waited for the ark to be built. As the flood washed sin from the world, so Baptism (as the entry to the body of Christ) washes us from sin and connects us to Christ. Noah’s family and the animals were saved through the waters in the ark, and Christians are saved through the baptismal waters by being connected to Christ and his resurrection.

This way of looking symbolically at parts of the Old Testament was used extensively by the early Church Fathers. Our Old Testament reading is, of course, part of the Flood story that we read in Genesis chapters 6 to 9. Our reading today is the very end of that story which uses the word “covenant” extensively, which invites us to consider the covenants God has made with human beings. A covenant is a kind of treaty given by the more powerful party. Here God promises (as a part of a covenant) to not flood the earth like this again. … Christ too makes a covenant which we celebrate every time we share in the Eucharist. He says, 

“This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Lk 22:20- see Jeremiah 31:31-33 and Hebrews 7-8).

 Baptism is the means by which we enter into the participation in this new covenant.

Early Church commentators saw many symbolic connections to Christ and the church in the flood story. The early church found in Noah an image of Christ. He represents faithfulness in a sea of sin. … Just as creation was rescued from death and chaos of the flood through Noah and his ark, so Christ will save from death and sin. Christ becomes the hope for creation. … Just as through Noah God saves creation through the wood of the ark, so God saves creation through Christ and the wood of the cross. … St. Augustine said the ark is 

“a figure of the church that was saved by the wood on which there hung [Jesus Christ] … As for the door in the side, that surely, symbolizes the open wound made by the lance in the side of the Crucified- the door by which those who come to him enter in, in the sense that believers enter the church by means of the sacraments that issued from that wound. … So it is with every other detail of the ark’s construction. They are all symbols of something in the church” (City of God 15.26).

The Early Church saw symbolism everywhere in this story. Like Peter, some early interpreters saw the flood as representing baptism, which washes away our sinful nature (Maximus of Turin in Sermons 50.2). The mixture of clean and unclean animals aboard the ark some saw as representing imperfection within the church, while the variety of animals was seen as representing salvation of all the nations within the church (Augustine in Faith and Works 27.49; Tractates on the Gospel of John 9.11.1). The dove that returned with the olive branch they saw as representing the Holy Spirit that came to Jesus at the time of his baptism (Ambrose in Letters 40.21; Bede in Homily 1.12; Maximus of Turin in Sermons 49.3).

The Early Church saw many rich layers as they read the Scriptures, and they saw Christ everywhere as they read. In the flood story they saw salvation as resting on one person- Noah and the Ark. Similarly, our salvation depends on Christ. Through Noah creation is saved. Likewise, the work of Christ extends beyond human beings to affect the rest of creation as well (See Romans 8). And after the flood, God establishes a new relationship with humanity through a covenant. Likewise, through Christ, humanity is invited into a new covenant. … The Early Church saw that what God did through Christ was in line with what God has been doing throughout the ages.

The flood story is an example of how seriously sin is taken by God. This isn’t just about sneaking an extra piece of cake, or the negative attitude we have towards a certain person. It is about that, but it is so much bigger. The sin in our lives compounds and spreads, effecting other people. It has a kind of entropy effect, it creates a slippery slope, where one sin leads to another, which leads to a worse sin, which leads to suffering that we don’t even want to think about. Sin is like a virus that infects and spreads. … And then we imagine the world Noah was living in where, ‘The wickedness of humankind is so great that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts is only evil continually.' … Evil moves in degrees. Nazi Germany didn’t happen overnight. Pol Pot’s Cambodia didn’t happen overnight. The attitudes that led to the genocide in Rawanda didn’t arise overnight. … The sin that is not healed today can become something horrifying if it is allowed to grow.

In Lent, we are once again invited to consider our Baptismal Covenant. We are invited to seek out any ways that we need to turn away from sin in our lives. Where has sin found a place to live in my heart? Perhaps it seems small. Seeds are small. It’s easier to dig up a seed, than cut down a tree and grind out the stump. … But we don’t just turn away from sin, more importantly, we turn towards Christ and accept all the ways he wants to help us. Is there any part of my heart that isn’t turned towards Christ? That is probably the more important way to think. … We are invited to turn to him as the one who can save us from the destructive and infectious power of sin.