Most families keep albums full of photos that tell stories of their trips, holidays, birthdays, relatives. In its first readings on the Sundays of Lent, the Christian family opens its earliest album — the Old Testament. In the first readings for Cycle B, we remember moments in our holy history.
This 1st Sunday of Lent we hear an old story with a contemporary message. Noah’s story tells of a threat to the existence of human life on earth.
The flood story is common among ancient Middle Eastern peoples. They must have felt as vulnerable to great floods as people today do to global warming or nuclear weapons.
Ancient people imagined their world completely surrounded by water — up, down, all around. They thought the world was flat with waters below ground from which springs of water came. A dome called the firmament topped their world and held back the waters above, the source of rain.
In the Noah story the flood waters bubble up through the springs from below and rain pours through the heavens from above. “The fountains of the deep burst forth; the floodgates of the sky opened” (Genesis 7.11).
Extinction threatens as waters rise above the mountains and the ark floats close to the dome.
Noah, his family, and pairs of all living creatures float in an ark God commands him to make. When they enter the ark, they close the ark’s one window to seal out the rain. The ark becomes an enclosed floating coffin.
For 40 days of darkness, Noah, his wife, his children, and the pairs of living creatures live inside the ark, not knowing if they will survive the flood waters. Day after day rain pounds the wooden ark. Finally the rain stops and Noah opens the window.
The waters take weeks to recede. Noah sends out a raven, then a dove to look for dry land. Both birds fly back and forth across the water but return to the ark. Noah waits another week and sends the dove out, which returns with an olive branch in its beak. The dry land reappears, a repeat of the third day of creation. Noah welcomes the rainbow, God’s promise never to destroy Earth again. The name Noah means settler.