Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Wisdom Wednesday: Noah and the Rainbow

Grace and peace to you, I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. Today is Wednesday, June 12, 2024 For the Sunday worship services this summer at Peakland, we are considering the Bible stories featured on these banners, which were made by Mrs. Lee Ohl, a member of our congregation. We’ve already considered the Genesis Creation stories, both of them, and last Sunday we talked about Eve and Adam in the garden. We are all Adam and Eve today, in the gardens of life making selfish, short-sighted decisions and very much in need of God’s grace and mercy to cover us. This upcoming Sunday will be Noah and the Ark and the Rainbow. In the story, God is displeased with humanity’s wickedness and decides to flood the creation, destroying all life, saving only Noah, his immediate family and a sampling of all the animals who float along above the waters in an ark. The story of Noah and the ark runs for four lengthy chapters in Genesis. We’re not going to read all that on Sunday. I’ve condensed the story for Sunday worship. As I was reading the story of Noah’s ark, I wondered about the measurements and the sizes and the amounts of water that are involved in this story. How big was that Ark? How much water would it take to flood the earth. So, I did what every lazy scholar does with Biblical questions, I consulted ChatGPT. God gives Noah the measurements of the ark in cubits, 300 cubits, by 50 cubits by 30 cubits. and a cubit is about 18 inches. So how big was the ark relative to modern day objects. ChatGPT calculated the ark would be as tall as a four story office building, as long as a football field, and about as wide as a six lane highway. That’s not a very big ark to pairs of all the animals! Scripture says the flood covered all the earth all the way up over the highest mountain. So I asked ChatGPT to run the numbers. If all the earth’s current oceans are one oceanic unit, how many oceanic units would it take to completely flood the planet ChatGPT did the math and calculated that it would take just over 2.5 oceanic units to completely cover the earth all the way up the tallest mountain. Two and half times the amount of ocean water currently on the earth to flood the planet. That’s a great deal of water. At the end of the Noah’s Ark story, Noah and the animals depart the Ark and God puts a rainbow in the sky as a sign of a covenant promise with us that God will never flood the earth and destroy all life again. Now we today have plenty of worries about climate change and harming our planet in other ways, but our faith insists that God is not our enemy. God does not seek the destruction of any of us. Very much the opposite. After the flood, the stories in our Bible show us God who works with humanity to save us from our sin and save us from the worst versions of ourselves. We Christians believe that Jesus Christ is God’s greatest covenant promise with us. Jesus teaches us to love each other and to love all our neighbors. Jesus’s death and resurrection shows us that God’s love and God’s grace are stronger than sin and stronger than death itself. God wants life, good life for all of us. The rainbow is the first sign of God’s care for humanity. Jesus is God’s best covenant with humanity. As followers and disciples of Jesus, we want good life, the best life for all people, and at Peakland that’s why we are reaching out, serving all, and extending God’s table to more and more folks. Come worship at Peakland at Sundays at 8:30 and 11:00 in the sanctuary for our traditional service and at 9:45 Horizons worship, a contemporary worship which is both family and kid friendly. Check us out on our website at PeaklandUMC.org. Contact me at PeaklandPastor@gmail.com and Come to Peakland and learn about what we’re doing in our community and world and how you can be part of our church community. All are welcome. That’s a rainbow promise!