For something so beautiful, so refreshing and so essential for life, water can be so terribly destructive. Anyone who has ever lived through a flood of any magnitude can certainly attest to this reality. Only a few short years ago, many of us experienced one of the worst floods our area has experienced in the past 100 years.
It is because of this recent experience with floods that our Hebrew Bible lesson, from Genesis 9:8-17 is all the more touching an applicable to our lives. The passage picks up right after the flood waters have receded and finds God promising never again to destroy all living things with a flood. I can only imagine the scene that Noah and the others were greeted with, when they first stepped off the ark. They must have been instantly confronted with destruction, chaos, and death from all sides! Floods have a way of doing this, they pick up, destroy, scatter, and then leave all the broken pieces behind.
In our lives, we need not experience literal floods with water, to know this tragic reality. Many of us can look back on our lives and see "flood" periods, where chaos ruled, and destruction seemed to lurk around every corner. I would like to share one such period in my life. It began somewhere around the beginning of my fifth grade year of elementary school. We were on our way home from my grandmother's house, when we noticed a column of smoke rising from the center of town. We would soon find out that it was my father's sporting goods store, which had been completely destroyed by fire.
The store wasn't merely a place my dad would go to spend his days (long days, every day...this is how it is when you own your own business). The store couldn't simply be summed up as a means of income (it accounted for roughly 60%-70% of our family's income). The store was truly a part of our identity. My father was the guy who owned the sporting goods store (Cottage Sports) and everyone knew him as such. I was the little boy, the son of the owner, who could often be found playing in the store on Saturdays and Sundays. When it was destroyed a part of our family was destroyed.
Somewhere around 6-8 months later, my mom rushed my dad to the hospital, with what seemed like a bad case pneumonia. It turned out that a large percentage of his heart was not working at all, and the part that was working, wasn't working right. As if losing the store wasn't bad enough, now our famliy was facing the very real possibility of losing my dad. He was put on a strict diet, tons of drugs, and began undergoing a treatment to shock his heart back into rhythm (they took paddles, and shocked his chest, on three separate occasions, to get his heart to beat in the correct rhythm).
Finally, many of you may know that my biological parents got divorced when I was young, and my mom remarried shortly after. As a child growing up with two dads, I would see my biological father every other weekend. Sometimes he wouldn't show up for our visits (he wasn't always the most reliable), but toward the end of my 6th grade year in school he didn't show up for several visits in a row. Finally my parents received a letter informing them that my biological father wanted to give up his parental rights. Essentially he wanted to cut all contact with me and rid himself of the responsibility of being my father. I still remember the day (early in my 7th grade year) that we went to the court house in Owego to sign the final papers. My former father was coming out of the courthouse as we were coming in, and he looked at me and said "see you later kid".
One would think that during this flood period in my life, it would be understandable if I acted out, or if my grades slipped. Many would even expect such negative behavior from a young boy going through these stressful and negative experiences. The truth was that I didn't act out, I didn't do poorly in school, my grades and behavior actually improved!
Our New Testament lesson, Mark 1:9-15, finds Jesus being baptized, driven out into the wilderness, tempted, returning from the wilderness to the news that his cousin, and close friend John the Baptist had been arrested, and ultimately proclaiming that he had good news! Jesus stood in the midst of a flood going on in his life and proclaimed "I have good news! The Kingdom of God is near!" The same could be said for the flood I described above. During all the chaos and turmoil in my life, I was surrouned by a church of people who constantly proclaimed good news to me. People who brought meals to our family, people who offered to spend time with me and my sister, often times the gestures were made by people in our congregation I didn't even know. They were truly representing Christ and proclaiming his good news! It was this good news that they shared and proclaimed (in spite of everything else looking like bad news) that made the difference for me. Their good news became my good news!
Now I can't possibly know all the floods you have been through, or forsee the ones that you will go through. Currently our country is collectively going through a flood period, where young people who've worked hard and gotten good jobs are now being told they no longer have jobs at all. It's a time where people nearing retirement, who've worked hard and invested wisely, are being told that in light of the market they cannot afford to retire anytime soon. We have arrived in such a time where it seems that there's only bad news! And yet, Jesus still lives and stands in our midst today proclaiming "I have Good News! Not just for people long ago, not just for a few, but for all people, at all times! I have Good News! The Kingdom of God is near!"
It is a good news that looks like church members rallying around one another. It looks like families supporting each other. It's a good news that transends physical and economic hardship and points to a life of freedom and hope. This good news is ultimately the good news of Christ Jesus, who lived and died and lives again forevermore! And the really good news is that you and I get to be a part of not only hearing that good news, but of sharing it with others.
May the good news that comes even in the face of the flood fill your lives and flow through you, that others may come to know the good news through your life and your actions.
Grace & Peace,
Pastor John
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