On this 110th day of January, April 20, more than 4 weeks into spring, with my front-yard still snow-bound, I echo the words of Shakespeare’s Richard III about ‘the winter of our discontent’.

When is this relentless winter gonna call it quits?  Like Narnia before Aslan — ‘always winter but never Christmas!’

Happily there is a law of predictability woven into the fabric of creation that reassures me. This law is poetically expressed in Genesis as the story of Noah’s flood comes to an end.  God says,

As long as the earth endures, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.  Genesis 8:22

There is a rhythm in nature that we can depend on, and that, I think, is part of the meaning of Noah’s story.  When all hell breaks loose, God has pledged to stand with us, despite all appearances to the contrary.

The Flood story in Genesis is about the unleashing of Chaos upon God’s creation, echoing the chaos that had engulfed human society.  The Flood is a re-set for human society.  It is literally a watershed (pun intended) event, with geological upheaval, ecological devastation and horrific loss of life.  And now a new world opens before Noah.

Noah’s project of animal conservation is a mirror of God’s faithfulness to his creation. Noah’s practical and faithful obedience to God is evident as he cares for the world around him on behalf of the Creator– which is the mandate given to us all. Across the span of years, Noah stands tall as a model for us in the ecological crisis we face today.

And over-arching the whole story is God’s rainbow promise to his beloved creation.  Here is a story that radiates hope, even when the daily weather forecast is gloomy.