Introduction

Life seems to be a never-ending cycle of storms. Problem after problem wash over us like tempestuous waves with no end in sight. Sometimes the problems present themselves as health problems, loss of a loved one, financial disasters, or emotional distress. Frequently, we get more than one at a time. This feeling of a never-ending storm of problems is probably more noticeable now during this coronavirus pandemic. When our lives are out of control and are adrift on the storms of life, how do we find rest and safety? 

Many of us are watching as the world spirals further into chaos, and our own lives seem to be pulled along with it. Many of us have faced isolation and quarantine for almost two months now causing us to wonder when it will ever end. Several of us have lost jobs or have reduced income requiring us to rely on an unreliable government for food and financial aid. We have seen the loss of life globally on a scale that we have personally never seen before. Yet, we are not the first to experience this. Nor is our experience the worst that the world has ever seen. For Noah and his family, things were much, much worse.

Flood

The wickedness during Noah’s lifetime was so great that God decided to destroy all mankind, the land animals, and the birds (Genesis 6:6-7). However, because Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Genesis 6:8), God instructed Noah to build an ark for the saving of his life, the life of his family, and representatives of the land animals and birds. 

When Noah was 600 years old, on the 17th day of the 2nd month, the flood began. We do not know how many people were alive on the earth, but it easily could have been high into the millions. Yet only 8 people survived. Imagine the horror of hearing the screams of terror outside, hearing the crashing of the waves and the pummeling of the wind, feeling the tossing of the ark and wondering if it would hold.Their fear must have been much worse than ours. 

The flood waters continued to rise for 40 days (Genesis 7:17) and covered the earth for 150 days (Genesis 7:23) until the tops of the mountains were covered (Genesis 7:20), and all life which breathed air was dead (Genesis 7:22). During that time, the ark was driven across the surface of the flood waters. 5 months after the flood started, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat (Genesis 8:4) though it would take another 3 months for the tops of the mountains to become visible (Genesis 8:5). 40 days after that, Noah began to send out the birds: first a raven and then a dove. When the dove could not find a place to rest, it returned to Noah (Genesis 8:9). He sent it out a 2nd time and then a 3rd time. The dove never returned from the third trip. 

On the 1st day of the 1st month of the following year,  the earth finally had dried out (Genesis 8:13). Yet Noah still waited until God told him to leave the ark on the 27th day of the 2nd month (Genesis 8:14). Noah and his family were in quarantine in a large boat full of animals for 1 year and 10 days.

Rest

In Genesis 8, we see the idea of rest come up twice in the story. First, the ark comes to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Second, we see that the bird initially did not find a place of rest though ultimately it must have found one on its third trip. Rest and resting place come from the same word in the Hebrew. But there is another word in the text that comes from that same root family of words. While it is not so obvious in the English, in the Hebrew, it stands out like someone put the word in bold each time it is used. The other word of rest is the name Noah.

Noah’s name comes from and sounds like those other words used for rest in chapter 8. In fact, it almost sounds a bit strange when reading the entire flood narrative in the Hebrew. God says that He will kill everyone, but Noah (rest) will be safe in the ark. When the rest of the world was drowning in terror, Noah (rest) was safe in the ark. No matter what happened that entire year, Noah (rest) was safe because he found grace in the eyes of the Lord and was obedient to His commands. I am not saying that Noah went through the death of the rest of the world with ease and happiness. He was witnessing the death of millions of people all of whom refused to answer the call to repent. Some of those people who were dying were unredeemed family members: siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews. As a husband and father, there were probably times when he was concerned for the safety of his family on the ark. Even as the flood waters retreated, he must have thought about how different life would be after all this was over. We do not want to diminish the struggles that he faced; however, we also shouldn’t ignore the fact that God chose him, a man named Rest, to ride out the storm. How could Noah (rest) be at peace in the midst of the greatest storm the world will ever experience?

Remember

The answer to how Noah (rest) could be secure in the midst of the storm is shown through the entire structure of the flood narrative. I did not discover this myself but am leaning heavily on Lee Anderson, Jr.’s article A Deeper Understanding of the Flood—Making the Most of the Message on Answers in Genesis website.

The entire flood narrative (Genesis 6-9) is structured as a chiasm. A chiasm is a literary structure used frequently in the Bible. It is named after the letter chi (χ) in Greek. The letter chi looks like an English X. The idea behind this structure is in the very shape of the letter X. If you were to cut the letter X into equal slices, the top and bottom slice would be the same. The next layers in would be the same, and so on. If there were 3 statements or parts to the story, parts 1 & 3 would be similar and part 2 would stand out.

Here is a short story to help demonstrate how this works. Jim climbed up the ladder. Jim changed the light bulb. Jim climbed down the ladder. The 1st and 3rd sentence are dealing with similar things even though Jim is moving in opposite directions. The point of the story is the 2nd sentence, and the chiasm points you right to that 2nd sentence.

The entire three chapters of the flood narrative is just that sort of structure.

A. Transitional Introduction: Noah and His Sons (6:9–10)
   B. The Corruption of All Flesh (6:11–12)
      C. God’s Resolution to Destroy the Earth by Flood (6:13–22)
         D. God’s Command and Noah’s Response: The Entrance into the Ark (7:1–10)
            E. The Beginning of the Flood: The Inundating of the Earth (7:11–16)
               F. The Rising of the Waters (7:17–24)
                  G. God’s Remembrance of Noah (8:1a)—Focal Point of the Story
               F'. The Recession of the Waters (8:1b–5)
            E'. The End of the Flood: The Drying of the Earth (8:6–14)
         D'. God’s Command and Noah’s Response: The Exodus from the Ark (8:15–19)
      C'. God’s Resolution Never Again to Destroy the Earth by Flood (8:20–22)
    B'. The Covenant with All Flesh (9:1–17)
A'. Transitional Conclusion: Noah and His Sons (9:18–19)

(copied from Anderson, A Deeper Understanding of the Flood—Making the Most of the Message with slight modification)

When presented in this fashion, the focal point of the entire flood narrative becomes clear. “God remembered Noah.” This isn’t to say that God somehow forgot about Noah then after 150 days He happened to see him floating along and decided to help. Since God is all-knowing and never forgets anything (Psalm 147:5, Isaiah 46:9-10), for God the word means to think about His relationship with people and take appropriate action. In Exodus 2:24, “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.” In Genesis 8:1, the focal point of the entire narrative, God thought about His relationship with this Noah (rest). He had chosen him. He decided to show favor to him. He gave him the command to build the ark. He ordered him inside and shut the door. He caused the flood and caused the water to rise. And because of His relationship with Noah, He caused the waters to go down until the ark came to rest, until the bird found rest, and until Noah (rest) and his family were on dry ground once more. God then made a covenant between Himself and all of mankind and placed His bow, the rainbow, in the clouds of the heavens so that He will always remember (Genesis 9:15).

Noah could rest during the greatest time of suffering, turmoil, and death in human history because he knew that God would always act according to their relationship, a relationship that God chose to enter into with Noah.

Different Storm

Thousands of years later, the disciples entered a boat at the command of their Lord Jesus Christ. In full obedience to their King, they entered a terrifying storm (Luke 8:22-23). Their storm and their boat was much smaller than the flood that Noah survived; however, they were in fear for their lives. During this storm, Christ was at rest, asleep in the boat. When Christ rebuked the wind and waves, there was instant calm. Immediately after calming the storm, Christ asked the disciples “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25). He did not comfort them or empathize with them. He never said that He could appreciate their fear because the storm was deadly.

“Where is your faith?” Despite the storm that they faced, the disciples should have remembered that they were acting in obedience to their God and their King. That God was just as much in control of the wind and waves of their storm as He was of the flood in Noah’s day. They could have had as much rest as Christ did if they would have simply trusted God the Father as Christ did.

Conclusion

For the believer, rest and peace do not come in the absence of the storms. Being obedient to God does not guarantee freedom from the storms. But obedience and trust in the sovereignty of God will always put a believer at rest. You are never forgotten by God. You are never abandoned by God. No matter how things may appear to you, God is always in control. Since God indwells each of His believers, we can rest despite the greatest of storms because He will always remember us. He will always deal with us according to His covenant relationship with us. 

So, let the storms rise. Let the winds of fear and change howl around us. We can rest in Him who is faithful because we can trust that He will cause the flood, command the storms, and then end them all in His perfect timing for His glory and our good.