You may have read recently about the $90 million ark that Answers in Genesis are building in Kentucky. The ark will be built according to biblical measurements, and is hoped to act as “a sign to this world that God’s Word is true.”

(http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/12/kentucky-creationists-full-scale-ark-bible)

I want to resist the temptation to poke fun at Ken Ham and so on, and I even (mostly) want to resist talking about the unbelievable waste of money that this project is. Instead, lets talk about the flood, a God who shows grace, and the possibility of the Bible having a little more for us than it seems.

Let me paint a picture. The people of Israel have been in slavery for 400 years. Slavery just as real as that in America only a couple hundred years ago. Just as terrifying and awful and soul-crushing. I emphasize soul crushing because I don’t mean it in an informal, ‘this kinda sucked’ way. I mean, the very identity of these people, God’s people, had been stripped from them. No longer did they feel their identity as God’s chosen race, made in the imago dei, chosen to be a light to the world of God’s goodness. They have been stripped of their dignity, worth, and humanity.

And for 400 years God had been quiet.

They’d have heard stories – of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, of God’s good creation – but can any of us suppose that after so long they really had any faith left in the goodness of their God? Beaten, whipped, worked to death, ruined.

And suddenly God bursts onto the scene, and we all know how the story goes from there. Let’s fast forward – the Israelites are free, rescued from Pharaoh’s hand. Here’s the deal though – you can take the Israelite out of Egypt, but you can’t take Egypt out of the Israelite. (I’m sorry.) For 400 years they’d have heard creation myths, flood stories, stories of wrathful, spiteful Gods, Gods that made the universe out of hatred, Gods that were very far off and constantly had to be appeased. And so God inspired the writing of a book. A book that we now call Genesis. And throughout the book of Genesis we find a God who, although it is hard for our modern eyes to see, is relentlessly committed to his people, to goodness, and to his grand plan. But let’s hone in on one story in particular – the flood.

Now, as I said before, the ancient world was absolutely chalk full of flood stories (see here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html). The idea that a God might flood the earth, be upset with mankind, or punish wrongdoing was not new. It was not radical, and it was not the point of Genesis 6-9. The Israelites would have known this – that God is a holy God who will punish sin. Again, God is not inspiring a cosmic preaching-to-the-choir. What if he’s using the already deeply ingrained stories of the time to show something new about himself?

[Quick point here: God is a holy God, he doesn’t simply brush sin under the carpet, he deals with it. We see this in the death and resurrection of Christ as justice is done once and for all. But we also see in the Bible that those unrepentant will receive punishment, and I am not denying that. I’m instead focusing on what I see as the primary takeaway from the story of Noah.]

That something new was found in a simple rainbow. Gen 9:11-17 reads ” 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

What if the book of Genesis is fleshing out what the Israelites had just experienced of God – that he is a God who sees, who knows the depths of man’s brokenness and slavery, and who rescues them? From the chains of real slavery for one, but also from the chains of greed, sin, death, and pain? A God who is so grieved with man’s sin that he even regrets making them, but who at the same time is so relentlessly committed to the restoration of his good creation, of his image-bearers that he makes a way – a boat, an exodus, a Roman cross – within which his people can hide themselves and find forgiveness, healing, restoration, and love, and then makes a promise, to never again flood the earth, to be gracious and patient and kind to his people.

Let me add one last thing before we come back to the ark. When this bow appears in the sky, to where is it aimed?

Upward. To heaven. Where Jesus lives.

And thousands of years later, that Jesus walked the earth. Word become flesh. And he humbled himself to the point of death on a cross.

And on that cross he took upon himself the sins of all mankind, bearing the wages of sin, death, in his body. He descended to Hell, crushed death and sin, and rose again on the third day, setting all those who trust in him free from the bondage of sin and corruption.

The bow was aimed upward.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor 5:21)

Here is a God who sees your mess, who loves you through your mess, and who takes the hit for you. Rest in him.

Back to the ark though. If this is all true, if the flood story is actually a story of grace, commitment, and covenant, then is this our natural response? To build an ark and hope that it brings people to Christ?

Do we really think that a God-inspired ancient document was written with the intention of fueling debates about dinosaurs and science 3,000 years later? That “God’s word [being] true” as the designers of the replica put it, is a matter of scientific debate?

No, the truth of God’s word is that God isn’t far away, he isn’t up there. The God of the bible is a God who draws near, who loves deeply, who is just, righteous, and radically committed to the restoration of his people. So here I agree with Answers in Genesis – let’s show the world that God’s word holds true! But lets do it a different way. Lets feed the poor, preach the gospel, cleanse lepers, cast out demons, raise the dead. Lets mirror the actions of our God and show grace to the weak and the humble. Let us all, as the church, “be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:21)

So let’s take our eyes away from whether the flood really happened, whether people believe in a tiny passage from the bible about a worldwide flood, and lets focus on showing people the God that is found within the story – holy, gracious, recklessly loving.

And while we’re at it, lets spend that $90 million on something worthwhile.