Advent meditation: The creation was created good, but man’s sin has corrupted it. After the fall, mankind continued to get worse and worse. To put an end to sin, God sent a flood to wipe out mankind. However, God never wishes to destroy what He has created, so He saved mankind and every kind of animal. This flood was a recreation. The world was undone so it was only water, like it was in the beginning, and then God reformed the world. After the flood, God established a covenant with mankind. The covenant is the agreement between God and man that God uses to relate to the world. The Noahic covenant would be the covenant that God would keep with all the Gentiles until the coming of Christ. However, because man had not yet been given grace through the incarnation, he would be unable to remain sinless and things would quickly deteriorate to what they were like before the flood. Thus, the story of the flood helps us understand our need for Christ.
Prayer: Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. (Psalm 51:7, 10-11)
Scripture: God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.” Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you. This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” (Genesis 6:12-14, 7:5-6, 8:1, 20-21, 9:8-9, 12-13)
