The end of the world is coming. But, you already knew that.

The end of the world comes every day, and it is always coming in every generation of man. It's always something. When I was in school I was treated to propaganda movies predicting the end of the world by Ice Age, by over-population, by pollution. A man and woman leave the restaurant together, and as they do so, don their gas masks. One says to the other: "Well, it's almost 1983..."

Laugh

out

loud.

But of course, the end of the world did come, we are told, in the form of a great flood. In my bathroom I have a little picture of Noah's Ark. The Ark has a multitude of windows in the picture - like a cruise ship. All the happy animals are checking out the view.

Well, if Noah had designed the Ark it may have looked something like that. I know if I were to design an Ark to carry the seed of Creation it would have lots of windows. Heck, I'd add some sun decks, shuffleboard courts, a swimming pool - all mod cons. Why not see the end of the world in luxury? Goodness - it seems the obvious thing.

The real Ark, however, was designed not by Noah but by God, we are told. God gave Noah very specific instructions about just how to build this vessel. They resemble other very specific instructions about how to build another Ark later on - the one which would carry the Covenant. What is an Ark? An Ark is a container, a vessel of some sort designed to contain something, a box, a Body.

Unlike the picture in my bathroom, the Ark God designed had only one window. Try to imagine driving your car by looking only through the sun roof. Indeed, it would have been just like that for Noah, for the window looked out not upon the flood waters but up into the sky. No happy animals looked out a multitude of windows upon the screaming multitude of humanity awash in the end of the world - no no no no NO, you sillies. Noah might have had only God's word to assure him there was even a flood at all! He couldn't see it.

Put yourself there aboard that Ark. Can you hear the people screaming? Can your hear your neighbors' fingernails digging into the wood, as they trod upon the bodies of their drowned children - just like in Hitler's gas chambers - Can you hear that? Maybe Noah could hear the calamity. Maybe not.

Maybe he had nothing except his faith to tell him there had been a flood at all. Just as he had nothing but his faith to assure him that there would be one - because God said so. To top it off, Noah had nothing but his faith to steer the Ark. He didn't really need to steer it, did he? His one window allowed him only to see the one singular thing of any importance: his God above in the Heavens. The flood? Well, I suppose the flood would have taken care of itself without Noah having to watch it happen.

God's promise to Noah - His Covenant with Noah - is what the Ark really carried. Just as later on in our Book the children of Israel built another Ark to carry another Covenant. At last, the Body of Christ is the vessel of the New Covenant.

What's a Covenant? Well, it's like a contract; it must begin with a contract. In a Marriage there is a contract, to begin with - an agreement which is legally binding. And we know that the larger part of Law is concerned with unbinding what was thus bound, tearing down what was constructed. The Brazen Tower - Tower of Babel - that is just like a legally-binding contract - something we build, not out of the solid Rock (God) but rather the ever-shifting sand (Flesh, Matter). It is practically made to be broken. But a Covenant begins with a contract. It is then made permanent. When it is permanent it becomes a Covenant.

We know nothing in the world is permanent. The Apocalypse we so anxiously desire will come. There is no question of that. You will die. It's not a matter of if; it's a matter of when - to cop a phrase. Nothing is permanent that is made of Matter. That includes our bodies, of course.

But there is a Body, both physical and supernatural, that will never change, never fall apart, never die (again). Just as that flood will never come (again). This Body is an Ark, a vessel, a container that carries a Covenant. It is Christ. So, it must follow that a Covenant, if it is to be permanent, must be something that exists in Heaven.

It isn't on earth. If it were, it would have been washed away. All we have is a single window, and it doesn't look out on the changing world - the world that is always ending. It looks upon the only thing that never changes, and never ends.

Noah's story is a story about faith. There's lots more in there, too - if'n you want to go down the rabbit hole. I would build a multitude of windows in an Ark of my own creation. I would want to see the calamity - see the trouble. But, Noah's story tells us not to gaze at the trouble. Fix our eyes only on Him; put Him in place of the trouble. And what will happen? The flood will subside and the world will be renewed.

Close your eyes at night and the world ends. Open them in the morning and the world is put back together. How will the world be assembled today? Will we build it out of the ever-shifting sand of our silly, breakable contracts? Or, will we build it out of the Rock - stone, like Solomon's Temple - the Covenant?

Just a thought. I was in my bathroom this morning - in Thinker's position - and there it was, my little picture of the Ark.