On the Ark and the Flood
By Fr. Daniel Sysoev
(Delivered on the 14th Day of Great Lent - Thursday)
By Fr. Daniel Sysoev
(Delivered on the 14th Day of Great Lent - Thursday)
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!
Today during the service, we heard about the Great Flood. We heard God's command to bring two of every creature into the Ark, except for the unclean animals, of which seven were to be brought. Seven of each unclean creature were to be brought so that after the Flood, man would be able to eat meat and could then thank God by offering a sacrifice. By the Lord's will, this is what happened. Imagine: the Ark stands on a high mountain, and entire crowds of living creatures are approaching it, pairs of two. A pair of elephants, a pair of dinosaurs, a pair of snakes crawling, a pair of wolves walking, seven cows and their bulls together, seven sheep. All of them walked without human intervention; Noah merely carried food for these animals. Thus, the Lord called people to repentance for the last time; there could be no better sermon than the movement of these enormous animals. Imagine: crowds of living creatures are led together by invisible Guardian Angels into Noah's Ark.
Thus, God rebuked humanity for the last time before His punishment. God, as a merciful Father, always offers a final chance. But people treated this great spectacle as a sensation. If there had been newspapers at the time, they would certainly have reported on this worldwide sensation — an unprecedented migration of living creatures! What an astonishing natural phenomenon! A miracle of science! Instead of repenting, recognizing that the Last Day of Judgment, the end of the universe as it existed, was approaching, people merely yawned, marveled, admired, but did not change. People often wonder why God doesn't do this or that to make people repent. But what more could have been done? He clearly demonstrated His power; He clearly showed that the Day of Judgment, the Great Flood, was approaching, which would destroy all of humanity as punishment for the atrocities people had become accustomed to committing under the pretext that is still very popular today: how can it be a sin if everyone does it? Our character has not changed since then. And they said to Noah: "Are you the smartest, the smartest of all in the world?" It turned out that you were smarter, it turned out that God doesn't need numbers at all, He needs people to live according to God.
A surprising thing happened: we read the account of the Great Flood in the Book of Genesis, and four entire chapters are devoted to the Flood (Gen. 6:1-22; 7:1-24; 8:1-22; 9:1-29): God speaks of destroying everyone from the face of the Earth, "everything that breathes, from the beasts to man" (Gen. 6:7). But the order of destruction that He describes is interesting. In the eyes of God, man turned out to be far lower than the beasts. Neither birds, nor reptiles, nor animals seemed as wicked as people. When the Angel of God led the animals, they all went there humbly, but people, whom the Lord called, to whom He showed miracles (previously there was the miracle of the ascension of Enoch, who foretold the Great Wrath of God), were in no hurry to go to salvation. The prophecies of Adam, Noah — all this was ignored by people. Because people are accustomed to living an ordinary life. The ordinary always remains the same. It's assumed that if it was like this before, it will always be like this. This is wrong, and people are shocked when this ordinary changes, even for the better. Therefore, let us learn from the example of these animals to serve God the Almighty Creator and avoid the punishment that befell the inhabitants of the antediluvian world, which can be seen in a paleontology museum. So that our bones won't later be exhibited as the most interesting example of a deposit from the Muscovite period. So that such a thing won't happen. So that you and I will live in the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven.
God bless you!
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
