The thought of God as Judge is difficult for us. We can accept that he grieved, and that his heart was filled with pain, but that his suffering resulted in the Flood is a challenge to our understanding. How is God present in this natural disaster? This is a question prompted recently by the earthquakes and tsunamis around the Pacific rim, and the tornadoes in the South. The view of the Bible is that God can command the creation to do his bidding. Divine intervention in the natural order is described and affirmed throughout the Scriptures. Just because science has no categories to describe such actions do not mean that they cannot happen. The law of cause and effect does not eliminate or exclude the will of God.

Chris Trotter, a political columnist, evoked the God of Moses who parted the waters of the Red Sea, when he commented on God's presence in the movement of the earth's tectonic plates. He cited C.S. Lewis in The Horse and the Boy, "who makes it clear that his own rendering of God - the golden lion Aslan - is not a pet to be called for and dismissed at our convenience. On the contrary, he is an altogether dangerous being. As one of Lewis's characters indignantly observes: 'He is not a tame lion.'" He criticized the Dean of Christchurch Cathedral who distanced God from the effects of the earthquake by claiming that the planet was doing its own thing apart from God.

"Perhaps the Dean should return to his Bible and ponder the God that spoke to Moses from the burning bush. The God that gave man counsel from the whirlwind, and moved before the Children of Israel in a pillar of fire. Perhaps he should consider the God that laid Jericho low and sent fire from heaven to consume Sodom and Gomorrah. A red God, a wrathful God, a jealous God. The God that was ready to drown the whole world. The God who, when his Son, nailed to a cross, cried out, 'Father, why have you forsaken me?' remained silent.

...Yet it is only in those moments when all our human conceits are battered down and laid to waste that we, shocked and awestruck, come close to understanding Jehovah as the authors of both the Old and New Testaments understood Him.

Was God present in Christchurch on 22 February? Oh yes, He was there. And He is with us always. Beyond our questions; beyond our understanding; beyond our judgement. Not a tame lion." (The Press, March 22, 2011)

If this is so, then, Jesus said, we need to be ready for such cataclysmic events. "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." (Matthew 24:37-39)

Secondly, the Son of Man comes to save us. To Noah, God said, "I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark - you and your sons and your wife and your son's wives with you." (Genesis 6:18) "For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit....God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also - not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven." (1 Peter 3:18-22)

Just as the ark saved Noah and his family, the gospel message of Christ died and risen, saves us. This is symbolized through the waters of baptism. Many of the churches I have served in had baptismal fonts that were octagonal, including the one in which I was baptized in my home church. The eight sides represent the eight members of Noah's family who were saved in the ark.

Baptism is a pledge, as God's covenant with Noah was a pledge, to accept, not only the privileges and promises of the gospel message, but also its responsibilities. The word we use is sacrament. This word is derived from the Latin sacramentum, which means a soldier's oath of loyalty on entering the army. When I was baptized the minister said, "We receive this child into the congregation of Christ's flock and do sign him with the sign of the Cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner, against, sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end."

Just as the flood is a story of judgment and salvation, death and resurrection, to a new life in a new creation; Christian baptism symbolizes dying to sin and rising to new life in Christ, who experienced judgment for us in the Cross, and rose again to share his eternal life with us.

The world threatens to drown us with wars, natural disasters, diseases, financial mismanagement, grief and cruelty of one kind or another. "Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways." (Genesis 6:11,12)

Our only hope is Christ. He is our ark. He "has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand - with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him." (1 Peter 3:22) He is the only way we and our families can be rescued. The water can drown us or it can cleanse us and renew us. The pledge or sacrament of baptism is a spiritual cleansing of the whole heart and soul and life. As we enter into the ark of our salvation we can rest secure knowing that he will bear us up and protect us as the storms rage outside. No matter how deep the water, or how high the flood-level, this ark of Christ will sustain us, and bear us into safe havens. Come aboard.

The raging storms may round us beat, A shelter in the time of storm;

We'll never leave our safe retreat, A shelter in the time of storm.

(Vernon J. Charlesworth)

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