“The
LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every
inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD
was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with
pain. So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created,
from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the
ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them."
But Noah found favor in the eyes of
the LORD” Genesis
6:5-10 (NIV)
Some
of my family and I went to see the movie “Noah”.
I thought it was tremendous. Why?
How can I think this when so much of the movie is full of artistic
license? Because it seems to
me that Aaron Aronofsky, the Jewish atheist director,
“preached the Gospel” to America more successfully than most
preachers and teachers of the Bible I know, including me!
Noah
“gets it”. Human beings have a
corrupted heart. We’re good
at seeing what’s wrong with others, but really bad at seeing what’s wrong
with ourselves. In the movie Noah is
an exception. In fact throughout the
movie Noah is convinced that God will destroy him and his family as soon as
they’ve saved the animals because humans are so sinful that they are
irredeemable.
This
is why every Christian should visit the Holocaust Museum and leave seeing him or
herself as no better than the Nazis who did what they did.
In fact human beings are worse than
the animals. Animals don’t seek
revenge. Animals don’t plot
pogroms and carry out genocide, nor do they torture.
There is an unbridgeable gap between us and God which means we’re in
deep, deep trouble with God.
Where
else in 21st century America will anyone have this message
proclaimed? Once I “get” this
message, then I can begin to comprehend Grace and that Grace is the Gospel, the
Good News.
Noah’s
daughter in law, Ila, did get one thing wrong though. She told Noah that
perhaps God preserved him because God knew that he had a merciful heart.
Perhaps, she speculates, that’s exactly the sort of person God could count on
to renew the world non-violently, peaceably, and responsibly after the flood. She’s
wrong that God preserved Noah and family because his heart was better than
others, but she was right that every human being, created in the Image of God, has
something of the Goodness of God within, if it can only be awakened and redeemed
by God Himself.
I loved the
end. The Rainbow tells us that
God will stick with us humans, sinful and evil as we are, even though God knew
history would repeat itself, even though there’s nothing we could ever do to
deserve this grace. This is
incredible.
“Lord, I know my heart.
I have therefore no difficulty believing that on its own the human heart
is “evil all the time”. Yet
I also know that for some reason you have given favor to humanity, at least for
the time being. Please Lord, humble
me to never forget the incredible Grace under which we live.
Help me Lord to hunger for others to come to know this Grace and to make
it the “food” which fuels their lives. Amen”
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