“Bible animals: a raven and a dove”
Genesis 8:6-8
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Not quite forty years ago, back in January of 1986, American author, painter, sculptor, minister, and teacher Robert Fulghum wrote a book called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It’s a book that tries to help adults see the world through the eyes of a child.
So what did he learn in kindergarten? He said he learned things like “share everything,” “play fair,” “don’t hit people,” “put things back where you found them,” and “clean up your own mess.” Today, there are more than seventeen million copies in print, in thirty-one languages, in 103 countries around the world. It’s even been adapted into a Middle School and High School play!
And since then, others have written quite a lot of parodies of Fulghum’s book, like All I Really Wanted to Know I Learned in Junior High and All I Really Wanted to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek. And why not? After all, or so the author writes, “Every situation you will face in life has already been faced by the Starship Enterprise.”
And speaking of parodies, there’s even one that’s called All I Need to Know I Learned from Noah’s Ark. This is what it says: “Don’t miss the boat”...”Remember that we are all in the same boat”...”Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark”...”Stay fit. When you’re six hundred years old, someone may ask you to do something really big”...”Don’t listen to critics. Just get on with the job that needs to be done”...”Build your future on high ground”...”For safety’s sake, travel in pairs”...”Speed isn’t everything. The snails were on board, and so were the cheetahs”...”When you’re stressed, float awhile”...”Remember--the Ark was built by amateurs, and the Titanic by professionals”...and last, but not least, “No matter the storm, when you’re with God, there’s always a rainbow waiting.”
The story of Noah and the ark is known by people all around the world. Even those who don’t know the Bible and never come to church have heard about Noah and his boat and all the animals coming on board, two-by-two--two giraffes, two tigers, two rabbits, two parakeets. Even two skunks!
Even more, you could look almost anywhere and find Noah’s Ark paintings, Noah’s Ark T-shirts, Noah’s Ark coffee mugs, and Noah’s Ark earrings. There’s even a recipe for Noah’s Ark brownies coming out of a restaurant in St. Louis, Missouri.
And let’s not forget about the life-size ark in Kentucky or the largest waterpark in the United States, located just down the road in the Wisconsin Dells called “Noah’s Ark”!
So far in our time together, we’ve looked at a couple of animals from the Bible. And it’s surprising, if you think about it, just how many there are! In Genesis chapter 3, a snake tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden. In Numbers 22, a donkey talked. Isaiah wrote that someday, in the new creation, “The wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the young goat, the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox” (Isaiah 11:6-7). And Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6: “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:26).
It’s no wonder then that Psalm 150 says, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150:6).
And here in the book of Genesis chapter 8, we hear about two more--a raven and a dove. I’ll start at verse 1: “But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen” (Genesis 8:1-5).
Nothing like it had ever happened before, and nothing like it would ever happen again. Man had become so corrupt, so evil, and so rotten to the core, that God had no choice but to destroy every single one of them, all except Noah and his wife, their sons, and their wives. It was the most violent and catastrophic event of all time.
And the one way out, the only way out, was a ship, a boat--450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.
And just as soon as Noah built that ark, the animals came two-by-two.
Then came the rain. The Bible says all of the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Let’s stop there for just a moment, because there’s something we really shouldn’t miss. Now you’d think that if the flood really happened, you’d expect to find the story told by Noah’s descendants in languages and cultures all over the world.
And it is! For example, the Aztecs tell of a very pious man named Tapi, whom the Creator told to build a boat for himself, his wife, and a pair of every animal. And though everyone thought he was crazy, he built that boat. Then the rain fell and the flood came.
The Greeks tell of a god named Prometheus, who told his son, Deucalion, to build a chest. And after he and his wife Pyrrha floated in that chest for nine days, they landed on a mountain called Parnassus.
And the Chinese tell of a time when a great flood began, during the reign of Emperor Yao, a flood so vast that no part of his territory was spared. He wrote in his book of history, “Like endless boiling water, the flood is pouring forth destruction. Boundless and overwhelming, it overtops hills and mountains. Rising and ever rising, it threatens the very heavens. How the people must be groaning and suffering.”
Even more, look at the Chinese pictograph for the word “boat,” and you’ll see three characters: “vessel” plus “eight” plus “people.”
And that’s not all! You could find flood accounts in places as far away and diverse as Africa, Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Borneo, Russia, Iceland, New Zealand, and Mexico, just to name a few. In fact, there are more than two hundred flood stories from all around the world!
And if that’s not enough for you, think of the Grand Canyon and its eight thousand feet of sedimentary rock, or the three hundred foot-thick White Cliffs of Dover, or the millions of sea creatures found on the top of Mt. Everest, or the fossilized trees buried deep beneath the snow of Antarctica, or the mile-deep sediment on the Pacific ocean floor.
The flood happened. Of that, there is no doubt.
And when the rain finally stopped and the water slowly seeped back into the ground, Noah’s ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. But how would he know that the earth was ready, that it was time to step back onto the ground?
That’s when we hear first of a raven, and then a dove.
It’s kind of funny if you think about it. When the Bible talks about Noah’s flood in Genesis chapter 6 through 8, it moves pretty fast. In fact, you could sum it all up in just a few short words: God warned. Noah built. Rain fell. Flood came. All perished. Ark rested.
But all of a sudden, out of the blue, there’s a pause in the text, a look at what happened next.
“At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth” (Genesis 8:6-7).
So why did he first send a raven and not a dove? Because a dove is a clean bird. It’s a picture of purity and innocence, a symbol of peace.
But not a raven. Ravens are scavengers. They literally feed on death.
So when Noah released that bird, it didn’t take long for it to find a home. In the post-flood world, there was, unfortunately, quite a lot to feast on. Millions of trees and thousands of carcasses all floated along just waiting to be devoured.
And what did it do? Verse 7: “It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth.”
But not the dove. Verse 8: “Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore” (Genesis 8:8-12).
The story of Noah’s flood is a story of law and gospel, of sin and grace, of wrath and mercy. And ever since then, the world has never been the same.
In October of 1918, American soldiers had pushed too far into the Argonne forest, and suddenly found themselves trapped behind enemy lines on the slopes of a hill. Cut off from both supplies and reinforcements, some five hundred and fifty men were doing their best to hold their ground against a far larger German force for several days. And since they were beyond radio range, their only means of communication was carrier pigeons.
Hoping against hope, they sent up one bird after another, until every single one of them was shot down by enemy fire. Desperately, the commander, Major Whittlesey sent out his eighth and final bird, a pigeon named Cher Ami, with a note that read, “We are along the road parallel to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven’s sake, stop it.”
As the very last chance for the Lost Battalion to walk off that hill alive, off it flew straight into enemy fire. And as it flew, the soldiers watched in horror as it was shot, wounded, then fell helplessly to the ground below. Still alive, it took flight again. Blinded in one eye, and with its right leg barely hanging on, it somehow managed to survive, crossing twenty-five miles in a half an hour, to deliver that message.
To this day, it’s impossible to say just how many are here because of Cher Ami, that one, brave little bird.
Does it remind you of anyone? It should, for as Isaiah wrote, “He was despised and rejected a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, pierced for our transgressions, and crushed for our iniquities. By His stripes, we are healed” (Isaiah 53:3-5).
No one could love us more than our Savior Jesus.
One more thing. It’s been said that a pulpit is more than just a piece of church furniture. Actually, the word “pulpit” is a naval term. It’s what sailors call a raised platform on the bow of a ship. It leans out high over the water, where you can see the best and the clearest.
And even to this day, Noah-like preachers continue to speak the Word of God--raven words and dove words, that wing their way into our hearts and minds.
And much like a raven, the law flies back and forth, to and fro, cawing its accusations against us. There is no peace, no harmony, and no forgiveness apart from God. Only judgment and condemnation. The raven is a dark bird with a dark word for each and every sinner.
But also from the pulpit comes dove words, gospel words. And while raven words caw an accusation, dove words coo an absolution. And with them comes an olive leaf, a token of peace with God through Jesus Christ.
In the words of a song, “Jesus, our Savior came to earth one day; He was born in a stable, in a manger of hay. Though here rejected, but not up above, for God gave us His sign on the wings of a dove.”
The flood, dear Father, is to us a message of law and gospel, sin and grace. Grant that each of us, in spite of our sin, may find mercy and grace in the cross, for Jesus’ sake. Amen