From a sermon given on September 13, 2026 at Community Christian Church in Linconlshire, IL.
This sermon was part of the Disciples of Christ lectionary. It covers the Noah and the flood account in Genesis 6:5-22, Genesis 8:6-12 and Genesis 9:8-17.
Transcript of the Sermon
To set the stage for this scene, I want to tell you very briefly about a trip my daughter Carley and I took to Spain this summer.
One of the cities Carley and I went to was Córdoba.
Has anyone ever been to Córdoba?
Anyone ever heard of Córdoba?
Córdoba is an absolutely fascinating city in Andalusia, the southern part of Spain, that has seen a LOT of transition in the sense of political and religious power.
There is a river that runs right through it called the Guadalquivir. On one side of the river you have this old Roman castle-like structure, like a military outpost…
And then there’s a Roman Bridge that goes over the river into the old main city.
Now, when I say Roman, I don’t mean a modern bridge in the style of the Romans.
No, it’s an actual Roman bridge, originally built more than 2,000 years ago.
After the Roman period, Córdoba came under Visigothic rule, and in the early eighth century Muslim forces conquered the Visigothic kingdom.
So, you walk into the old city, and there is this enormous mosque that the Muslims built.
They built on top of and alongside the Roman ruins and even used some of their materials in building their mosque.
Then, if you go INSIDE the mosque, which is nearly a quarter-million square feet, you find the strangest thing…
Anyone have any guesses as to what’s inside the mosque?
There’s a Christian church!
A huge cathedral sits in the middle of the mosque, and all around the outer edges of the interior walls are chapels!
And it’s all there together—in the same structure—monuments to and relics of religious and political powers that span hundreds of years.
Each of them believing their power was absolute and their reign eternal.
And the thought that occurred to me was this…
How interesting is it that these mighty political and religious powers invested an enormous amount of time, money, materials, artistic creativity and other resources in creating these monuments to their power, strength and intimidation…
And now it is a place people visit from all over the world—a living monument to layers of human power that have come and gone.
Empires rise, build in stone, claim the future, and eventually become museums.
Human power, material security, and the structures we count on are shockingly fragile.
This same passing of power happened to the Romans, the Visigoths, the Muslim rulers, and eventually the Christian rulers as well.
Each left behind monuments that remind us that no human power lasts forever.
Which leaves us asking the question that perhaps the Israelites were asking themselves…
When the world beneath our feet shifts—when a life, a community, or a culture undergoes a radical upheaval—where do we find a hope that outlasts the rising waters?
In 586 BCE the Neo-Babylonian Empire had flattened Jerusalem, destroyed Solomon’s Temple, and dragged the survivors across the desert into exile.
Their entire world had ended.
Sitting in captivity, surrounded by the towering ziggurats and massive city gates of Babylon, they felt completely swallowed by a flood of chaos.
It was during this dark season that the biblical writers preserved and shaped the account of Noah and the Ark from older flood traditions circulating throughout the ancient Mesopotamian world.
It was not given to them as a curious ancient artifact as it might seem to us, but as theological survival literature.
Look at how God instructs Noah to build the Ark in Genesis 6.
He gives hyper-specific architectural dimensions: three distinct decks, precise measurements, and an opening near the top.
Some scholars have noticed intriguing parallels between the architecture of the Ark and Israel’s later sanctuary traditions.
The Ark is, in a sense, a portable sanctuary.
It was God’s declaration to His people in exile:
Before there was ever a Temple built of stone in Jerusalem, I built a sanctuary of wood that survived an apocalypse.
And notice what the Ark lacked:
No rudder.
No oars.
No sails.
No means of steering.
The Ark was essentially a box—a chest designed to float.
It had no human means of navigation.
Survival did not depend on human political maneuvering or military power.
Its direction was held entirely in the hands of God.
For a people stripped of power, the Ark was a vivid sermon:
Our security isn’t found in controlling the vessel, but in trusting the One who holds the waters.
The Babylonians pointed to their massive temples and claimed that Israel’s God had been defeated.
But the biblical story preserved by Israel’s exilic and post-exilic tradition makes a radical theological claim:
Human empires built on violence and pride will always crumble…
but the God of creation binds Himself to humanity with a covenant of peace.
In Genesis 9, God places His bow—literally like a warrior’s bow—in the clouds.
In ancient warfare, a bow was a weapon of death.
God takes His war-bow, unstrings it, and hangs it up in the sky as a retired weapon.
He promises that despite human imperfection, the final word over creation is not destruction, but mercy.
The Babylonians built with brick and stone, and their empire eventually collapsed.
The exiled Israelites had lost the Temple and the political structures that had once seemed permanent, so they carried their faith in a story…
into the living Word of God.
Babylon is in ruins today.
The Judean community survived.
And the story of Noah became part of a larger witness that their hope did not depend on the permanence of any earthly empire.
Every physical structure humans build—from the grandest cathedral in Córdoba to our own personal castles of comfort—is transient.
If our hope is anchored in visible power, physical security, or our own ability to steer the boat, we will eventually be overwhelmed when the storms hit.
The empires of this world will always turn into museums.
But the promises of God endure forever.
When the waters rise, don’t look to the strength of the storm or the weakness of the vessel—look to the faithful God who seals us in His grace and brings us safely to new ground.
Amen.