Preparing
with Joy for the Paschal Feast
Part V of XV
Sunday 18 February
2018
First Sunday in Lent
The Flood
Genesis 7:1-5,
11-18, 8:6-18, 9:8-13
The Lord said to Noah,
"Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone
are righteous before me in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of all clean
animals, the male and its mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean,
the male and its mate; and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and
female, to keep their kind alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the
earth for forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made
I will blot out from the face of the ground." And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in
the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the
fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were
opened. The rain fell on the earth forty
days and forty nights. On the very same
day Noah with his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three
wives of his sons entered the ark, they and every wild animal of every kind,
and all domestic animals of every kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on
the earth, and every bird of every kind – every bird, every winged creature. They went into the ark with Noah, two and two
of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. And those that entered, male and female of all
flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord
shut him in. The flood continued forty
days on the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose
high above the earth. The waters swelled
and increased greatly on the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the
waters. At the end of forty days Noah
opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out the raven; and it
went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. Then he sent out the dove from him, to see if
the waters had subsided from the face of the ground; but the dove found no
place to set its foot, and it 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 it and brought it into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he
sent out the dove from the ark; and the dove came back to him in the evening,
and there in its beak 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 out the dove; and it did not return to
him any more. In the six hundred first
year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up
from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and saw
that the face of the ground was drying. In
the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. Then God said to Noah, "Go out of the
ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is
with you of all flesh – birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps
on the earth – so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and
multiply on the earth." So Noah
went out with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives. Then God said to Noah and to his sons with
him, "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your
descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the
birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as
came out of the ark. I establish my
covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of
a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." God said, "This is the sign of the
covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with
you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall
be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth."
The Rev’d Timothy
Alleman
Rector
The Church of the
Holy Cross
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