noahDid 150 days in a floating box with all those animals do something to his brain? His expectations? Or was it the fact that the people who’d questioned or mocked him just five months ago were now dead? Regardless, the man had hoped for something other than this. In a world full of people, blame can be shifted a thousand different directions, but that wasn’t a possibility any longer.

The voice that told him to build the ark had given him a sign- the sun had pierced the rain and created a colossal and colorful arc in the sky. Truly, it was beautiful and in the years to come, it would continually renew the man’s hope. The voice- God, had said that never again would he drown all the things when he offered the man and his family the sign.

This God had poured out rain on the earth for more than a month in order to clean it up. He didn’t like what it had become. Somehow, this god saw something in Noah that the man didn’t see himself. He wasn’t perfect. He had his flaws- his wife and sons could easily attest to that. But Noah wasn’t a bad guy either.

The flood didn’t get rid of the problem. They didn’t land in some new world and hadn’t ever expected to, either. They just thought things might be different. Their lives in this new, cleansed world made it painfully clear to the man that he and his family were just as guilty as the rest of the people. This thing, sin had survived the flood. It was in Noah. It was in his wife and children. They hadn’t escaped it.

Disappointment. That’s what he was feeling. Somehow, this plan had just isolated this family and showed them that they weren’t so different from the people, who sacrificed to various gods. They weren’t so different from the people who were dead as a result of all this water. They all knew it on the ark, it was just as obvious when they finally left it, too. First thing, Noah planted a vineyard. He knew how to make wine and wine would salve the hurt now. Broken coping mechanisms are nearly as old as humanity itself, aren’t they?

That was years ago. Noah had accepted his imperfections. He didn’t embrace them, but he knew that he would do things that would hurt, offend and that weren’t healthy for anyone. But he had hope. The voice that had spoken to him before did exactly what said it would. And even if sin had survived, neither Noah nor his children had been killed for it.

Something was different. He had a sense of expectation, a hope for a world or time when they might not be so broken. A place where the voice had a face and glory and joy. The man occasionally caught glimpses of it- in sunrises and his wife’s laugh lines and in the scents of spring. His grandchildren saw it everywhere. He hoped they’d never lose sight of it, but suspected that they might. Noah prayed that when it came, their own disappointment would be much less painful than his.

He taught them to look for rainbows.

He insisted that they find one whenever it rained.

Often, they found them, too.