“Almost from the beginning of the Bible, mountains are sites of transcendent spiritual experiences, encounters with God or appearances by God.”[1]
In Genesis 8:4, after what must have been a terrifying and tumultuous experience navigating the Great Flood, Noah’s Ark is said to have come to rest “on the mountains of Ararat.”
Usually, we ascend a mountain. Noah, always the contrarian, stepped down onto his. The Bible mentions no specific peak, and there is no reference in Scripture to “Mt Ararat.”
There is an event recorded in 2 Kings 19:37 and Isa 37:38, where the Assyrian King Sennacherib is murdered by his two sons while worshipping at his temple, and the villains escape “into the land of Ararat,” but that has no connection to the story of Noah.
Traditionally, Ararat refers to a mountainous area surrounding Lake Van in eastern Türkiye. Some identify Ararat with Mt Artos (elevation 3,515m/11,532ft), a dormant volcano near the southern shore of the lake.
Others claim Agri Dag (elevation 5, 137m/16,854ft), another dormant volcano, on the border between Türkiye and Armenia, as Noah’s landing spot. But there is no historical or archaeological evidence indicating the precise location of the final resting place of the Ark.
On the other hand, reports of sightings of the Ark are numerous. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus writes of people who claimed to have seen the giant wooden ship.
Muslim conquerors of the Armenian region built a mosque on what they thought was the site of the Ark’s landing place and claimed to have removed enough wood from the Ark to construct a mosque at nearby Cizre on the modern Syrian border, the location of one of no less than five rival tombs of Noah.
The 1889 painting “Descent of Noah from Ararat” by Ivan Aivazovsky depicts Noah and his family, along with a procession of animals, crossing the “Ararat plain,” while in the distance lie the distinctive towering twin peaks of Agri Das.
An alleged fragment of Noah’s Ark is on display at the museum of the Armenian Apostolic Church’s Etchmiadzin Cathedral.
We have yet to receive a single plank or nail from Noah’s Ark in the Moore College Archives.
Mt Ararat is only famous because of a man called Noah, and Noah is only famous because of the biblical record of his counter-cultural devotion to God, his faithfulness, and obedience to God in the face of general unbelief.
The story of the epic Flood and its aftermath is recorded in Genesis 6-9. When God created humankind, he gave them full personhood: freedom of will, and the capacity for deep relationship with God.
But very soon people abused and misused their free will, choosing the evil and shunning the good. And God “saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5); “The earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence” (v. 11).
God regrets having created the human race. He is “deeply grieved” (6:6). And so judgment flows from the hand of God in the form of a Great Flood.
But one man stood out from the crowd. One man pleased God in his manner of life and response to the knowledge of God. In contrast to all others, “Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord” (6:8).
And God provides a way of escape from the deadly floodwaters by directing Noah to build an Ark in which all who honour God will be safe. Tragically, only eight heed the call and enter the ark. Only eight are saved.
After the rain stops, followed by weeks floating above the carnage as the earth almost returns to its pre-Edenic watery state, there’s a longed-for bump, and the Ark comes to rest, and the family returns to “dry land.”
And then something extraordinary happens: God speaks to Noah (Gen 8:15-17), and Noah builds an altar and offers sacrifices to God in gratitude (v. 20), and God responds in even greater blessing (8:21-9:17), establishing a covenant with Noah.
This is the first mention of covenant in Scripture. Unlike later covenants, this one is universal rather than relating to an individual or a select group, it contains no oath to be sworn by the human parties, and it extends to include a promise by God to all living creatures and with the earth.
In his book, Covenant, Daniel I. Block notes that in Genesis 6-9, God takes the initiative by reaching out in grace to Noah (6:8); God declares that he is the one making the covenant and nothing is required by the other parties mentioned (9:8-17); and God gives a rainbow as a lasting symbol of his grace and his trustworthiness (9:12-17).[2]
So whenever you see a rainbow, remember Noah, and consider Noah’s God. Remember the kindness, power, holiness, justice and mercy of God.
Remember that God delights in relationship with us, on God’s terms.
Remember that God is reliable and trustworthy, keeping his promises.
You and I cannot be little Noahs. But we can share the same big faith in God, the same commitment to honour God, and the same determination to follow God’s word and ways in a world of spiritual darkness, doubt, unbelief, striving, and self-sufficiency.
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Re-clothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace. [3]
Amen.
[1] “Mountain,” in Leland Ryken et al (eds), Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove: IVP, 1998), 572.
[2] Daniel I. Block, Covenant: The Framework of God’s Grand Plan of Redemption (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), 38f.
[3] First and fifth lines of a hymn, based on a much longer poem by John Greenleaf Whittier (1872).
iDigress 