The Raven and The Dove

I was recently asked to preach on chapter 8 of Genesis.

My first thoughts after reading the chapter was, “Man… this is RIGHT in the middle of Noah’s story. It’s not the begging, or the end, its just this middle section. But after trying to seek God out in the chapter, He was faithful to speak. I felt as if there was an image of God’s heart towards man buried in the middle of the story.
The story of Noah and his family is probably one the most well known stories in the Bible. We probably heard it firs at some vacation bible school or saw it in a coloring books. It is also one the most criticized stories in the Bible for the fantastic elements it contains. But I think that we would be doing the story an injustice if we were to be satisfied with these simplistic kinds of readings. It is a significant story. The themes in the story are rich and profound.

That certainly was the attitude which the Jewish people had towards the Noah narrative. The themes in this story—of judgment and redemption and new beginnings; the rebirth of mankind; specifically God’s use of water to wash away sin—these themes seem to repeat in Jewish history and through time they established themselves as core elements to the Jewish mindset in ancient times. This idea of the water coming and washing away sin, or of passing through the waters to safety and life and rebirth—we see these things repeating throughout the biblical narrative.

When Mosses leads the children of Israel through the waters of the Red sea, they pass through the waters, from slavery to freedom. This mirrored for them or echoed the passage through the flood from sin to righteousness. A generation later one of Israel’s war leaders, Joshua, leads the children of Israel across the Jordan—passing through the waters to victory on the other side. This idea of passing through water into God’s grace and good will became a very well formed thought in the Jewish mind; so that, thousands of years later we see in Israel a practice of ceremonial washing called baptism has developed and is held as being a significant sign of God’s cleansing.

One man, known as John the Baptist, had very significant ministry in this area. He would preach about the coming of the Kingdom of God, and the peoples need to turn from their sin, and he would ceremonially wash those who listened to him in water, signifying their acceptance of God’s desire for them to repent. For the Jews this act spoke so directly of the Noah and the flood. Peter even wrote about the waters of the flood, “this water symbolizes baptism.”

So this is the backdrop to the baptismal ministry of John. And so on the day that John baptizes Jesus, when the Holy Spirit appears to the crowed in the form of a dove and descends on Christ, there was only one place for those very Jewish minds to go: Noah! God did not choose to use the image of a dove at random; He was intentionally calling the minds of those watching to this intensely significant moment in their history in which he delivered mankind from sin through the washing of water.

We can look at it like book ends: 6 thousand years earlier God washes away the sin of the world with water, and Noah employs the dove to search out the earth for evidence of new life, and then—way over here at the other end of the Bible—we have Christ receiving a baptism meant to signify the washing of sin, and receiving the Holy Spirit from God in the form of a dove.

So what is God trying to communicate? There are two birds, the raven and the dove, and four flights. What is the significance of these four flights, that God would so obviously allude to them in this moment? I feel that God is illustrating an allegorical depiction of His own interactions with man throughout history, in judgment and in His Spirit.

First Noah sends out a raven. The raven has always been a very significant bird by virtue of the fact that it feed on death. In doing this the raven has often been used to depict or personify death and destruction. Now, who knows why Noah grabbed a raven at that moment. But the image is clear. Outside the ark there was more death and destruction then had ever been seen on the face of the earth and the first living thing to be seen is a black raven flying back and forth over the waters. The imagery is not lost on me. In a sense this bird being sent out into the world symbolically makes us think of the flood itself. The wages of sin are death, and God’s judgment had just been unleashed on the world. But the raven found no place to land and returned.

Secondly Noah sent out a dove. Now we know from the gospels that is was God who chose the dove to represent His Spirit. This dove flies around, hovering over the waters, but not resting on any one point. We see the dove behaving very much in the same way we see the Holy Spirit depicted in the earliest times in man’s history. Even at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 1:3 we see God’s spirit depicted as, “hovering over the waters.” In fact this is consistent behavior for the Holy Spirit throughout the Old Testament. In Judges 14:6 we read that “the Spirit of God came upon Sampson in power…” and that was the pattern, we see it resting on people for a moment, but never indwelling or remaining. This was acknowledged by the Jews, in fact John the Baptist even remarked that one of the signs he is to look for in the Christ is “I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.'

Noah sends out the dove a second time and this time it returns with an olive branch in its mouth. On a mundane level this showed Noah that the water was receding and that new life was already present on the earth. In a more profound sense this showed Noah that God’s judgment had secured peace between Him and His creation. That is why the dove with the olive branch has come to signify is peace. And in an even larger picture, that dove that we see descending on Christ in His baptism, returns with Him to heaven, bearing an olive branch for God. Jesus returns to heaven saying, “look father, I have won peace between you and your creation!” This second bird very easily depicts the Holy Spirit in Christ, walking among us, and returning to the Father with evidence of peace, victory and new life.

Finally Noah sends out the Dove a third and last time, and it makes it home in the new world which God has formed through the flood. Noah knows that the world is hospitable for him again, and he comes to make it his own home, just as God, now that Christ has secured the hearts of men and brought redemption, will now come and make His home among men. And His holy spirit was sent out a third time, on the day of Pentecost. We see the tongues of flame on their head as they are “baptized in fire,” and the Holy Spirit comes and makes its home on earth, in the hearts of men. The Holy Spirit came to the church on that day and made it His home, and He has not left us sense. We are His home.

To me this is such a beautiful picture of how God’s plans for us are so consistent and intentional, that they were written out for us in the very begging. But the significance of these things runs much deeper even than these things. Not only does this show us a picture of God’s interactions with us through mankind’s history, but in a very real sense it tells our own story, as individuals.

We are all born into sin, and begin in God’s wrath and judgment. We all need the cleansing of a flood to wash away our unrighteousness. And in that state of death and destruction, the Holy Spirit is there. Not inside of us, hovering over us, calling to us, touching us for a moment as it beckons us. And then there is the olive branch… the anointing of Christ. It is the only way forward from where we start. But that is God’s hope and desire. Just like Noah was aching for the doves’ message that the waters had receded and peace had been restored, God longs for that report that Christ has been formed in you and that there is peace between He and you. And finally He wants to send His spirit out to make His home in you, to come down and remain in you.
The story of Noah’s ark is not a story of silly impossibilities, but of God’s very real and tangible plan for your redemption. It is not a story of death and destruction, but of rebirth and new life. You have an opportunity to interact with this story in a much more active and profound way. You can make it you story. This hope for new life and rebirth is a hope for you.