and how no desire that his heart conceived
was ever anything but evil,
he regretted that he had made man on the earth,
and his heart was grieved.
The LORD just wants man to be happy and blessed. But man constantly fails to choose this when God offers it. We constantly put ourselves first and try to create happiness on our own terms. We exult things, themselves good, against God as if they can provide happiness apart from him. God is grieved because he longs for us to flourish. He says choose life so that we can live (cf. Deu. 30:19). But the options we choose lead to death. These impermanent things simply draw us toward their own fate when we try to enjoy them apart from the God who gives them.
It isn't that the LORD wants to destroy us. It is simply that we don't choose the one thing which lasts.
“I will wipe out from the earth the men whom I have created,
and not only the men,
but also the beasts and the creeping things and the birds of the air,
for I am sorry that I made them.”
He is sorry because they don't choose the blessings he offers. And when man doesn't do this all of creation suffers. All of creation shows the scars of the selfishness of man. The LORD decides to send a purifying flood over the world. But he does this not in wrath but in mercy. He does it in hope of a new and better world where we wisely choose his blessings. The flood consists of the cleansing waters of baptism.
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin (cf. Rom. 6:3-6:6).
He doesn't destroy us. He only destroys the old self so that the new self might flourish. This happens first in baptism but it is a grace into which we are constantly invited to enter.
you should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires,
and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth (cf. Eph. 4:22-24).
On our own the flood waters sweep us away. But God invites us into the ark of his Church. His Church his the structural integrity to preserve the good things within ourselves and creation even as the flood waters purify us. Within the ark the truly just can survive and even thrive. Within the ark we are invited to fully embrace the reality of the new creation which God brings forth.
Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator (cf. Col. 3:9-10).
We are not part of the old world of sin and sorrow which is washed away. We are the just who live within the ark that is the Church because it is Jesus himself. Only he survives the purifying flood of death.
The voice of the LORD is over the waters,
the LORD, over vast waters.
The voice of the LORD is mighty;
the voice of the LORD is majestic.
We, like the disciples, sometimes forget that we are part of this new creation. We get caught up in details and our spiritual sense is dulled. We fixate on earthly bread rather than the bread from heaven. We avoid earthly leaven when we should avoid the leaven of sin. But when this happens Jesus teaches us. Even the earthly loaves are superabundant where Jesus walks. Even the earthly loaves have twelve and seven baskets left over. These signs are meant to point us toward the world we finally enter as the floods subside and we step forth into the new creation.
The God of glory thunders,
and in his temple all say, “Glory!”
The LORD is enthroned above the flood;
the LORD is enthroned as king forever.
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