The Physical and Spiritual Flood
Written by Rachel Sterling. Artwork by Alice Wilkinson.
Recently, I was at an exhibition about Climate Change in Sheffield. Various researchers and PHD students were presenting their findings about the direct impacts of climate change. These varied from the shaking of buildings, to the rapid mutation of viruses to gripping art showing how poorer communities in the Global South are so often hit the hardest by the climate crisis. One research exhibit that particularly stuck out to me was that about Sheffield’s football ground flooding.
Back in 2007, Sheffield Wednesday FC’s Hillsborough stadium was flooded with water levels in the nearest river rising up to 15 feet higher than normal. The PHD student I was listening to was looking into how this is likely to happen again in the coming years. He presented various scenarios showing various levels of destruction as a result. This got me thinking about York and how our river also often breaks its banks. In my first year of University here, I got a very intense introduction to York with large parts of the city being underwater. With the climate crisis progressing the way it is, it is not unlikely that this will happen again here too. In David Attenborough’s recent documentary on the BBC - Extinction: The Facts, he talks about how floods are one of the most common impacts of the climate crisis we are seeing across the world, often in the Global South, at the minute but also here in the UK.
I felt drawn to press into what the Bible says about floods. Now, I’m not saying it’s time to build an ark or resort to panic. We know the promises of our mighty God to never bring a flood to destroy the whole Earth again (Genesis 9:11), however, I felt drawn to read into what floods have meant in the Bible before. We see that God uses floods to bring about great physical and spiritual transformation.
In Genesis 6, we see that God destroys the sin in the world by bringing a flood. Noah is obedient and ‘did everything just as God commanded him,’ (Genesis 6:22) so he is spared. In Matthew 7:24-29, we see that when the rains and floods come, houses that have been built on the rock stand firm and houses that have been built on the sand fall with a great crash.
In this season, my sense is that we should be asking ourselves, what have we built our house upon? What are we rooted in? If we have a firm foundation, we will remain, but if we have built on the sand, we will fall flat. In this season where it could be tempting to rush back into the way things were, into the business of life where we consume carelessly and rush from one activity to another without giving much thought to how we are impacting the world around us; I would encourage us as a church to pray about what we are rooted in and whether there’s sin that needs to be brought to light so that we can realign to do what God has commanded us to do, like Noah did. May we be rooted in Jesus’ great truths and promises. May we repent of our sin and turn to God.
Practically we can make a difference to the prevalence of floods in the world by:
Planting our own trees or donating to tree planting initiative such as Woodland Trust
Being an actively ethical consumer by not buying from companies who are known to support the deforestation of the rainforest, and also writing to these companies to demand change
Praying that in this time, our Church, our city, and we ourselves would be radically physically and spiritually transformed in accordance with God’s plan and will