Boston, Massachusetts, 1919. A factory had just transitioned their business model from supporting the war effort toward making rum, only to discover that this too would be only a small window of opportunity. The magnanimous Temperance Movement was giving distillers one more year before shutting down the sale of all alcohol in the country. So, the Purity Distilling Company decided to increase production, making hay while the sun still shone. And shine it did that January morning, raising temperatures so quickly that the unthinkable happened.
The shotgun sound of bursting rivets was chased by 2.3 million gallons of molasses onto one of the most densely populated city streets in the US. The towering wave moved at an astonishing 35 miles an hour, swallowing and crushing everything and everyone in its path. Locals who had complained for months about the container’s shoddy construction had been unheard, as they were mere non-voting immigrants. In one way, many of these victims were now silenced permanently; in another, their lifeless lungs cried out even louder from the steaming streets.
Wickedness and destruction have been paired together time out of mind. Evil lurks and leers, someone always suffers, and it’s nearly never the perpetrator. Yet, with Noah and his famous ark, we have a version of the story where it’s wickedness that’s destroyed, and our family alone who is spared. Put like that, it’s the rare happy ending in a post-apocalyptic thriller. The shock must have been disorienting, as in the first few seconds after a nearly missed traffic accident. What a close call. Except that evil had been a bit of a stowaway on their ship, hidden safely in the hearts of those raptured from judgment.
So, what’s the point of this story, anyway? It doesn’t much work as a reboot on creation if our new first parents are also among the fallen. The author of Hebrews joins the other New Testament voices in a resounding Noahic theme: judgment is coming, and when it comes, your only hope will be who you are counted with. Everyone, even our own people, are part of the problem. What can we do? The powerlessness of our situation hits home even in the shape of our ship: mast-less, rudderless, more casket than cruiser. But that’s how Hope comes: in the form of obedience to an instrument of death, fashioned out of wood, submitted to in faith.
