Genesis 8:1 begins, “and God remembered.” When the rest of creation had been washed away, God remembered Noah. It is difficult to imagine how Noah and his family must have felt during their “voyage” in the ark. No doubt they were thankful God had spared them and provided them an ark of safety. Still, toward the end of their time in the ark, they surely were more than ready to escape its confines. Day after day they were tossed back and forth up and down. Day after day they saw nothing but water, animals, and one another. Martin Luther said, “The earth was covered with water. There was no bottom on which to stand. It was the word of promise that upheld them, as they drifted in this welter of waters.”^[1]

            God’s promise of a new creation may have been their only anchor. That promise remained a hope until “God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark.” God remembered. God worked. God saved. Genesis 8:1 concludes with the beginning of a new creation. Moses recorded “God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.” 

            Christians are anchored in the reality of new creation. Paul said, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). Christian, here is our anchor. We are a new creation. We have hope. 

^[1] Martin Luther and John Sander, Devotional Readings from Luther’s Works for Every Day of the Year (Rock Island, IL: Augustana Book Concern, 1915), 284.