The early church was fond of applying to Christ and baptism the image of the just Noah, who passed through the waters that destroyed a sinful world in the wooden ark, and emerged as the first-born of a new creation in a new covenant with God.
Justin Martyr tells us:
In the flood was implicit the mystery of man's salvation. At the time of the flood the righteous Noah with his wife and three sons and their wives, making in all eight persons, were a figure of the eighth day on which Christ appeared as risen from the dead and which is always first in rank. Now Christ, the first born of every creature, is become the head of a new race, which has been regenerated by him through water, faith and wood, which embraces the mystery of the cross, as Noah, together with his family, was saved by the wood of the ark carried on the waters.
Baptism is God's judgment against sin. We escape judgment through our baptism, by our faith, by the wood of the cross and through repentance for our sins. Lent is a time for us to strive to conform our will to God's will. We must cling to the wood of the cross in the ark of the Church which is our salvation and repent of our sins.
Reflections from Father Timothy's homily for the First Sunday of Lent
