3:00 AM Marginalia: Noah's Flood and the Unmourned Victims | Theology of Everyday Life
3:00 AM Marginalia: Noah's Flood and the Unmourned Victims
The rainbow is the promise. The drowned are the lesson. But at 3 a.m., is that all they are?
Three a.m. Too late to force sleep back. Too early for the coffee maker's programmed hiss. Nothing left but the dark and this question that won't sink.
We're taught the lesson: Noah obeyed, built, waited. The flood came as judgment on wickedness. The rainbow sealed the promise—no more total wipeout. Celebrate the faithful servant. Remember the covenant. But the others? The ones swept under, unnamed, unmourned in the text. Am I supposed to skip past them, extract only the moral, and keep walking?
Because someone was foolish—wicked, even—does that erase the ache? The commandment doesn't carve exceptions: mourn with those who mourn. Yet here the just and unjust drown together, rain falling alike until the waters rise and sort them. The just get grief; the unjust get silence. Or do they? If rain falls on just and unjust alike, why do I reserve tears for one side?
but rather that they turn and live.
Still the waters rose. Still the ark floated alone.
The split is brutal. Ezekiel says God doesn't delight in it. Jesus says love enemies, pray for persecutors—because the Father sends sun and rain without partiality. But the flood wasn't partiality's opposite; it was judgment's end. So do I mourn the loss of image-bearers, even twisted ones? Or do I harden the heart, call their folly justice served, and save sorrow for the obedient?
At three in the morning, the question doesn't flip clean. It just sits heavier. Not "I shouldn't mourn them" but "If I don't, what part of me hardens?" The rainbow hangs as promise, not permission to forget the cost. The unnamed drowned aren't props for the lesson; they're people God made, people who didn't turn.
I don't have the answer. Just the quiet house, the clock ticking, and the ache that won't let go. Maybe mourning them—quietly, without excusing—is part of carrying the full weight of the story. Maybe that's the real lesson at this hour.
Enough for tonight. The coffee will start soon. The question stays.
