Description
This detail from the mosaics at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice shows Noah entering a door of the Ark whereby Man and the Animal kingdom will be saved for future generations. God spoke with Noah, seeing the corruption of all other men and said, “The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth” (Gen. 6:13). God then tells Noah how to make the Ark of gopher wood, its size and shape, and to bring the whole of the animals in pairs into the Ark with his wife, his three sons, and their wives only, of all those men and women living upon earth.
Noah did all that God told him and God Himself closed the door. They were in the Ark for over 10 months, including the first deluge of forty days and nights before Noah came out with all that survived. From them every living creature of the earth has come forth again. God then promised Noah that He would not destroy the earth again by flood. For us who are living after the birth of Christ, we know that the Ark of Salvation is the Church, and by It we can sail over the waters to the New Creation.