The Bridge They Built Through the Floodwaters

In June 2016, the Brazos River in Texas swelled beyond anything residents of Simonton had seen in over a century. Floodwaters swallowed roads, turned neighborhoods into lakes, and cut off entire communities from safety. Families climbed onto rooftops and waited. But a group of volunteers from nearby Rosenberg didn't wait for the waters to recede. They hauled lumber, tools, and pontoons through chest-deep currents and built a makeshift floating bridge — not over the flood, but straight through it. One by one, stranded families walked across that bridge while the dangerous water still raged beneath their feet.

They didn't escape the flood by avoiding it. They were carried safely through it.

That's the picture Peter paints when he reaches back to Noah. Eight people didn't sidestep the judgment that fell on the ancient world. They passed directly through it — surrounded by the very waters of destruction — and emerged alive on the other side. Peter says baptism works the same way. It isn't a ritual cleaning, like washing mud off your hands. It's a pledge — a clear conscience before the Almighty — made possible because Jesus Christ Himself went through death and came out the other side, alive and victorious.

The flood didn't disappear for Noah's family. The cross didn't disappear for Christ. But God provided a vessel through the judgment, not around it. And because the Righteous One endured that passage for the unrighteous, we too can walk through the waters and find ourselves, impossibly, on solid ground.