Gen 9:25. he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”
You may know the context. As sin increased and every thought of man was wicked, God in grace would act to limit the evil. For 120 years, Noah would preach of the coming flood. However, only his family would take up God’s offer of grace. The language of restoration used in the Bible after the deluge is the language of recreation. God enters a covenant with Noah, he is retasked with the command with the promise to multiply and flourish and occupy the earth.
All is great as Noah begins to be the man of the soil (Genesis 9:20). He flourishes as he plants a vineyard and consequently drinks himself naked. Ham, his son, sees his father naked and tells his brothers. Not very different from those who share illicit pictures for a forbidden thrill. The two brothers, however, take a garment, making sure to walk backwards to avoid seeing their father’s nakedness to cover him. Noah, when he returns to his senses and realizes what Ham had done, would curse his generation.
Now, there is no excuse for Noah’s out of control intoxication. However, the question is often paraded as to the injustice and unfairness of the curse upon Canaan for what seems to be an excusable offense.
In light of the Lord’s Supper and in pondering why the Spirit of God has deemed it necessary to include this uncomfortable event, we must focus on the response of the brothers for a better understanding. The focus is the heart. Ham took pleasure in reporting what was not right. His heart reveals an evil joy in what is wrong, unlike his brothers. The matter here is that of the attitude towards evil.
However, there is a stronger reason for the inclusion of this aberration in the Holy Scriptures. We are Ham. We are not Shem or Japheth. We would like to assure we are the better brothers. However, we were the ones who had seen what we should not have. We have gone where we should not have. We have done what we should not have done. That is the dark reality of this story. We are the ones under the curse as a result of all our evil.
The event, however, is not hopeless. Thankfully, we are not left in our misery and curse because we have a true and better Noah, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Unlike Noah, he would become a curse on our behalf. He would be crucified naked and yet prays, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
What this Table reminds us of is that
His was the body broken and his was the blood shed so that we who were servants, worse bond slaves to slavery, would be set free.
This Table reminds us that
Jesus is not only the remover of sin, but the reverser of curses
In Jesus, the curse is not the final word. He absorbs the shame, breaks the curse, and extends grace to all who believe.
This Table reminds us that
Jesus becomes the cursed one, so the cursed may be set free. (Gal 3:13)
This Table reminds us that
Jesus offers robes of righteousness for the naked. (Rev 3:18)
Where Ham exposed shame, Jesus covers:
This Table reminds us that
Jesus includes the excluded.
In Matthew 15, Jesus honors a Canaanite woman’s faith, and in doing so, He overturns centuries of inherited exclusion ( Mat 15:28)
This Table reminds us that
Jesus builds a new humanity.
Noah’s curse fragmented humanity. Jesus’s cross gathers and unites: ( Gal 3:28)