The Choices of Ham, Nadab and Abihu [New Year’s Eve Service]

Having come out of the ark, Noah becomes drunk with wine and falls asleep uncovered. Ham sees him like this and goes out to tell his brothers, as though mocking him, while Shem and Japheth walk in backwards and cover their father. When Noah wakes, he curses Ham’s son Canaan to be a servant, and Shem and Japheth are blessed.

Ham was able to board the ark because his father was the one God had chosen. Yet as time went on, pride grew in him: he had helped with the ark, he thought, and had come aboard by his own faith. His respect for his father was gone. His sin did not appear suddenly that day. What had already filled him overflowed in that moment.

The same thing happened to Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu. They owed their priesthood to their father, yet they did not fear God, and in the end they lost their lives offering fire he had not commanded. Being on the ark or being made a priest only means that a person has been given good circumstances. Unless a person stands within them with a humble and honest character, grace turns to wrath.