Lk 17:26-37
[Jesus said to his disciples,] 26“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; 27they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; 29on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all. 30So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31On that day, a person who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise a person in the field must not return to what was left behind. 32Remember the wife of Lot. 33Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it. 34I tell you, on that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken, the other left. 35And there will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken, the other left.” [36] 37They said to him in reply, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.”
AS IN THE DAYS OF NOAH: In Genesis, Noah is associated with the story of the Great Flood. The son of Lamech, Noah begets three sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Gn 5:32). Then, when humanity becomes more and more corrupt, God decides to sweep the earth of its inhabitants (Gn 6:7).
Noah is distinguished as a good and blameless man who walks with God as did his forefather Enoch (Gn 6:9-10). God decides to deliver Noah and his immediate family from the destruction of the flood. He instructs Noah to build an ark of gopher or cypress wood.
Noah, in a way, is a “type” of Jesus. He is rightly regarded as the connecting link between the old and the new worlds. He is the second great progenitor of the human family, the head of a new human family, the representative of the whole race (Gn 9:1-7). His name means “rest,” “repose,” “consolation.” His father Lamech prophetically uttered during his birth: “Out of the very ground that the Lord has put under a curse, this one shall bring us relief from our work…” (Gn 5:29). Jesus, on the other hand, is the true “rest and comfort” of humanity burdened with life’s cares (Mt 11:28). In him the Father makes a new covenant, a new human race.
Noah is an example of faith in the midst of unbelief, the just man who believes God’s word (Heb 11:7). In the Gospel, Jesus warns people who live as in the days of Noah, unconcerned about God’s judgment, drowned in corrupt living. When they recover from their stupor, it will be too late.