Noah builds an altar to the Lord in today's passage and makes an offering to Him.
As much as we don't like to think about the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, we have to keep in mind that in God's eyes the human race is the crowning glory of all that He created. We are at the top of the pyramid, so to speak. Everything He created was created in order to support human life. The laws of physics, the structure of the universe, our solar system, the earth, the atmosphere around the earth, and everything on the earth was created for the purpose of keeping the human race alive. God could have wiped man from the earth as soon as he sinned against Him, but instead God accepted substitutionary sacrifices on behalf of man. Sin---any sin---automatically comes with the sentence of death, but God was willing to accept the death of certain animals in place of man. In bringing these sacrifices, man was acknowledging his sinfulness. Man was recognizing that his sin was symbolically transferred to the animal he offered to the Lord. Man was bringing his offering in faith that God would accept the shed blood of the animal as atonement for sin, rather than requiring man to give his own life for his sin.
Without getting too graphic, I want to point out that the sacrifice of animals had to be done as humanely as possible. The animal was not to be mistreated in any way. It could not be injured or ill. A specially designed, very sharp, curved knife was used for the purpose of sacrificing the animal, and its purpose was for the person to be able to reach around the animal's neck swiftly from behind and be able to slice the jugular vein so fast that death was pretty much instantaneous. The animal didn't see it coming. The animal didn't suffer.
Another thing to keep in mind is that people gradually began adding meat to their diet after the flood. The clean animals were now being raised not only to provide milk or wool or to perform work on farms, but they were also being raised for food. A lamb a man might bring as an offering to God had been destined to end up on the supper table anyway, just as certain animals in our own day are raised for food. In fact, after most sacrifices were made, the family was allowed to take most of the meat home and eat it. Only certain parts were offered up to the Lord and then the man could take the remainder home to feed his family. An exception to this rule was the burnt offering, which is what Noah offers today.
"Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it." (Genesis 8:20) Remember how the Lord instructed Noah to take only one pair of each unclean animal onto the ark but to take seven pairs of every clean animal onto the ark? This is one of the reasons why. Another reason is that since the Lord is going to allow man to begin eating meat in the post-flood world, the clean animals are going to need to reproduce more rapidly than the unclean animals.
A burnt offering was an offering for atonement. In the case of a burnt offering, the bringing of the offering was not allowed to keep any part of it. It had to be wholly devoted to the Lord. The animal was killed humanely first, then placed on the altar where in the Hebrew it would "ascend, go up in smoke". This is the literal definition of the word used for "burnt offering" in the original language. A burnt offering was a letting go, a relinquishing of rights, a complete surrender. The person who brought it was keeping nothing for himself but giving it all to God.
We don't perform burnt offerings in our day and I'm glad we don't. But there are offerings we can make to the Lord in the same spirit as the burnt offering. When we surrender our hearts to the Lord, and when we relinquish our own will for our lives in favor of allowing Him to have His will in our lives, we are spiritually making a burnt offering to Him. When we lift our hands and our hearts in praise to the Lord, we are offering Him a "sacrifice of praise" (Hebrews 13:15), and this sacrifice of praise is our way of professing that we owe everything to Him. It is an acknowledgement of our utter helplessness and His unlimited power.
It would have been tempting for Noah to keep all the animals for himself. There are only seven pairs of clean animals, plus any animals that were born to them during their year aboard the ark. But by letting go of some of them he demonstrated his trust in the Lord. This is why the Lord is pleased with Noah's offering. "The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in His heart: 'Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.'" (Genesis 8:21) It's not that the Lord enjoyed the smell of burning flesh, but that He was pleased with what this sacrifice represented. With this sacrifice Noah was saying, "I'm a sinner. Even at my best, I make mistakes. Only You, the righteous God, can make me right in Your eyes. I relinquish my rights to live life as I please in favor of living life according to Your word. I surrender myself to You. I trust You to take care of me."
Has the Lord ever instructed you to do something that went against what you wanted to do? Or has He ever asked you to step out in faith and do something that was scary for you? Sometimes He tells us to change jobs or marry a certain person or choose a particular course of study. His choices may not seem like our first choice for ourselves, but the Lord knows the outcome and is choosing correctly for us. Surrendering our will to His will doesn't guarantee us that life is always going to be easy, but if life is going to be difficult I'd rather it be because I'm obeying the Lord and not because I've messed up and done something foolish.
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