Return to the Promise
Genesis 9:8–17, the Message
Then God spoke to Noah and his sons: “I’m setting up my covenant with you including your children who will come after you, along with everything alive around you — birds, farm animals, wild animals — that came out of the ship with you. I’m setting up my covenant with you that never again will everything living be destroyed by floodwaters; no, never again will a flood destroy the Earth.”
God continued, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I’m putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth.”
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I’ve set up between me and everything living on the Earth.”
O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my hear to thee; I trace the Rainbow through the rain, and feel that promise is not vain, that morn shall tearless be. — George Matheson
These lyrics from my Favorite hymn, “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go” resonate deeply within me, particularly as we enter into lent.
When we think of lent, and our entry into the journey with Jesus on the way to Jerusalem, the cross, and the eventual resurrection; we think of the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness, being tempted and telling the evil one, “Go away”.
Yet this year, when we have been in many different wildernesses, I wondered what it would be like to focus on the Old Testament texts as we return to the heart of God during this Lenten journey. That meant we start lent of with rainbows. One may think, “Rainbows? Are they to happy to talk about this first week of Lent?” My answer is a strong, NO! We need rainbows, and we need the promise of God that there is a rainbow at the end of the long rain. Which is where my favorite hymn comes in. The promise of God is not a vain promise. There is a rainbow and there will be a tearless day. Right now, however, we are making our way through the rain- through the wilderness- and waiting and hoping for the rainbow.
The story of the flood in Genesis is a universal story that was prevalent in the ancient near eastern cultures. It is even a story that many of the indigenous communities all over the globe share in common. Though the characters may change in many instances, one thing stands out. Creation happens out of chaos. Creation is good, but somehow gets messed up because humans are messy. A god figure destroys the world, only saving a few righteous people, and then the world is re-created and set on a new course. A beautiful story? Right?
Where the Hebrew scripture leads us in our story is that God then creates a covenant where God promises to never destroy creation again by rain and flood and puts the rainbow in the cloud as a sign of the Covenant. It’s not a covenant that God puts on the people but a covenant that God puts on God’s own self.
Growing up, whenever I heard this scripture or whenever we as kids would act it out in Sunday School or Vacation Bible School, we would always focus on the happy things of the scripture. God saving animals and the 7 people. And we would skip over the fact that 99.999999% of the population and creation was destroyed. We don’t have kids acting like they are drowning in our dramatic depictions of the flood story, because that would be morbid. But it would be more accurate. Thank God, however, that there is something in God that shifts. It is almost as if God changes God’s own mind and provides a gracious and merciful covenant to never destroy the earth again. And the sign: A Rainbow.
Maybe God was distressed by the actual destruction and wilderness that was left after the waters receded? Maybe God felt pity for those whom God created? Either way, the story ends with the beautiful bow in the sky, and a promise: Whenever the rainbow appears, I will remember my covenant I’ve made with you.
As we enter into the wilderness of Lent, we do not have to be reminded of the destruction and desolation that we as humans have brought upon ourselves.
And we must hold on to the gracious promise that God is with us. Because if we don’t, we can get lost in the desperation.
We see unprecedented snow and ice storms all over the US. Some people have been without power, water, heat, and even food for over 4 days. Climate change is real and we have not done a good job at protecting the Creation God has entrusted to us. It is a wilderness.
We see crimes committed because of racism and white supremacy; because of gender identity and sexual orientation. A wilderness of hatred and fear.
We see the absolute devastation of Covid19 with over 500K dead in the US alone. The global numbers much higher. A wilderness of empty chairs at empty tables.
Within many of us, we are experiencing mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. I know I have been in this wilderness a lot lately. I admit this, not to receive pity, but just to be honest. I struggle and I am working on it. I hope and hope and hope to see the rainbow, and yet I have to admit that it is hard some days to function. But it’s not just me. It is children who are having a hard time adapting to screens and schooling from home. It is adults having a hard time adapting to working from home. It is many people who crave the physical presence of other people, friends, and family members that they do not live with. A wilderness of depression, anxiety, and rabbit holes that lead to despair.
It’s a wilderness out there.
For me, the conditions that we see all around us are things we cannot ignore. We have to deal with them. To get through anything in life, you have go inside of it. Just as God sent Christ into the world to literally go inside of humanity, we to have to go inside of the pain and suffering and the wildernesses of the world in order to come out on the other side to see the rainbow.
God has given us the rainbow to hold on to, knowing that we too will get through the wilderness, the suffering, the inhumanity of it all. Lent is about returning to the Creator who loves us. Lent is about reclaiming the promise that we are marked as God’s very own image and that we are beloved and beautiful. We may journey through the wilderness of a world that often tells us and others we are not beautiful or beloved, but God’s rainbow is a sign that we are in fact, the beautiful and beloved. We may journey through the wilderness often seeing others as enemies, evil, refuse, but God’s rainbow is a sign that they too, are in fact, beautiful and beloved.
As we travel together this Lent, and as we return to the Holy One, the Creator, the Father and Mother of us all, let us be reminded that even in the wilderness, the rainbow awaits. The Rainbow is the promise that God wants us and all of creation to live together in peace and harmony. The Rainbow is God’s promise that we are enough. The Rainbow is God’s promise that we must work on behalf of ourselves and others to bring about God’s beloved kin-dom here on earth.
As we look for the rainbow in the midst of the ashes of lent, may we be reminded that God’s love is with us. Always. And that God’s promise is not in vain, and that there will be a day when the wilderness is behind us, and the kin-dom is ever in front of us. This lent, let us journey together towards that beautiful day, where that morn shall tearless be.
Amen.
