Rainbows: God's Final Word

 

You see many things as you walk, if you keep your eyes open. I have enjoyed sharing what I have seen over this past year as I have made my way through the pandemic. Yes, you heard correctly. We are coming up on the one year mark of this experience we have all shared. It has been both a joy and a challenge to take pictures of random things I find interesting and then share my reflections on life and faith. I never dreamed I would still be writing a year later. I feared I would run out of things to photograph and that one day I would run out of words. So far, things are still rolling along.

As I tromped around the church building in my boot, trying to keep up with my daily miles, it was a serendipity to come upon a rainbow. It was there, peeking out the window of one of the rooms in our preschool. Rainbows have the power to make any day a better day. The colors, the arching shape, the idea of sun and rain together, all these work together to make a rainbow a happy thing.

In the Bible, the rainbow story is a part of the larger narrative of Noah. I’ve always found it strange that this was one of those stories that somewhere along the way became a “children’s story”. It is the story of the world being destroyed by an angry God. The rainbow was given by God as a covenant sign; this would not happen again. So it is a happy sign, proclaiming the good news that we need not live in fear.

We live in a time when we could all use a few rainbows. It seems that there is much to be afraid of these days. Fear is employed as the go-to tactic to control and seize power. We face serious problems as a country and as the human race. We are still in the challenges of COVID. The economy is fragile. The list goes on and on.

But that list is not the final word on our future. The final word is that of the God we know to be loving and gracious. The final word is that God is still at work in this mess of a world because God so loves this world still. The final word is a rainbow, the sign that God is not about destroying, but saving. So keep an eye out for rainbows. They pop out just when we need them, sometimes in the most unexpected places.

Peace.