Driving home yesterday after a heavy rain I saw a bright and beautiful rainbow breaking through the clouds. It reminded me of God’s covenant that He promised Noah after the flood.
Genesis 9:12-16
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
Sadly the rainbow now has a different meaning. When one sees a rainbow, most often than not the first thing that comes to mind is “pride”.
We all struggle as a result of Original Sin and our fallen human nature – whether it’s with same sex attraction or un-chaste opposite sex attraction (or alcohol, drugs, gambling… any unhealthy attraction). It should come as no surprise then when we read Proverbs 16:18 – “Pride goes before destruction”, and it was through the pride of Adam and Eve that Original Sin would come to us.
The illusion is that the rainbow symbolizes pride and liberation – touted as such good, and yet it is precisely pride that hardens the heart against healing and true Christian humility. If we read the account of the first rainbow in Genesis, we see that it was God’s extreme act of humility (the opposite of pride) where He promises that He will never again destroy life in that same way. It was an act of Humility for God to accept that His creation could continue to reject Him, and that He promised not to start over as with Noah. This is His perpetual act of Humility that is consummated on the Cross – Philippians 2:8 “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! “. It is this act that we must imitate. To die to ourselves no matter what our attractions may be.
My message is this. Let us re-claim the Rainbow for Humility, and let us recall God’s covenant as He does whenever we see the Rainbow.
Let us become the Saints God meant for us to be. Amen