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.–Genesis 9:13-15, NIV
For many, a rainbow is just a simple manifestation of light and optical physics. For God, it’s a promise: and God keeps His promises.
Forty days and forty nights have passed. Noah and his sons and his son’s wives survived the world’s worst flash floods. The mountains of Ararat lay rest to the mammoth-like,Titanic-esque ark that once sailed the once-inundated world. God remembered that He had a man who found His beautiful favor- and He remembered His grace upon His creation.
But why would the same God that created the Earth destroy it? Moreover, why would the same God that created the Earth flood it, drowning everyone and everything that lives and breathes? Perhaps the atrocities of sin nauseated the smell of God’s presence. The same creation that God made unfortunately –and hastily- learned to turn back on the same One who gave them life. But God remembered Noah…and God remembered His Son.
There came a raven, and there came a dove. There came thanksgiving sacrifices and God’s true and eternal promise: He would never flood the Earth again. And what could it be more beautiful than a rainbow? What could it be more enlightening than a beautiful spectrum of colors in the sky? (No leprechauns included.)
Maybe that rainbow was the thing many men needed to look above the sky to realize what God said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Joshua 1:5b), or when Jesus said, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” What more hope to look than somewhere over the rainbow?