The day of Mom’s memorial service the sky lit up with a shocking display of God’s covenantal promise to love us forever and always, no matter what. And it was beautiful!
The family was gathered at Mom and Dad’s house (will we ever call it anything other than that?), and a rainbow blazed across the sky. As word of the rainbow spread we moved outside to take in the moment. We breathed it in for several minutes, and its beauty seemed to increase.
Mom? Is that you?
When I was a kid I used to draw rainbows. Pages and pages of rainbows. That was mostly because rainbows were the only thing I could draw. But I never thought to mention that detail for Mom, so she believed that rainbows were my new favorite thing. With enough excitement to spill over and make me excited too, she helped me decorate my room in rainbow wallpaper, rainbow pictures, …rainbow everything!
Five years ago (to the day!) Mom and I took a girls’ trip to North Carolina. She arranged for us to stay with her friend in her amazing vacation home. We had no particular agenda except to be together. Would we eat amazing food? Most definitely! Would we stay up late and talk? Oh, absolutely! Would we take a walk everyday? Of course!
Would we see God’s beauty? Yup!
On our last day in this gorgeous home with the breathtaking views, as we sat with our feet up, enjoying our vacation rest, God displayed his beauty. He was showing off.
See what I mean? Absolutely breathtaking.
So you can imagine that on the day of Mom’s memorial service, as we said “Goodbye for now,” that rainbow was significant.
It was a message from Heaven – a reminder.
“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.'”
Genesis 9:12-16 NIV
Rainbows sent by God are his reminder:
- Of his common grace for all humanity; to restrain his wrath and provide through rain and harvest
- Of his covenantal, one-way, always-and-forever love for his children
Imagine that the rainbow’s “bow” was holding an arrow. Where would that bow be pointing? In God’s covenantal love for us, the punishment is always only pointed at himself.
If you have trusted Christ for your salvation* God’s wrath isn’t merely “restrained for now,” it is poured out, used up, all gone. He spent every drop of wrath on Jesus, so that you could be left with all of God’s Fatherly love.
So that you and I can have eternity with him.
The rainbow on the day of Mom’s memorial service was God’s reminder of his promise that we would see her again.
Goodbye for now, Mom, but I’ll be seeing you.
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*You might be wondering what it means to “trust Christ for your salvation.” By that I mean, simply enough, that you have realized that you can’t earn God’s love on your own, and that you are – like the rest of us – in desperate need of another solution. Is there another way? Yes, Jesus took on our sins and suffered for them so that we can have the relationship with God he earned. To trust Christ is to believe this. See? Simple. (And it’ll take the rest of your life to try to understand it! A good church can help.)
