April Showers Bring Rainbows

Happy April! I find that this time of year is when we all get hopeful--we begin to see some tulips and daffodils popping up, the sun is out a bit more, and we all get the itch to go outside and feel some fresh air. April really is a great month to feel hopeful for spring and summertime. As we all know, however, spring can be deceiving, and April rain showers are just something we have all come to accept. While the rain can pitter patter down on our hopes to get outside, April's magic of sunshine and water come together to light up the sky time and time again in majestic rainbows. With spring arriving here in Ohio, just this week we have seen rain, snow, sunshine, and wind. It has been a whirlwind of a week, but I never fail to look outside whenever a rainstorm comes through in hopes of finding another rainbow hiding in the clouds. It just makes sense that rainbows really start appearing in April, as they fall right into our category of hopefulness this month. Even the rain brings the possibility that something beautiful can come from it.

Maui, Hawaii 2021, Personal photo

Ah yes, rainbows--they are bright, colorful, and full of symbolism. In today's culture, rainbows have been associated with numerous different things. The most common is that the rainbow has been adopted as the international representation of gay pride. The LGBTQ+ community's entire flag is a rainbow to display their beliefs that gender, and sexuality are spectrums. The rainbow has also been used to represent people with developmental disabilities, representing how they are on a spectrum of unique, neurodiverse communities. While the symbolism for rainbows can be seen everywhere in modern culture, beyond those mentioned above, I find it a bit sad that the rainbow's true meaning is often lost on people. And so today's focus is on that true meaning, outside of societal adaptations and organizations shifting it to mean something else.

This brings me to the core of this writing. I have flipped my Bible open to Genesis 9:8 to reread God's promise to Noah and the rest of mankind after the flood. It goes as follows: Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth" (Genesis 9:8-11). Here, God is vowing to never again demolish the Earth and those living on it.

It continues: And God said "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth (Genesis 9:12-16).

Tennessee, 2020, Personal photo

I love this passage from the Bible. I love it for many reasons, but one of them is that God directly places Himself in your life. He is telling you that every single time you see a rainbow in the sky, God is thinking about you, His promise He made to you, and that He is with you. The way that you look at a rainbow and think about its beauty, God is also looking at the rainbow and remembering the beauty of His creations, despite our ugly sins. And just as God can find beauty in us and in our sinful world, we have the ability to carry that concept into our own perspective and see the best in this world as well. We can use this example as a way to look beyond someone's situation, their current or past sins, their status, their image, etc. We have the power, through God, to focus on the greatest and most valuable characteristics in people and to see their worth and value. The concept of using the spectrum of colors seen in the rainbow as a way to represent diversity is not new, but when we look at it through God's lens, we can see the distinct colors as the unique gifts He has given to all of us and how those gifts can shine brighter than any storm that has passed through our lives or someone else's. Often our gifts actually shine brighter right after a storm in our life, just like a rainbow.

Another reason that this passage is so special is that the Bible does not wait to apply itself to your daily life. Here we are freshly into the Bible, only the ninth chapter into the first book and God places Himself into your experiences, reminds you that He was with Noah and He is with you. How special are you, am I, are we, to be considered important enough to keep a promise to? That He loves us so much that we are reminded of this promise every time there is a rainbow? I find this not only powerful, but inspiring as well. We are connected to God just as much as Noah and his family was, regardless of the societal, cultural, spatial, and relational differences from their time in history and ours. The communication methods that God used with the people described in the Bible can be difficult to relate to and understand in modern day, but this example in the Bible, of the rainbow, is no different today than when it was first presented to Noah and his family. The relationship between God and the rainbow and us and the rainbow is the same as it was when it was said and when it was written. Its symbolism stays constant through time and space. This holds such great power that seeing a rainbow in the clouds today connects us to that moment when God made His promise to the world. We have the chance to remember that specific instant, just as God does. Therefore, it can come as peace to us to know that as we remember, God is doing the same thing at the same time. We, God and us, all can remember together, which directly connects us with our gracious Lord. I think finding ways to directly connect with God can sometimes be mysterious and confusing, which is why I appreciate the way that the rainbow serves as a bridge linking us to Him.

The symbolism of the rainbow is vast and beautiful, just as the rainbow itself. And while modern culture has tried to adapt this symbolism to fit various positions in the world, the promise of God to never again destroy the creatures of the earth is the one and only true meaning of the rainbow in the clouds. It holds so much love, historical weight, and kindness. I hope that when you look at a rainbow now, we both can think of God and rest easy knowing He is thinking of us and the promise He made to us. We can see the rainbow as a gentle reminder to find beauty in the ugliest places and that His promise is just as strong and powerful as it was when He first said it.