A Rainbow in the Desert
Have you ever felt lost, hopeless, and alone? I have, sometimes more often than I would like to admit. Perhaps we all have had times when we felt abandoned. Try to bring those feelings to the surface of your heart. For some of us, they may not live very far below the surface.
Usually, feelings of desperate aloneness come with loss, loss of a love or a loved one, loss of a support community, a job, or meaning in your life. Sometimes we know that sense of abandonment when we believe no one considers us to be essential or when we think we don’t matter.
In the first reading today, God made a promise, a covenant. God set a bow in the clouds to sign the covenant of faithfulness to his people. His promise to Noah and his descendants that God would be with them and he would never destroy the earth again. We all know the story of the ark. After the great flood, God promised Noah it would never happen again, and the rainbow in the sky sealed God’s promise.
We also know that rainbows don’t just happen. Rainbows happen when the sun shines through the rain. Ahh. God’s promise was not that our lives would always be filled with sun. He did not promise Moses (or us) that life would be filled only with joy, love, and understanding. In fact, He promised just the opposite. He promised tears and sadness. God promised our lives would be filled with irrepressible joy and debilitating heartache. God told us by His bow in the clouds that we cannot have one without the other. It takes both to know the fullness of His promise. It takes both to know the fullness of His love.
God’s promise sealed with a rainbow with Noah was never to destroy the earth again with a flood. God’s promise to us is that He will not abandon us, he will not leave us orphaned, he will be with us forever and for always. Through Moses, God sealed that promise with us with a bow in the clouds.
The Gospel tells us that Jesus went into the desert where he was tempted by Satan and ministered to by angels. There is such hope in this for us. Jesus, the very Son of God, one just like us, went out into the desert where he knew the draw of temptation and the comfort of the embrace by God.
Jesus experienced the lure of temptation, a sense of being alone, a lack of understanding, and deep-seated loneliness. The reading also says He was ministered to by angels. He knew hope, security, and the love of God in that desert too. In God’s own way, he gave Jesus a rainbow in the desert. Jesus knew temptation, pain, and comfort, and in the end, Jesus saw the promise of God. Jesus knew the fidelity of God. In the desert, Jesus found the heart of the mission His Father had given him, and he heard the promise of God, I will be with you always.
Jesus went out into that desert to find what God was calling Him to be and come into greater union with His Father. This Lent, we have an opportunity to go out into the desert if we dare. In the desert of our souls, we will find temptation, our failings, and our weaknesses. That is the frightening part. But if we dare, we will also find the love and comfort of God. He will allow us to know the ministering of His angels. The Angels of God will calm our fear, heal our brokenness, and dry the tears of loneliness that sometimes own us. God will plant a rainbow in our hearts, and we will know the promise of God that He will be with us always.
When we leave the desert of Lent, if we allow ourselves to, we will see more clearly the path God has in mind for us. As we place our feet on His way, we will be comforted by the promise that we will never be alone on our journey or in our mission. Every now and then, God will place a bow in the clouds. He will be reminding us of His fidelity to us on our journey.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
