A Rainbow in the Desert
Have you ever felt lost, hopeless, and alone? I have, sometimes more often than I would like to admit. 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 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. We all know the story of the ark. After the great flood, God promised Noah He would not destroy the earth again. A rainbow 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. God did not promise Noah(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 told us through a rainbow, 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 experience the fullness of His love.
A rainbow sealed God’s promise to Noah. God would never destroy the earth again. God promises He will not abandon us or leave us orphaned. He will be with us forever and for always. Through Noah, God sealed His promise 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 both the draw of temptation and the comfort of God’s embrace.
Jesus experienced the lure of temptation, a lack of understanding, and deep-seated loneliness. The reading also says Jesus was ministered to by angels. He also knew hope, security, and God’s love in the desert. 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 can go out into the desert if we dare. In the desert of our souls, we will find temptation, our failings, heartaches, and weakness. That is the frightening part. But if we dare, we will also know the love and comfort of God. He will allow us to feel 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 an eternal rainbow in our hearts. Like Jesus, we can know God’s promise that He will be with us always.
When we leave the desert of Lent, if we allow ourselves to, we will see God’s path more clearly. As we place our feet on His way, we will be comforted by the promise that we will never be alone on our journey. Now and then, God will place a bow in the clouds. His rainbow will remind us of His fidelity to us on our journey.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
