No Rain, No Rainbow: A Cry for Cultural Engagement

 

Genesis 9:13

 

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

 

I snapped this picture one-handed with my iPhone while driving 60 mph across the Susquehanna River Bridge. Don't recommend doing that unless one has to take a pic like this. My steering wheel was the shaky tripod.

 

The photo is hardly a true representation of the majestic sight. As I pulled over after crossing the bridge, I saw a complete rainbow from horizon to horizon, like a giant smile across the sky. I don't recall ever seeing the whole rainbow from end-to-end ever.  

 

The rainbow in the Bible is a sign to mankind of God's grace. Post-Noah, we can look to the rainbow and see the colors of God's compassion to humanity. The flood was judgment, the rainbow a promise of redemption. The river is a baptism of sorts into the reality of the brokenness of the world. I drive west daily to engage culture vocationally as a high school counselor. Contrary to the unfair characterization of school counselors as adjuncts, we play a critical role behind the scenes of helping teens cope and grow. It is a great job for someone who doesn't need credit.

 

When we speak of cultural engagement, it often becomes narrowly defined as entertainment or the political realm. The real life of day-to-day earning our daily bread seems to be left on the shelf to go stale from the lack of biblical reflection. Instead, our Christian cultural commentators tend to focus on the gyrations of Miley Cyrus (or whoever) or calling Obama Anti-Christ Lite. Really, is that all we have to say? Observations from the fringe or political battering ram, trying to break down the doors of secularism. Or, repel the onslaught.

 

What we forget is that we all live under the same rainbow, breathe the same air, and feel both the rains of sorrow and the sunshine of joy as the rest of humanity. We are so intent to prove that we are different and separated that we lose the one bridge we have to all, our common lot. There is humility in our humanity. The struggles we all go through. What is different is in how we respond to what happens to us and where we place our ultimate hope and identity. Not in the fool's gold of the world but in the pot of God that Jesus bought us for at a price. His own merit. That is where the rainbow leads. Not over somewhere but at the foot of the cross. I hope this doesn't sound cheesy or cliché.

 

We Christians sometimes specialize in cheesy and cliché. Unreality really. A make believe world that lacks authenticity.

 

I love the King James usage of the word token. A down payment of sorts in ancient days pointing to the redemption of the Cross where the sin saturated world was mediated and evaporated by the Sun of Righteousness.  Christianity offers a accurate picture of reality. It deals with the very real essence of evil and our hopes for escaping its contagion. We can't outrun our sin. We have to stop. Look at the sky and see that the rainbow of God's grace redeems the rain.

 

When we go to work, we need to continually reflect on how both the rain and sun derive their origin in God, and how we can be, in a way, a picture personification of that rainbow of redemption.