“This is the sign that I am giving for all ages to come, of the covenant between me and you and every living creature with you: I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” (from GN 9: 1-13)
Those who have lost loved ones can probably relate to the discovery of events or things that when encountered remind you intensely of your loved ones. The rainbow is precisely that for me with regards to my mother. From the first time the association was made in Montana last year, while driving back into Glacier National Park, to the numerous times I have quite unexpectedly come across them since then, the mysterious and intense infusion of joy and sorrow that I experience in the encounters tells me something that I cannot express about the abysmal depth of God’s love for not just my mother and me, but for everyone. The rainbow that stretches across a storm-struck sky is truly the quintessential sign of Love’s constant and colorful presence in hope and trust. The paradox of eternity and diversity painted by the Light of God’s hand serves to remind me of Love’s surprising patterns.
In today’s scripture readings, we close out the story of Noah and the Flood with the important covenant that God made with Noah and his progeny, and indeed with all creation. One of the promises that God made in the covenant was that never again would a flood devastate the earth. It was a promise of undying and loving protection. It sounds very “nice” in some respects, but it seems clear that we cannot take it literally. There have been many devastations over the years that, although not having completely destroyed the world, have been devastating to say the least (floods, earthquakes, plagues, etc.) And that’s only mentioning the ones that we cannot necessarily directly associate with human behavior. There is another long list of those that we have done to ourselves (genocide, environmental disasters, torture, racism, war, etc.)
It seems that perhaps the Genesis account of this covenant is trying to tell us more about God’s unfailing presence that we can count upon in any and all experiences we may encounter in this life, rather than a promise that we will be free from suffering and death. God is repeating the same Goodness that was present in Creation, now focusing it into a relationship between God and humanity, God and all creation.
In Mark’s Gospel (MK 8: 27-33), we have a clarification of this covenant of God with all creation, and it comes in the form of a question that Jesus poses to his disciples:
‘ “Who do people say that I am?” They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah,still others one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply,”You are the Christ.”
Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.’
So, here is a moment when the disciples really seem to get it, especially Peter. In identifying Jesus as the Christ, Peter is confessing what the Church would later call the Incarnation, i.e., that Jesus the Christ is the human enfleshment of God in the history of humankind. The Christ present from beyond time and space, who participated in the creation of the universe and world, is now a historical person, who “redeems” the world and all creation. Kudos for Peter! He is embracing, so it seems, the continuation of the covenant that God made with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and on down the line, to now the very son of God – the God-Human.
But this “getting it” doesn’t seem to last long in the Gospel story for Peter. When Jesus begins speaking about how “the Son of Man must “suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days,” Peter pulls Jesus aside and rebukes him. And then, Jesus in turn rebukes Peter:
“Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
Completely misunderstanding WHO Jesus is, Peter is “seeing” things as humans do, and not God, by mistaking the fullness of Life and Love that Jesus is “promising” in redemption as a pass to “get out of suffering and death.” It’s just too much for Peter to hear Jesus immediately connect being the Christ with rejection, suffering, death, AND resurrection. He doesn’t seem to understand that the New Life can only come through the curious pattern that Love seems to have in life – suffering, death, and resurrection.
On face value the most popular quote of the 14th century mystic and theologian, Julian of Norwich, seems to be expressing Peter’s mistaken notion of Life in Christ:
“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Rather than a sugar-coated blindness to the reality of life and how it comes to us in sometimes very painful ways, Julian is actually embracing the covenant that God has with all of creation – the undying presence in Love that God provides us in the persons of the Trinity at all times. Another quote from Julian seems to clarify this:
“He said not ‘Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased’; but he said, ‘Thou shalt not be overcome.”
“Thou shalt not be overcome” sounds very much like that rainbow in the sky after the storm. We are not spared the storm and all of its suffering and travails. We are not immune in this life to pain and rejection. For some unknown reason, at least to me, Life is just that way. Now, what we do have is the gift of the Christ, the pattern of Love, which gives us a way “through” life, including suffering and death, and into New Life! Yes, Jesus is the Christ, the way through and into Life, not evasive of it.
This pattern of Love in the Life of God in the Trinity IS our life when we trust that we “shalt not be overcome,” because Love (God) cannot be overcome! Then we can truly live, alongside all our loved ones, in Love’s constant bow, always vibrantly present within the diverse and divine colors of hope and trust!
Peace
Thomas
The soul is the delicate yet durable cloth woven and laced together in loving pattern by the merciful strokes of God’s Passings…
And the sheen of our soul is the ever-glowing awareness we have of this sacred-stitched fabric.