March 9, 2003
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
After one of our good winter downpours and while the California sun is breaking up the accumulated gray clouds, you could see a spectacular rainbow arching from the Marin Headlands to across the Bay. The colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet bowed overhead.
Once in Hawaii, a woman saw 15 rainbows in one week. She said to her daughter, as they were leaving, “Don’t you wish we could have seen just one more?” Her 12-year old daughter responded with surprising maturity, “Mom, aren’t you a bit greedy? Don’t you think 15 is enough?”
The woman was ashamed. Built in all of us is greed. Too many of us like to store up for ourselves treasures on earth, where we hope that moth and rust won’t consume because we have stainless steel and where thieves won’t break in and steal because we have ADT security.
The human condition was so bad that God was sad that he made us in the first place. In Genesis 6:6, it said, “The Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” God was so exasperated with the human condition that he regrets even getting involved. It must have been pretty bad to move a God of love and compassion to a point where he was not only sorry he made us, but God wanted to eradicate our species from the face of the earth.
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. So Noah took to the ark to flee the wrath of God and the wickedness of mortals. The flood can be seen as simply the weeping of God—tears of God drowning the earth. After 40 days and nights later, God hung a rainbow in the sky as a covenant with us never to condemn the world again.
But almost immediately after God sends the sign of a rainbow and proclaims that this is a new covenant between God and humankind on the earth, we see in the next section of the Genesis that the human inclination of drunkenness, nakedness and anger returns. Things begin to go sour again. After the flood, the human condition remains unchanged. In some ways, human sinfulness is even worse than before.
God sees that humankind is hopeless. There is greed everywhere. Even with the rainbow hanging in the heavens, we still want more. We still think God doesn’t do enough for us. We think fifteen rainbows is not enough. Some of us come to worship and we get this feeling that God has let us down. We are usually stuck in this line of thinking that even with the knowledge of the love of Christ, we want more, more, and more!
Heard Him Crying
There’s a very human story that was written by Walter Wangerin about his son, Matthew. Now Matthew was one of these young people who, as soon as he learned to read, fell in love with comic books. And being good, well-meaning parents, Matthew’s parents limited his comic book intake. He could only have so many comic books per year, so he would read something of quality beside comic books. But one day, Matthew’s parents discovered hidden away in young Matthew’s room—stacks upon stacks of contraband comics. As they examined this find, they learned that they were all from the public library. They weren’t checked out; they were stolen. So Matthew’s parents gave him a lecture about honesty and stealing. Then they made him gather up all those comics and, with shame, take them back to the library and confess what he had done. They hoped and prayed that this was the end of the story.
But a year later they again discovered contraband comics in young Matthew’s room. This time they learned the books had been pilfered during a family vacation, at a convenience store down the road from their cabin—several states away. It wasn’t realistic for Matthew to return them from where he had stolen them, so they gave him a lecture and made him put all his comic books in a fire, one after another. Again the parents hoped and prayed that he had learned his lesson. But before too long, they again found stolen comic books in Matthew’s room.
His parents were desperate to find some way to get their message across. How could they stop his stealing? They chose the method that many would disagree with. Dad took Matthew to his study, giving him both the lecture and a serious spanking. Afterwards the father said, “You sit here in my chair in this study and you think about what will happen if you do not overcome this.” Then he went outside, closed the door of his study, leaned against the wall in the hallway, and he wept. He wept because of what his son had done. He wept because of what he had done. He wept out of fear for what the future might hold for this child of his.
Years later, when Matthew was an adult, he returned home and his mother and he reminisced about his childhood. Somehow or another, the story of the comic books came up. Matthew had grown up to be a normal and decent person; he wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t a thief. In the course of their conversation, Matthew’s mother asked him about the comic books and he said, “Well, you know after that time when Dad spanked me I never stole again.” She asked, “Was that because he spanked you?” And Matthew replied, “No, it was because after he left the room I heard Dad crying and I could never do that to him again.”
The story of the great flood is the story of God’s tears for the fallen, failing humanity. Anytime you or I fall into the failures, the sins, the misguided ways of life, God still weeps. When we hurt others or ourselves and God’s plan for us fails, God weeps.
God Changed
God is not angry with us but rather heart-broken. Noah and his descendants—the ones in God’s image, the ones who troubled God’s heart, the ones whose sin and evil persisted—are the ones who God still affirms.
God affirms us even when we haven’t changed. God loves us by changing himself. God pledges a dependable natural order that will never again be universally destroyed by floodwaters.
So God sets a rainbow in the sky not necessarily for us to enjoy its colorful beauty after a rainstorm; not necessarily to refresh our human memory. God sets a rainbow in the sky to jar God’s memory and God’s promise. God said,
“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 9:16)
What has changed even after the complete devastation of every living creature, the waters and the floods, was not humankind. We would think that after all of this devastation that we would have changed but we didn’t. What has changed is God.
God made a decision about the grief and trouble in his own heart. Even from this story of death and destruction, we are now assured that our relationship with God is not rooted in the anger and rejection of God. Our relationship with our creator God is no longer in a scheme of revenge. Because of the revolutionary change in the heart of God, God’s relationship with us is now based in unconditional grace.
The rainbow is the symbol of this divine commitment. Although it is shaped like an archer’s bow, it is an un-drawn bow. God is not in the rainbow to shoot us with an arrow. God is no longer after us as the enemy. God is determined to never again use this weapon of the floodwaters, no matter how rebellious God’s creatures become.
Lenten Gratitude
In this season of Lent, we invite you to renew your lives in the often, chaotic modern world in which we live. If you feel that you have made mistakes and finds it hard to accept the truth that God loves you then it’s time for you to see God’s rainbow.
If the world that you have known has changed because you may have lost a loved one or a good friend and life continues to look like a cloudy day, then it’s time for you to see God’s rainbow.
If you think your life is going nowhere, it’s time for you to see God’s rainbow. God’s rainbow promise is that he will never forsake us and abandon us again.
The truly amazing part of the story of Noah and the flood is that although God allowed the world to be destroyed, Noah was filling up the boat with our future. The Lord said,
“I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark,
you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every
living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark,
to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.” (Genesis 6:18-19)
We come to this Lenten season with gratitude, thanking God for what he has done out of his love for us and for the world. While we still would rather remain unchanged, God goes ahead and changes by putting away his grief and anger of us. He sets a rainbow to remind himself of his covenant pledge to us that the world will never again be destroyed.
During Lent, consider coming to worship with the expectation to come face to face with God through frequent and fervent prayer. Talk to God as you would talk to your friends. Share with God your troubles and pains and expect God to restore your soul.
During Lent, consider fasting as a way to conscientiously focus on God’s plan for your life instead of always having it your way. On Good Friday this year, we will invite you to abstain from eating for 12 hours before coming to the Good Friday service that night.
During Lent, consider giving to the church for the way you have been moved by the sacrificial giving of Christ. When we give to the poor and the needy, we realize that we can rely more on God’s abundance instead of our own efforts.
The greatest challenge for today’s American Christians is the willingness to trust God with our lives. We have so much resources, abilities, confidence, activities, and greed that we believe in human ingenuity over God’s power in the world.
The purpose of Lent is an invitation for you to change from your old ways to God’s ways. God has gone ahead and decided to change his heart toward us even when we remained unchanged in our own hearts. When we pray the prayers, study the Scriptures, fast the fast, and give our gifts, we say to God and ourselves that we want to change.
New Covenant
The same God who came back as a rainbow after the storm came again in Jesus. Jesus is the human version of the rainbow whose purpose is to call us to the joy of grateful discipleship with a changed heart.
When Jesus was crucified on Calvary at noon, darkness came over the whole land until three o’clock. In a loud voice, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” The curtain in the temple was torn in two. The earth shook, and the rocks split. The tombs were opened. It was like the storm clouds were about ready to send a downpour over the earth.
Early in the morning when the sun has risen on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and Mary went to the tomb and they found angels in dazzling clothes announcing to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.” (Matthew 28:5-6) It was like the sun has created a rainbow for the women to see.
Jesus Christ is the new covenant—the human version of the rainbow. It’s God’s promise that he will not destroy the world. God continues to change his heart toward us inviting us to change our hearts in response to him. God in Christ came into this world to take away our sins and made them his own so that we may have eternal life.
God of the Rainbow
A 3-year old girl was riding with her mother in the car when the child saw a rainbow for the first time. They had a panoramic view of the entire rainbow sparkling against the sky. Her older sister asked her, “Who do you think made that rainbow?” Without hesitation she responded, “God.” Then his sister asked, “How did he do that?” Replied the young girl, “Probably with his crayons.”
When you and I see rainbows, we know that God has hung them in the sky to remind us that he will never destroy the world again. But more importantly, we believe in our hearts that God hung rainbows in the sky to remind himself that nothing in this world that we could do could make God be so angry with us that will cause him to destroy us. God is using his own crayons to remind us that his merciful love surpasses all evil and sin that we can ever imagine we can do.
In Jesus Christ, God has revealed a new covenant of a rainbow in human form. Come to Christ and know that in the worse of storms, in the rainiest of seasons, in the cloudiest of days, Jesus Christ is with us. He will always forgive you for your sins.
Let us pray.
Gracious and loving Lord, thank you for the beautiful rainbow in Christ that you have made known in the world. Lead us to trust you with our lives and to seek after your will as we confess our greed, anger, self-righteousness, and pride. We pray with the hope of your promise of tender mercies and loving grace. In the name of our Lord, Christ Jesus we pray. Amen.