March 12, 2000

Pastor David G. Mullen

Mark 1:9-15

It's been a beautiful day in North Dakota, one of the best of the summer so far, and the kids have been playing outside all day under the porcelain blue sky from which the late spring sun has been beaming down warm blessings on the flowers gardens and green lawns. Around four a clock, the sky begins to darken in the west. It's one of those huge prairie thunderstorms that commonly develop later in the day, a tower monster of fury. The raging storm moves closer, takes over the sky, turning the world dark, and shocking the earth with lightning and window-rattling thunder. As the sheer wall of the storm passes over, a cold demon wind blasts across our town. Trees dance insanely, and garbage cans flee helter-skelter down alleys. My kids scream into the house just as the wild rain starts drumming on the roof. .

And then, as quickly as the storm came, the wind dies down, the rain lightens, the rivers the streets had become turn back into streets, and the western sky begins to clear allowing the sun to shine from the west onto the eastbound thunderhead. But now it is suddenly beautiful, like a huge mountain of ice cream, piled over the eastern hills.

In the fresh ozone scented serenity in our back yard robins are hopping around, cocking their heads to listen for their dinner in the lawn. The backdoor slams and they fly off as I hear my excited kids shout, "Daddy, Daddy!" I rush out to them, wondering what they've found÷we've all been both terrified and fascinated by the display of nature's power. "Look, Daddy, a huge rainbow!" Yes, there it is, this beauty, suspended in the rain in the eastern sky, this arc of colors called a rainbow. And then the inevitable question, "Daddy, what's a rainbow?"

What's the right answer? How would you answer my kids -- or yours? Well, we could say that there is pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and if we could just get there, we'd all be rich. But we all know you never could get there. We could go scientific and explain how the rain in the eastbound thunderstorm works something like a prism, refracting the light shining from the west into the various wavelengths of visible light of the spectrum that are a part of what we call sunlight. I don't know that they'd care much for that explanation or even know what we were talking about. Well, then, we could offer an answer from ancient times: My children, the rainbow is a sign of that God's everlasting love for us is bigger than any storm and greater than any scary thing that happens."

Somehow, I think that's the answer that, after the terrifying experience of the thunderstorm, would satisfy children's anxious hearts. And that's the one I gave them. For the human heart operates on deeper level than science. Science explains and helps us understand how the world works. But faith in the promises of God gives us the courage to live in the world as it is, even when, and maybe especially when, we don't understand it.

My favored explanation to my children, of course, came from Genesis nine. It is a promise Noah heard from God after the catastrophic flood (a flood so vast that many different peoples of the ancient Mid-Eastern world recorded it). "When I send clouds over the earth, and a rainbow appears in the sky, I will remember my promise to you and to all other living creatures. Never again will I let floodwaters destroy all life. The rainbow will be the sign of that promise."

We know, of course, that floods happen all the time and human life and other living creatures are destroyed. We must not lightly dismiss such things by saying it is God's will, or, offended at the possibility that God is responsible, turn our backs on faith. No, let us face the terrifying conditions of existence with faith in the love of God. I do not say this lightly. I know the horror that happen on earth. The tragedy in Mozambique must feel like a disaster thing of Noah-like proportions, and disasters like that -- and we know that such tragedies happen all over the world, year after year, century after century -- disasters like that need an answer of Biblical proportions. We need a sign from God that somehow, in the final analysis, we are going to be OK. Because if that's the case, then we will find the courage to go on.

Thus, in quaint, beautiful way, the rainbow is one such sign of promise: God's love for all creatures -- and for us -- will never fail.

This week in the news was a story of salvation, a parable of Christ, I'd say. Two grown men, one of them 230 pounds, were out testing out a canoe they'd been repairing. It overturned, and they were dumped into the cold winter water of the lake. On shore, just happening to be there and witnessing what was going on was an eleven-year-old girl and her mother. "Mom!" the daughter cried, "those men are drowning. We have to save them." But Mom, a bit devilish at this point, it seems to me, said, "No, we can't do that, we will drown too, we just have to call for help." But the girl didn't listen to her Mom's advice, and ran and jumped into the lake and managed to save both men, one of whom was close to hypothermia and death. In the face of overwhelming odds, a mere snip of an eleven-year old girl, managed to save two grown and now very grateful men. They are thanking God for that girl, little Chastity, who didn't listen to her mother who said it was too dangerous -- and who confessed that all this talk about her heroism was embarrassing!

Right after his baptism Mark's gospel shows us Jesus driven by the Holy Spirit into the dry desert where he met up with Satan, the arch-promoter of evil. Unlike Matthew and Luke's gospel, Mark's doesn't tell us what was going on between Satan and Jesus. I suggest it was this: like Chastity's mother, Satan hinted to Jesus that human sin was so vast and deep, he'd drown in it himself, instead saving us. But Jesus rejected Satan and believed instead in the promises of God. His Operation Save Humanity was going to succeed! The whole world ought to be thanking Christ for what he did.

Why? Because we're apt to be drowning in the cold waters of our own foolishness and misery. We need a Savior, we ought to cry out for divine help, but often we do not. Why? What's our problem? Fear! We are afraid that if we took full responsibility for our sin and acknowledged the truth about ourselves, we'd be destroyed. This is the deepest lie of smirking Satan -- when we or some one else is drowning in the flood of sin, terrified by the storms of failed existence, that he tempts us to believe that there is no hope for us.

Who are you going believe -- Satan, or God?

Around here we teach and believe that Jesus our Friend came into the world to rescue us. And if we cling to him as though our very lives depend on it, then we will be saved -- and safe, forever. Catechumens, God-seekers, and long-time church members: We need to keep things simple. We need, and in the Church are given, answers that satisfy the frightened heart of a child of God. Daddy, what's a rainbow? Daddy, what the Cross for? Well, my children, these are signs to us that God loves us more than all the hurts and scary things of life. Amen