If you have a half decent taste in music you will totally love Radiohead. If you don’t like them you are either deaf or have no discernable taste at all.
That’s a fact.
Their last album was called In Rainbows and I’ve been listening to it a bit recently. I remember seeing them at an outdoor show in Dublin shortly after the record was released and as if the band had arranged it as part of their stage show, a huge double rainbow appeared in the sky above our heads.
It was….well just perfect.
Listening to the album recently and having started to read through the Bible from start to finish this year, rainbows have been in my thoughts quite a bit recently.
I think I often overlook the significance of the rainbow in the story of Noah. It’s a nice thing to put in kids’ Christian books or on creche walls but since I’m not a kid anymore (physically at least) I usually forget what the rainbow is about.
You see God had just pretty much wiped out his entire creation with a massive flood. He decided to wipe away everything. All that stuff about it being ‘good’ didn’t stop him from almost completely starting from scratch.
All that was left was Noah, his family and quite a lot of animals (and let’s not even think about the amount of animal crap there must have been).
But after the flood was over and it was safe to come out, God sent a rainbow to show Noah that he loved him and was happy with him and that he would promise to never do something like that again.
In Genesis 9 11 -13 God says,
And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of the flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations. 13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
You see this is significant for us because we are included in the perpetual generations. The covenant wasn’t just for Noah, it was for you and I.
The rainbow means that even if we mess up with porn or relationships or with our lives, God won’t abandon us. He won’t leave us. In fact the rainbow is just as much a reminder for him as it is us. It’s not just that we shouldn’t forget God. It’s that God doesn’t forget us.
Isn’t it weird that rainbows appears to us when it rains, when it’s gloomy? There’s a ray of sunlight fighting through into the ugliness and a rainbow appears and we get a sense of hope. It’s like God is trying to tell us something. That despite the pain and the addiction there is hope that he promises he will fulfill.
When your read on what is the first thing that Noah does after God makes the promise to him?
Of course, he gets so drunk out of his head he ends up lying naked on the ground. He is so out of it, he doesn’t even remember his sons covering him up.
What is the next thing Genesis tells us?
Well we get subjected to one of the first times in the Bible where we get one of those boring long list of names to pass over.
But if we pass over them we miss something huge. We miss that despite all that God has done for Noah, despite saving his life, despite the fact he made a promise to never forget his people again, sin still comes into play. Noah messes up. And if we miss this then we miss that those lists of names, is God fulfilling his promise to be with his people. To be with the perpetual generations of his people.
Despite Noah’s sin.
Despite our sin.
Because of God’s promise.
I think we need to take more notice of the rainbows in our life. Those people and things that give us hope that there is a life for us outside of porn. That there is a God who loves us unconditionally whether you are in the porn business or you are someone you consumes it.
God wants you to live a lust and porn free life. God wants to fill that hurt and pain that causes us to look at porn. His rainbow proves that.
Maybe if we just look to the sky sometimes, we might just see His colours.