Rainbows have been a symbol of God’s promise to never again destroy the earth by flood long before they became associated with the LGBT movement. Last weekend, here in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, we enjoyed spectacular rainbows on both Saturday and Sunday … along with enduring a lot of wet, rainy, miserable weather. It got me thinking about rainbows.
God’s covenant with the earth
The rainbow is a sign of the covenant God made with all living things on the earth. You can read about it in the first half of Genesis 9. We call it ‘the Noahic covenant’ but it was really a promise of God to Noah and all living things on the earth – a promise that God would never again destroy the earth by flood.
Yet although the earth in Noah’s day had been cleansed of what sounds like chaos and wickedness involving not just humans but also the spirit world (read Genesis 6:1-8 if you’re game), it was still not purified. We can see that just by reading to the end of Genesis chapter 9. Right after the pronouncement of ‘the Noahic covenant’, we immediately spiral down to a written record of drunken behaviour, the dishonour of an elder, a curse, slavery and inequality in the world. Things are no better today, as a quick perusal of the daily news headlines attest. In 2 Peter 3:6-7, we read of another cleansing to come. Come soon, Lord Jesus, and set your world aright.
“Clothed in rainbows of living colour”
One of my favourite modern hymns, ‘Revelation Song’ (look it up and listen), contains the line ‘Clothed in rainbows of living colour’. The author of the song, Jennie Lee, took these words from Biblical descriptions of ‘the Son of Man’ as recorded in both Ezekiel 1:28 and Revelation 4:3. In both cases, the rainbow wasn’t exactly a bow. It was complete, with no ends, encircling the one who sits on the throne in heaven.
Now that’s something to meditate on. You can’t meditate for long while looking at a rainbow on earth, because they’re pretty transient. But you can imagine. Sit still, turn off the radio, close your eyes and just picture Jesus’ radiance which is so bright that is like pure sunlight refracted into its various parts. I did just that … and slipped into a delightful sleep, losing two hours of the afternoon. Perhaps give it a go sitting upright and with a timer set. You won’t regret it.
Insights from Chinese characters
As you know, I enjoy looking at the various parts that make up Chinese characters and gleaning gems of enriched understanding of them. But when I first came to the Chinese character for ‘rainbow’ – 彩虹 (caihong) – I was stumped. The first character 彩means ‘colourful’ and really just describes the actual word for rainbow – 虹 – so we shall only focus on 虹, the second character. It is made up of two pictographs – a worm or insect – 虫, and hard work – 工. Both parts sound somewhat like the Chinese word ‘hong’ for rainbow, though neither is quite the same. The character for ‘worm’ (虫) is pronounced ‘chong’ and that for ‘hard work’ (工)is pronounced is ‘gong’.
I wonder … I just wonder … whether the Chinese character for rainbow actually does contain a deep truth. God gave the rainbow as a sign of his covenant with the earth – with all living creatures on the earth. We read in Genesis 9:20 that Noah was ‘a man of the soil’ and that he ‘proceeded to plant a vineyard’. Could it just be that the Chinese character for rainbow – 虹 – actually reflects the role of those worms 虫and of man’s hard work 工 in managing the earth? God did, remember, make a covenant with all living things on earth, and he declared the rainbow a symbol of that. I don’t know that my explanation is right. If we could just go back to when Chinese characters were first written, over 5000 years ago, we could find out. If nothing else, I won’t forget how to write ‘rainbow’ in Chinese again.
Rainbows are a reminder of God’s covenant with the earth and provide us a fleeting glimpse of his glory. Yes, the rainbow symbol is used by some in our confused day and age to represent other matters too, but that’s only temporary. What is eternal is God’s sovereignty over this earth, his glory on the throne of heaven and his commitment to us. Wow.