Text: Genesis 9:8-17
Date: Pentecost IX (Proper 12) + 7/29/12
What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you see a rainbow? Judy Garland? Leprechauns and pots of gold? Gay pride parades? Just the scientific wonder of “Roy G. Biv,” the acronym for the rainbow colors of red-orange-yellow, green, blue-indigo and violet? Or do you think of a promise of God? In our day of increasing Biblical illiteracy fewer it would seem think, much less even know, of God’s promise concerning the rainbow in Genesis 9. In fact this scripture has never been included in the lectionary until Lutheran Service Book included it for this Sunday. That means I’ve never preached on this text! Yet even more important than God’s promise and covenant with His creation never again to destroy the earth by water, today’s Gospel proclaims how this same, fearful almighty God who controls the forces of the universe by the command of His Word, “who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea” (Job 9:8), has come to us as one of us, in human form, not to threaten or judge us but to save us. Today we proclaim that Jesus is this same almighty God of creation come to deliver us from sin, separation and death, to the eternal life of holiness and righteousness as God’s new creation. The short prayer in the Lutheran Study Bible asks, “O God, for Jesus’ sake, grant that every sighting of a rainbow may bring to mind Your promises of grace and mercy” (p. 29). Continue reading “Roy G Biv”