God’s Promises in Living Color Genesis 9:8-17; Ephesians 3:14-21; Mark 6:45-56

Grace, mercy and peace to you, from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who colors our world with love.

Today we’re going to talk about God’s promises in living color, taken from our Old Testament, 8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you… “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  

A world only in black and white would be a less inspiring place, less reflective of the full glory of God. It would have more the appearance of death and dying, than life and living.

But a world created in color demonstrates and illustrates life, and so thanks be to God, He gave us a world in living color.

Earlier this month, my daughters and I took a brief trip to the Black Hills, and on the way there and the way back, we drove through the Badlands. Who has seen the Badlands?

It’s colored with a lot of brown, and with some green grass and sagebrush mixed in. But it’s also accented with streaks and layers of yellow and red soils in the bluffs. It’s a desolate place in some ways, but ruggedly beautiful, and surprisingly, teaming with life.

On the way home from the Hills, we stayed at Wall, and stopped in and ate at Wall Drug, and then we took a drive along the Badlands Rim Road before the sun set, and we saw all kinds of wildlife: antelope, big horn sheep, lots of prairie dogs, and a herd of probably 300 buffalo.

To all these creatures, and to you and to me and all humanity, God has made a promise not to ever again send a flood that drowns all the earth.   

And He holds Himself accountable to that promise with the reminder of the rainbow; colors in the sky to assure us that never again will He cleanse the earth with a great, global flood. 

According to this promise, the world will continue until the day Christ comes again, and He ends this world, and begins a new world for His faithful people to live and rejoice in. 

Last Sunday we talked about how God shepherds the Universe. This promise of the rainbow, this covenant of colors in the sky is a part of His shepherding.

The promise that God made to Noah with His voice, and that He had written down in His Word, He also painted into the sky for all to see and believe, a universal promise, pointing the world to His Son.

That’s what God does: He illustrates His words with earthly reality. 

Nowhere is this more true than when His Word became flesh and dwelt among us, as John says, full of grace and truth. 

God’s promise of salvation, His Gospel, His Word became living flesh and blood when His Son was born into the world to save us. All God has to say to the world is seen and heard in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Just as God showed His power and rule over nature by sending, and after 40 days and nights, ending, the global flood, so in today’s Gospel, Jesus shows His divine power over the laws of nature, as he walks on the water deep in the night, far out into the lake. 

The disciples were in their boat, rowing against a strong wind, but Jesus didn’t seem to be fazed by it as he walked along. Our text says he intended to pass them by and meet them on the other side, but then they saw Him, and thought he was a ghost, and were frightened.

So Jesus took a detour on the lake and walked over to the boat to calm and assure His disciples. Then He said to them, “Don’t be afraid; it’s just me. “ “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”  

And He got into the boat, and stilled the wind, and they crossed safely and quickly to the other side of the lake.

Jesus showed His disciples both His power and His compassion, and corrected their superstition. Likewise, when we see the rainbow we see the promise and power of God, and His mercy. 

And in the Great Flood we see His justice, as God destroyed an unbelieving world that had given itself over to evil.

But we also see His love for the world in sparing Noah and His family, so that the line of the Messiah would continue, and Jesus would come to save the world by something red, the first color of the rainbow, the color of blood, the blood of Christ poured from the cross to save the world God had spared from the flood, through Noah’s family and all His descendants, all the families of the earth. 

Had God not sent the flood, the line of the Messiah would have fallen into unbelief, and the Gospel would have been lost. 

So in cleansing the world with a great flood, God was preserving the Gospel, so that His Son could cleanse the world by His blood, saving and forgiving all who would repent and believe in Him.

Because of Him, our world continues in living color, ruled and shepherded by Christ our king of the universe, until it’s replaced with a world far more beautiful and glorious than this fallen world. 

The colors of Heaven will truly be something to behold. God’s faithful will dwell and delight in that bright and beautiful splendor forever.

But the reason Heaven will be beautiful is because it will be colored in pure and perfect love; it will be holy.

Revelation 7 tells us that people of all nations and tribes and races will rejoice and live together in perfect harmony, unified in heavenly love. Very different than this fallen world.

This world may be a beautifully colored place, but sin and strife take away its beauty; our sin makes this world an ugly place at times.

But in the Church, through the Gospel, sin is covered in Christ, and the beauty of godly love begins to change our world, colors it with joy, and illustrates it with kindness and love.

Here, inside this sacred place, we see the living colors, if you will, of the Gospel. 

When we see the greens, and reds and purples and blues in the windows, we’re seeing the story of salvation, and that makes these, in a sense, the colors of grace.

The colors and symbols and pictures and paraments and banners and vestments in this place illustrate God’s Word for us to believe in and live by. 

Last Sunday we said that at the center of the universe is Christ. By the power and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, God’s baptized children see everything through the Gospel, through Jesus and His death and resurrection for us. 

He’s our world view. We see the world, even it’s colors, through Him. Everything has its meaning and purpose through Him. That’s why it’s our mission to know Him and make Him known. He makes this world beautiful with His saving love.

That’s why Paul says in our Epistle,  14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family[in heaven and on earth is named, (we’re all made by Him, in His image) 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, (your soul) 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

What a beautiful and enriching prayer for the Church. To know the fullness and the beauty of Christ’s perfect love for the world; His love to change the world by faith to become a more beautiful and godly place, until it’s time is past, and we live in the colors and glory, and the joys and splendors of Heaven.

Until then let us color this world with godly love, through deeds of goodness and words of truth.

And as we do, God’s peace, which passes our understanding, will guard our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus our Lord.

20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.