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Symbols of Hope

I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh... God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.’ Genesis 9.13-15 & 17 (www.biblegateway.com NRSVA)

On our daily walk today we began to notice pictures of rainbows in many of the windows. It was a children's project, promoted by a neighbourhood Facebook page. The idea was to encourage children to create and display a symbol of hope. One child had even painted a rainbow on the window itself. Another had written in paint the legend, 'After the rain, the rainbow.'
How fitting it seemed that the moderators of the Facebook page had chosen a Biblical symbol. The rainbow belongs in the story of Noah's Ark where God promises that, no matter how bad the deluge might become, it will never have the last word. It will never 'destroy all flesh.' That might seem a fairly muted promise. God doesn't say there will never be another deluge, only that it won’t be all-consuming.
The German theologian Jurgen Moltmann, now in his 90s, become famous for a book he published in 1967 called 'The Theology of Hope', in which he tried to find 'authentic hope for the future by restoring to the Christian message a strong emphasis on God’s eternal “yes”.' In his book Moltmann spoke of the dangers of our time: the poison of hatred ; the rising new nationalism; nuclear rearmament and the possibility of a nuclear suicide of the world; and, of course, the impending ecological catastrophe. 'It is too late for pessimism,' he wrote. 'We must act as if the future depended on us, and trust that our children will survive.'
Moltmann writes about not being interested in asking how a good and loving God could allow evil to happen, because another question seemed  far more essential. As a young soldier he was present in Hamburg when the city was bombed so heavily that it was engulfed in a huge fire storm which burned for days. His friend died when a bomb landed close to them. He survived, and found himself wondering, 'Was God present in the inferno of those burning nights, or was he untouched by them, in the heaven of a complacent blessedness? Where is God?' he wondered, when things go terribly wrong?
That is why, he wrote, 'my... interest shifted from the resurrection of the crucified Christ, and the horizon of hope which it throws open, to the cross of the risen Christ and... his experience of absolute death.' His book 'The Crucified God' became the other side of the story which he had told in ‘The Theology of Hope'.
Inspired by the rainbow pictures, I wondered whether we could encourage people to paint pictures of the cross and the empty tomb to display on Good Friday and Easter Day. The rainbow, the cross and the resurrection - three different symbols of hope.

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