“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue…and dreams that you dare to dream really do come true….” Eva Cassidy’s lilting rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. As I close my eyes and listen, I imagine a beautiful rainbow filling the sky….I think I can even smell the sweet aroma of the earth after a refreshing rain. What is it about the rainbow? Sometimes dazzling…sometimes subtle…always delightful and amazing. Sometimes the appearance of a rainbow will make me reflect on the Biblical account of the first time anyone saw a rainbow. It was preceded by one of the darkest times in the history of man, a time when God grieved.

In Genesis 6: 5-6, we read about God’s broken heart….”The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that He made man on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain.” Creator God had kneeled on the ground and fashioned man with His own hands, and now His own creation was breaking His heart. But “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (v. 8). We are all familiar with the story. God destroyed the earth with a flood. Only Noah and those with him in the ark remained alive, including birds and beasts and pairs of creatures, representing all of the animal kingdom at that time. When the waters subsided, God told Noah, “Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth” (8:17). “So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (9:1). God had been grieved that He had made man…His heart was filled with pain…but His mercy endures forever! He made a covenant with Noah, a covenant for all who would live after him, including you and me. “Thus I establish My covenant with you. Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth” (Genesis 9:11) (NKJ). “And God said, This is the sign of the covenant….I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant….”(Gen. 9:12-16) (NIV) I grew up thinking this was the time when the rainbow was created. We probably taught our children the same thing. But reading the scripture more thoughtfully, an astounding truth has filled me with awe. God told Noah that He would set His rainbow in the clouds….it was His! It already existed, and it belonged to God! And where was it? Ezekiel 1:26-28 gives a vision of God’s throne…”Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around Him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.” Revelation 4 gives another breathtaking vision of God’s throne, and “a rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne” (Rev. 4:3). A rainbow encircles the very throne of God! Hebrews 4, verse 16 refers to God’s throne as the “throne of grace.” What more perfect sign could God have given to Noah? In the rainbow, God gives us a glimpse of His glorious throne, a picture of mercy that truly reaches to the heavens. And dreams that we dare to dream….more than we could ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20)…really do come true!