True Colors

A friend of mine invited me to participate on her Advent Blog. Some of the scriptures started rolling around in my head and this is what happened when the rolling around turned into words. I hope you'll enjoy it. I also hope you'll visit ...make the rougher places plain. Advent Reflections.

True Colors

I keep thinking about this idea of rainbows, and the promise they contain. The inherent, “I love you too much to ever want to be separated from you again.” And, like a pendant around the earth’s neck, a rainbow was gifted to us, to remind us of the promise.

But the promise doesn’t seem enough sometimes. It feels too vague. I want something more tangible than a rainbow.

Then today, I opened an e-mail. It was a Christmas greeting with a link to a YouTube video. It’s one of those flash mob things. A group of unsuspecting food court diners surprised when their fellow diners “randomly” pop up and start singing the Hallelujah chorus.

It starts out with one woman standing, cell phone to ear, singing full-voice, “Hallelujah, Hallelujah…” and then a guy stands on top of his table to belt out the next hallelujah’s. Soon the entire food court is filled with the simple message, "praise God, our Lord reigns, and always will."

It made me think about some rag-tag shepherds, ordinary keepers of the sheep, weary, bleary-eyed from the things they had to do. And then one crisp night (probably) the skies open, angels descend, and the heavens are filled with a simple message, "God is here among you." And one-by-one, the first humans to witness this event go home and share their hallelujah experience.

If the woman who started the Hallelujah chorus started singing and no one else joined her (I say this knowing it was planned) she would have gotten a few stares. Some might have enjoyed it. And who knows? Someone else might have joined her. It would have been pleasant, the truth would still be the same, but it wouldn’t have the same impact.

If a lone shepherd had heard a lone angel, he might have gone back and told some people about it. They might have believed him or not. And who knows? Maybe another shepherd would start telling others about Frank-the-Shepherd’s Hallelujah experience, too. The truth would have been the same but the impact would be different.

So then I got to thinking about the rainbow again. I don’t normally think about rainbows at Christmas, especially in northern Indiana, but because of the text- I started looking for rainbows. I found one on my mantle. Little globes of red, gold, green, and blue twinkling back at me.



Ha. I thought. A rainbow. All alone, a single colored bulb isn’t much. It barely makes a dent in the darkness. But together? They’re beautiful, but vague, no? Hard to pinpoint the details of the promise.

The promise might not come to us full spectrum, but it comes in pieces. Divided into individual colors, each bulb does its part to remind us of some part of the promise.

I think that’s kind of how it works. We’re all different shades and different kinds of bulbs, but we all have a light. We all bring some part of the promise to another.

I can hold your hand and sit beside you on a dark night and remind you that you’re not alone. I can cheer you on at some fine hour in your life. I can remind you that you are loved so much that God can’t bear to be without you. It’s all part of the promise, tangible, specific, and personal.

I am cringing at the thought of quoting Mr. Phil Collins here, but a song of his comes to mind right now. And I’m hoping you will let your true color shine through; my rainbow (my promise) isn’t complete without you.