It was rainy yesterday. The drizzle all day kind of rain, clouds so low they obscure the top half of the mountain that we can see from our window. The summer months are dry here and though we get a little rain during summer, the rain and snow is mostly concentrated between November and April. I can't remember another all day, rainy day like yesterday in the previous five months. When we've driven out of the city in the last few months, the land has been dry and scorched from the summer heat, with a slash of green across the landscape every now and then, as trees mark out the path of a river.
I used to think of rain as a negative thing. I knew in my head that plants need rain to grow but from my wet British perspective, I thought that a little more sun and a bit less rain wouldn't be a bad thing. It's a thought echoed in popular culture: don't rain on my parade, why does it always rain on me, here comes the rain again...
Now I live in a much drier country, I have a whole new perspective on rain. Nowadays farmers can very easily irrigate crops that aren't next to a river but the watered green fields next to yellow barren ground provide a stark reminder of just how necessary and life-giving rain is.
Living here has helped me read many Bible verses with a fresh perspective, including the ones about rain. There's too much to say on the theological significance of rain in the Bible for one blog post but rain is a recurring theme in the Bible. So this is a skim along the surface, a few quick thoughts that have been circulating around my head about the Lord who is the master of the water cycle, the one who covers the sky with clouds and commands the rain to fall (Psalm 147:8).
When the Almighty God declares that his thoughts are not our thoughts, that his plans and purposes are more drenched in compassion than we could ever imagine, that his love is as great as the heavens are high above the earth, he uses rain and snow as a picture to illustrate his point. Just as rain and snow fall from the clouds and cannot return to the sky without running through the ground and watering the soil, enabling plants to grow, so God's merciful drawing of his people to him cannot be thwarted (Isaiah 55:6-11).
The Lord is our shepherd who makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside quiet waters (Psalm 23:1-2). I've seen sheep here making do with the scraggly, brown grass. They look scraggly and thin themselves, not much like the fluffy sheep we're used to in the UK. But the Lord doesn't tell us to make do with the unappealing brown grass. He shows his care for us as he refreshes us with the choicest pastures and safest waters.
God "causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." (Matt 5:45) Jesus isn't saying here that sun = good, rain = bad so just as God sends good things to all people, bad things happen to all people too. Far from it! He's underlining our Father in heaven's merciful character by repeating his point in two different ways. Both the sun and the rain are evidence of God's common grace.
And waiting for rain gives us a picture of our lives right now. James gives us the example of a farmer patiently waiting for the seasonal rains, depending on the rain to water the waiting seeds and cause the crops to grow, as an encouragement to wait patiently for the Lord's return.
What exactly is it that we're meant to see in that patient farmer, looking day after day up at the sky for clouds to gather? James is not saying that a farmer hopes the rains will come but there's always the chance of a drought this year. He's using the year by year, decade by decade, century by century regularity of the seasons to make his point.
We can miss this too easily from a British context because rain is a reliable part of life all year round. Summer just hopefully means a little less rain! But both here and in Israel, there is a seasonal pattern to rain. The rain generally comes in the cooler months while in summer we can go for weeks without rain.
James explains the analogy when he writes that believers are to "be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near." (James 5:8) When the farmer has planted his seed and prepared the field, he can do no more. He needs that rain. Without rain, his crops will not grow and he will have no harvest, no food and no money. He cannot make it rain. But he trusts that the rain is coming, as it does every year. In the same way, we wait for the Lord's coming. We confidently live our lives with a firm and solid hope that Christ is coming again.
It's rained again here today, though not as much as yesterday and my children are asking to go out in the rain. As we stomp in puddles, I'll be reminding them that rain is a sign of God's mercy. That God is our caring shepherd. That God is our kind Father and every good thing that every person has comes from him. And that as sure as the seasons turn, Christ is coming again.
