Thursday in the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

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Gen 9:1ff. The rainbow, a perpetual sign of God’s covenant with Noah and the human race. Blood and life belong to God.

Mark 8:27ff. Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah; then he is reprimanded for rejecting the Passion prediction.

The Cross And The Rainbow

The two great signs of the covenant between God and the entire human race are the rainbow and the cross. And just as each spans the universe, so the covenant levels all men and women to an equal status with no favouritism in God’s eyes. We are invited to reflect on the glories and hopes of forming one human family and to realize the cost in sacrifice and sharing. The rainbow and the cross both symbolize God’s deep union with the human family. Each has a vertical and a horizontal span, and presumes some measure of purification, while offering a strong promise of joy and completion. The rainbow appears after the rain has cleansed the sky and is a herald of bright sunlight. In Genesis the rainbow announces the end of Noah’s flood and also gives a divine promise that such a flood will never again sweep the earth. Despite its lightsome beauty, the rainbow will not let us forget the devastating force of the flood, which is now seen as a purifying thing, washing the human race clean of its wickedness.

The same applies to the cross. No one can look at a cross, no matter how ornate it may be, without remembering the excruciating death of Jesus. Yet the cross is lifted high on our churches and is worn as the sign and emblem of our victory over sin and despair, for Jesus’ resurrection is the pledge of our own future life. Both cross and rainbow carry a message of universal salvation. They belong to the world and in fact come to our attention first from the secular sphere of life. The cross was the dreaded Roman form of execution; the rainbow is visible to every human eye, whatever the person’s religion may be.

On the cross, Jesus died naked; through the rainbow we look on a world washed clean and appearing in its naked beauty. The cross and the rainbow are beautiful and demanding, hopeful and distressing, dark/grim and open/fragile, deeply personal and fully universal. In their light we can truly answer Jesus’ question to the disciples, “Who do you say that l am?”

First Reading: Genesis 9:1-13

God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life. Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind. And you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it.”

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “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: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

Gospel: Mark 8:27-33

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

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