Introduction

One of the opportunities I have as the interim pastor at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., is to prepare a short column for a feature called “The Pastor’s Pen.” This installment appeared in the Beatrice Daily Sun on Thursday, July 8, 2010.

Scripture

“May my instruction soak in like the rain,
and my discourse permeate like the dew,
Like a downpour upon the grass,
like a shower upon the crops ….” (Deuteronomy 32:2, NAB)

Meditation

Maybe you can date yourself by remembering whose voice you hear in your mind’s ear when you recall the lyrics to “Rhythm of the Rain.” When you sing to yourself, “Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain / Telling me just what a fool I’ve been,” do you hear the Cascades from 1962 or Jacky Ward from 1978 or Dan Fogelberg from 1990? But no matter whose voice you hear, which era’s singer you recall, it’s easy to imagine listening to that rhythm as the rain falls, especially with the weather we’ve had the past several months.

For some of us, rain, at worst, inconveniences us. A passing shower means getting wet going from car to office. Sometimes the rains might mean the cookout gets moved to the garage. For others, though, the rain and the hail and the wind have poured out heartbreaking damage upon crops and brought challenging loss of livelihood. So it’s natural to want the rain to come conveniently, in just the right quantities in the right places at the right times. But listen! The falling rain tells us we are foolish to think we can control its coming and going.

Rain also speaks other messages and gives us other reminders. The Scriptures are full to the brim with references to rain and to water. That’s not surprising, given the arid climate of the lands where God’s people lived in the times recorded in the Bible. Look at one verse from Deuteronomy, which comes from a passage known as the Song of Moses. In this section, the leader who brought Israel out of bondage in Egypt, through the wilderness, and to the promised land, sings a song that is really a poetic sermon. He begins by asking God to make his words flow into the people’s lives like rain and dew, downpour and shower. He sings a kind of prayer asking God to drench his people, to soak them to the skin with the divine Word.

This is an image of blessing and abundant grace. God sends the showers of his instruction upon his people. He pours out his will upon them as inescapably as he sends the rains. As Christians, when we hear Moses’ words, we cannot help but be reminded of the waters of Holy Baptism. With this holy and life-giving water, God cleanses and renews us so that his instruction soaks into us like the rain.

So when the next storm blows in from the west and the next downpour falls upon us from the sky, the rains can remind us to give God thanks for his blessings and to wash our ears of faith so we may hear his instruction. In these ways, God refreshes us to live for his purposes. He permeates our lives like dew upon the ground, so that we may recall his blessings and give him thanks in all things.