The season of Lent begins with ashes, a symbolic smudge on the forehead to remind us of our mortality and of the frail, fleeting nature of human existence.

Likewise, the entire Lenten season has solemn, serious overtones, a time for intentional study, prayer, fasting, spiritual disciplines and the preparation of the soul for the approaching events of Holy Week.

But at the very start of Lent there is a considerably more cheering and inspiring message sent by this week’s Old Testament lesson. Instead of ashes and death we read of rainbows, earthly re-creation, and heavenly promises. The resurrection will be announced by an angelic messenger in dazzling white (Matthew 28:3), but the Lenten journey we take to reach that angelic whiteness is lit by all the prismatic colors of the rainbow.

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