3 June 2013. After living in León for
five months with barely any precipitation, it has finally begun to rain
hard. Just a few nights ago we were enjoying
dinner with a couple friends in our neighborhood Mexican restaurant. Can you imagine the temptation of living less
than a block from your favorite Mexican restaurant and less than 2 blocks from your
favorite pizza restaurant? We have
become regulars. But back to the
rain. It began with bangs of thunder and
within seconds it wasn’t just rain, it was a cloudburst. For a few minutes the sound of the rain
hitting the roof was so loud we had to shout to be heard. As the rain continued, we relaxed, enjoying
the fresh scent and the instant coolness brought by the rain while we waited
for a break in the cloudburst so we could walk home.
When that break finally
came, we made a dash for home. But when
we got out on the sidewalk we could see the streets were filled and gushing with
water. It could have been a delight to
wade into it, but all I could imagine was how dirty it was. The torrent was carrying away all the city’s
accumulated dirt, litter, filth and, well, let me just say the leftovers from all
those cart-pulling horses that use those same streets every day. I was actually fearful of what might
contaminate me if I stepped in the water.
But we were committed,
and when we found the spots where the water flowed the shallowest, we waded in
and crossed over the streets. In a
minute we were home, refreshed from the rain and the adventure.
I’ve been thinking
about that. It struck me how the
cloudburst and the rush of water was like the grace of God that rains from
heaven. About how there is so much grace
gushing out that it is sufficient to wash away all of the accumulated trash,
filth, and decaying things of a whole city—even the whole world. And when the city has been washed clean, it
is freshened by that very same grace and prepared to sprout new grass and
leaves, to become verdant, to produce new life in abundance.
In our church baptism,
a symbolic outpouring of God’s grace, is done with a sprinkling of water. But the next time I see a baptism, I will be
thinking of this cloudburst. How the
water gushed in such abundance that washed away the entire accumulation of filthy
stuff and left the city not just clean, but also renewed and ready to spring
forth in abundance. That’s an image
of God’s grace that I will remember.
