Cloudburst

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.