On Monday 19th October, myself and fellow Faith in Action Volunteer Anna Pennant attended the monthly vigil outside the Home Office for all who have died seeking asylum in the UK in October 2025. The vigil followed liturgy, hymns, prayers, and a list of the people, names both known and unknown, who died. We placed roses in front of an icon of Jesus. He was portrayed behind barbed wire, an image of His own journey as a refugee, feeling from the tyranny of King Herod.
As I reflect on the experience, making notes in my bedroom, I can see the tip of a rainbow through window. It peaks out of the clouds and hovers just over the earth. Birds fly around it, the trees sway under it. The rest of the sky is grey.
In many ways the vigil was awful. A heart wrenching reminder that so many people in Gods world are treated with so little dignity. Individuals are brought to the extremes of desperation, risking everything for the chance of asylum. And for this, the UK system punishes them. The sky is grey.
But, when all was lost after the flood, God revealed hope in the rainbow. A glimmer of awesome beauty in the midst of tragedy. Through the rainbow, a beam of light exposing all of its colours, God established His covenant. The rainbow was a promise and a cause for hope.
It did not cover over the tragedy of the flood, ignoring the suffering that had occurred. God lamented the pain caused by mankind, and his ‘heart was deeply troubled’ (Genesis 6:6). Rather, the rainbow caused Noah to look up, to remember Gods promise not to abandon mankind but to seek its reconciliation to Him.
As I watch the rainbow outside my window, a glimpse of colour breaking out of the oppressive grey, I feel prompted to cling to that promise. To be drawn to its expression of light. The greatest fulfilment of light, of course, is in Jesus. The one who was glorified in unimaginable suffering. Our God faces the pain of His children, is close to the broken-hearted, and reaches out with a beautiful promise of reconciliation, even suffering Himself for it. Sometimes all we see is the edge of the rainbow, sometimes just the grey sky, but the promise endures, inspiring both faith and action.’
