The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD of hosts is his name: “If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the LORD, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.” (Jeremiah 31:34-36 ESV). Imagine taking a grain of rice and holding it at arm's length. It’s not too big from that point of view. Now go outside this evening and look near the Big Dipper for a spot about the same size as that rice grain you held earlier. Probably you will still not see too much. However, that same spot in question has intrigued astronomers because it appeared, for all practical purposes, to be devoid of stars and galaxies. In December 1995, the $6.9 billion US Hubble Space Telescope was aimed at this presumably empty patch. Over the next 10 days, Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera, the WFPC-2, snapped 342 images that later were digitally combined. In the resulting image, called the Hubble Deep Field, amazed astronomers counted 1,500 discernible galaxies or fragments of galaxies. This point in the sky, the size of a grain of rice held at arms length, yielded a mind-boggling 1,500 galaxies or fragments of galaxies and each galaxy contains thousands of stars (suns) light years apart, just like the Milky Way planet Earth is in! That little bit of information amazed me. Life can be just like that grain of rice held an arm’s length away from us. From our vantage point the rice of life may be so small but with a magnifying lens, we could photograph thousands of problems that are mind-boggling. Problems like stress, loneliness, isolation, and lack of self-esteem, chemical or sexual addiction. Even the barrage of the late-night TV news can discourage us. But that grain of rice can be the spice of life as well. Hidden beyond the clouds is an answer that has come to us in the form of Jesus Christ. He came to planet Earth to give us a new perspective on life. In His great love for us, Jesus died on the cross for our sins so that we can see the goodness of living, the sweetness of light and the value of virtue. So this evening as you look near the Big Dipper, you may not see 1,500 galaxies but you can enjoy the thought that God is still there, filling our lives with opportunities disguised so often in ordinary clothes.