Growing in Christ
general revelation
That is not what a star is
15 months ago
I’m in the process of revisiting The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. What a joy! One thing I’ve had in the back of my mind whilst reading has been the observation by Alan Jacobs (in The Narnian) that all of Lewis’s thought can be found in The Chronicles of Narnia. With this in mind, I was staggered by the power in Lewis’s view of the world expressed in this singular line about the nature of creation:
“In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.”
[Aslan:] “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.”
― The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Lewis jarred me here, and stirred me from a slumber with this line. It’s the climate of our age to define things by what they are. Atheistic materialism is the default mode of how we see the world around us – a star is a huge ball of burning gas :: a huge ball of burning gas is a star. Beyond the physics of the star, there’s nothing else to it. But Lewis jarringly pulls us back to Scripture by the mouth of Aslan.
[The Lord] determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
~ Psalm 147:4
Each and every star has a name – a name the Lord himself gave it. The stars of the heavens are named by God, which means, if anything, that they are more than merely huge balls of burning gas. They are named by God. Each and every star in the heavens has a name tag on it, given to it by God himself. Those stars constantly stroll the heavens calling us to speak the glories of God back to him.
I regularly frequent NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. This is one of their latest pictures, W5: Pillars of Star Formation. Take in the wonder of this star formation – it’s not mere gas. That’s what it’s made of, but that’s not what it is. If anything, it’s named by God himself. The Lord gave this star a name, and this star has joyfully radiated the praise of the Lord of Heaven since long before we saw it, and will continue to long into the future.
Don’t succumb to the drab, weary, bland world of our age that sees a star only as a ball of burning gas. Thoughts like that poison the heart and will rot out your affections, leaving you hollow – as Lewis would say, a man without a chest.
Rather, we should see each of these gargantuan, massive, named stars hanging nimbly upon the command of Christ to exist (Hebrews 1). The Jesus who names them and owns them, is the same Jesus who tenderly cares for us. The one who names the stars more intimately cares for us. Ultimately, the stars with their beautiful names call us to look to Jesus who is “the bright morning star” (Rev. 22:16 ESV).
Poem: The mountains skipped…
19 months ago
The mountains skipped like rams, and so did my back yard
The mountains skipped like rams,
The hills like lambs. ~ Psalm 114:4
These dry leaves,
This hanging tree,
Are all a stage
For the king.
He speaks and steps,
Takes a bow,
Possum rustles,
Cat meows.
Assumed and plain,
I rarely note,
These singing tremblings,
Do connote,
Jacob’s God, his
Presence near;
Joyful neighing is
Nature’s fear.
____________
I wrote this poem while being struck at the animation of creation at the procession of God’s glory in Psalm 114. It struck me that there is no real difference between the landscape surrounding Egypt and my own back yard. Should Jesus walk through my neighborhood, the bushes would sing for him and the hills would jump like lambs. But it further struck me that the psalm points to this reality constantly happening anyways. We live in a spoken world. We live in God’s theater. And my back yard – as plain as it is with dry, dead leaves and poking possums – is just as much his stage as any other place in nature.
This is an interesting planet
110 months ago
[I am reminded] of something I saw early one morning a few years ago, as I was walking up to the church. There was a young couple strolling along half a block ahead of me. The sun had come up brilliantly after a heavy rain, and the trees were glistening and very wet.
On some impulse, plain exuberance, I suppose, the fellow jumped up and caught hold of a branch, and a storm of luminous water came pouring down on the two of them, and they laughed and took off running, the girl sweeping water off her hair and her dress as if she were a little bit disgusted, but she wasn’t. It was a beautiful thing to see, like something from a myth. I don’t know why I thought of that now, except perhaps because it is easy to believe in such moments that water was made primarily for blessing, and only secondarily for growing vegetables or doing the wash. I wish I had paid more attention to it. My list of regrets may seem unusual, but who can know that they are, really. This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.
–Marilynne Robinson, Gilead: A Novel (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004), 27-8.
HT: Tolle Lege for the written quote.
Oh yea, that universe thing… He’s got that under control.
01 year ago
I’ve been thinking about Hebrews a lot lately. We’re going through Hebrews this year in the singles community, so I’ve been thinking about the book a bit in trying to draw from it in leading and caring for our college age community group.
This week, via a post by Tim Challies, I was prompted to think about this little phrase tucked away in the introductory lines of Hebrews:
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. ~ Hebrews 1:1-4
This is one of those throw away statements that puts a couple things in perspective. Is it not profoundly baffling to you that the entire universe is summed up into a little phrase, tucked into a paragraph emphasizing the even more important point, the purification of sins and the kingship of Christ? The entire universe, though staggering in majesty, is a desk weight on the podium declaring the glory of Christ in the Gospel!
So, just to drive this point home, here’s a little info graphic putting the universe into perspective. Just remember, this is, according to God, upheld by the power of Christ’s voice without any struggle or pain – in contrast to the struggle and pain that Christ did endure for the penalty of sin.
For a larger picture, visit Visualizing the Size and Scale of our Earth.
…and the stars
01 year ago
There are lots of throw-away phrases that we use to cover big things. “Oh, you know, we just met and now we’re married” covers over the all the dates, all the anticipation, all the planning, hard work, etc. that went into getting to where you are now.
The biggest throw-away phrase that I’ve ever seen is found in the very beginning of the Bible. We read in Moses’ account of creation this line:
And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ~ Genesis 1:16
Did you catch that. God made the great lights, the Sun and the Moon; oh, and the stars. Just the stars. You know, those trillions and trillions of starts… Yea, just those guys.
I was prompted to think about this reality this morning with the BBC reporting today on finding the largest starts ever seen before. God made these. Yea, those ol’ things. God made everything, and Jesus owns it all.
Here’s the video of these stars. Stand in amazement for “the sky above proclaims his handiwork… and night to night reveals knowledge” (Psalm 19:1-2) that Jesus Christ is King.
