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Pastor Tom Johnson, June 4, 2023
I hope you have seen the wonder of the night sky. City lights make it hard to see. Sunken Meadow, Robert Moses, and Montauk Point are great places to go. There is a lot less light pollution. Remote places like northern Maine are even better. Psalm 8 is written by a contemplative stargazer. He steps out into the deep darkness. The sky lights up—the moon, stars, wandering planets, shooting stars (meteorites), comets, breathtaking sunrise and sunsets. He is awestruck. “O YHWH, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
Scientists have some mind-blowing theories: that something—Someone—we know it was God—ignited the Big Bang 13 billion years ago. Billions of galaxies were formed. Each galaxy has billions of stars. …and here we are on one planet, orbiting around one star we call the sun in a galaxy called the Milky Way. They believe the universe is expanding and it takes light 13 billion years to go from one part of the universe to the other. They make baffling discoveries all the time. The universe is not just expanding at vast speeds but accelerating.
Last year, the largest telescope ever made was sent into space one million miles away from the earth. They had a long list of what they want to take pictures of. They also playfully pointed the telescope at a random place in the dark sky. One scientist described what they did: if you were to put a grain of sand on the end of your finger and extend it all the way out toward the night sky. That is how small of a random area they chose is. They expected it to be empty space—nothingness. Instead, just in that one picture alone they did not see just a few stars but thousands of galaxies—the light of some galaxies looked warped because as their light passed other galaxies, their gravity bent the light. As a result, they are now questioning the size and age of the universe. They once said that there are billions of galaxies. They now are estimating trillions of galaxies—three more zeros. The human mind cannot fathom such numbers. “O YHWH, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
So the stargazer of our Scripture from Psalm 8 says, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, what are mere mortals—what is humanity that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should care for them?” It does not take a telescope for us to realize that, in the vastness of creation, we humans are but a speck on the earth. The earth is a speck orbiting the sun. The sun is a speck in our galaxy. And our galaxy is a speck in the universe.
I wonder if this stargazer was pondering creation—bringing to mind God’s wonderful sense of humor from our reading in Genesis. Almost every religion of the day considered the stars and planets to be lower case “g” gods. Our reading says, “he made the stars also.” Everything you see is God’s handiwork. The universe is so small compared to God that it says he made it with his fingers. What is the Big Bang for us is just the wiggle of his anthropomorphic fingers. So who are we mere mortals—flesh and blood that he would even have us in mind? How can he be both Supreme Being and Heavenly Father?
How futile is it to search for our significance in this world? If we don’t see the world through God’s eyes, our small, blue planet is negligible in the vast scheme of the universe. Our little lives should not matter at all. We’ll never find significance in this world. In our search for significance and meaning apart from Christ, we will compete with one another needlessly for attention. In so doing, we push others out of the way and step on them—all because of our limited vision of God and the universe.
I wonder if this stargazer was thinking about God’s promise to make Abraham a great nation and to bless all the families of the earth—bringing to mind God’s wonderful sense of humor when he says to Abraham, “Count the stars—if you can—so shall your descendants be.” So we find our identity, our security, and meaning of life not in ourselves—or even in the vastness of the universe—but in God the Father who created us, God the Son who redeems us, and God the Holy Spirit who spiritual molds and shapes us.
God intimately knows us just as he has named all the trillions upon trillions of stars. His thoughts toward us—how vast is the sum of them—more than the sand of the sea. You and I are each fearfully and wonderfully made—knit together by the fingers of God and he says, “It is very good.” You are the apple of his eye. Each of us has God’s vast attentiveness and vast love. There is nothing more mind-blowing than the Creator of the universe deeply interested in every aspect of our individual lives, our growth as human beings, and as royal children of God. There is nothing more mind-blowing than sending his Son into our world to take on our humanity—a little lower than the angels—to share our suffering and bear our sin—to take all the bad to the Cross, die, and rise victoriously from the dead—so that we know who we are and whose we are. There is nothing more mind-blowing than the Holy Spirit strengthening us, helping us to begin to comprehend “the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses human understanding” (Ephesians 3:18,19)—the vastness of the heart of God for all creation, you, and me.
“O YHWH, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the words thy hand hath made,
I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,
Thy pow’r throughout the universe displayed;
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee,
How great thou art! How great thou art!
(“How Great Thou Art” (LBW 532 v. 1)
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