Lord of All Creation

I've been listening to a series of lectures entitled, "Astronomy: Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe" and it's got me thinking about the size of things. It's hard to get a real feeling for how amazingly big the universe is. You've heard people talk about the Earth being 93 million miles from the Sun, the closes star, Proxima Centauri, being about 4 light-years away, and the closest galaxy, Andromeda (pictured here, courtesy of NASA Images), being 2.5 million light-years away. Maybe you don't remember the exact distances, but you've likely heard something like this before. The numbers have no real "feeling" to them. How far is a light-year anyway? It's hard to get a sense of the size from the numbers themselves. (1 light-year = about 6,000,000,000,000 miles)

The lecturer, Professor James Kaler (info here, or here), did something that helped a lot, and I thought it was worth some thought time.

The first steps along this path are some "local" sizes. The Sun is about 100 times the size of the Earth, and the distance from the Earth to the Sun is about 100 times the Sun's diameter. That means you could line up about 10,000 Earths between here and the Sun. Already this is a pretty big number to imagine!

Going further, imagine that the distance from the Earth to the Sun was one inch. On that basis, the Earth would be about a tenth of a micron, far too small to see, about the size of a large bacteria. Our solar system, out to the little rocks beyond Pluto, would be about six feet across. On this scale, the nearest star would be a little over four miles away. Beyond this, the numbers quickly get too big to absorb again. If the distance to the Sun is one inch, our galaxy, the Milky Way, is 100,000 miles across--half way to the moon. Our galaxy is one of billions that we can see and is unremarkable. Remember, this is a galaxy containing hundreds of billions of stars I just called unremarkable!

The universe is unbelievably large, staggeringly large, mind-numbingly large. It's B-I-G. Mankind is proud of the fact that we've gone all the way to the Moon, but that's about the diameter of a strand of a spider's web in our modified scale. Almost too small to see!

One of the things we tend to do as Christians is to underestimate God. We see him as a slightly larger version of ourselves, maybe without the little imperfections we have. But God is the creator of this stupefyingly large universe we've just been looking at! We make a serious error if we see God as just a "big person." We contemplate God, we argue about his existence, about the extent of his power, about his character. What we should be doing is standing in awe, unable to grasp his size, but yet overwhelmed by what we can grasp.

In Isaiah 55:9 God says, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

I should say so!

Children and Perspective

We had the grandkids over for a couple of days this past weekend, and I'm reminded again of the difference between my normal view of the world and theirs. Somehow the things that worry me are invisible to them. I don't have a lot of profound wisdom to share on the topic, but here are a few random observations:

• Right now is really all that matters. Regret about past sins or worries about tomorrow's problems doesn't mean much.
• The world is a generally interesting and amazing place with lots of cool things to do.
• Some of the really great things to do are completely made up in your head. No "stuff" needed.
• Some things are funny every time you do them, over and over again.
• Surprises are often fun.
• Making people laugh is something worth working at.

I don't know if much of this has anything to do with Jesus' assertion that "...the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." (Matthew 19:13-15).

Just thinkin'.

Laminin - Gimme a Break!

I threatened to write this post last week, but resisted fearing it would be just another rant. I can't resist it any longer so please don what ever flame-retardant materials you use while surfing.

As I was preparing for the lesson, I came across the suggestion to use this video by Louie Giglio. The reasoning was that it illustrated the point that we are sustained and supported by Jesus, the Living Water. The video describes a molecule called "laminin" that forms a major part of the supporting structure of our cells. It's sort of a "scaffold" on a molecular level. He then goes on, in dramatic fashion, to reveal the shape of the molecule. It looks like a cross. A quick Internet search will turn up dozens of links to this topic. This basic building block of our bodies is cross-shaped, and this is a sign of the divine in us because Jesus dies on a cross.

What a load of trash!

It's ideas like this that give Christians the reputation of being fanatical wackos. (Just check out the Wikipedia talk page for laminin.) There's nothing spiritually significant about the shape of a cross. It's not a magic shape. Attributing spiritual meaning to the fact that laminin is mildly cross-shaped is the same as concluding that waking up at 7:47 one morning means that God wants me to fly somewhere. We are very good at seeing patterns and reading meaning into them, even when there is no meaning.

I firmly believe that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and that we continue to exist from moment to moment because God actively wills us to exist. However, I don't think that a particular oddly-shaped molecule is a "message from God."

Deliverer

We've launched into a new series called "It's In The Name" that will take us through the names of Jesus. The first name we talked about was "Deliverer" and our discussion got me to thinking (of course). Most of what we talked about revolved around deliverance in a broad people-of-God kind of way. Being basically self-centered, I was thinking more personally about deliverance.

We talk a lot in the church about "getting saved," and I think most Christians have at least some idea what that means. We don't generally communicate it too well to the rest of the world, but after you've bounced around a bit in church you get a pretty good notion of what salvation is about. I wonder if we lose something in the process of getting comfortable with the idea. Of course, we're saved from sin. We say it so often using church-speak terminology that it loses its meaning and impact. (Here is a good example.) We get used to it like we get used to the heat in Texas. After a while it doesn't bother us as much. Sin, I mean. But sin is serious business and I need to be bothered by it a bit more than I am.

That's where Jesus the Deliverer comes in. Jesus delivers us from sin. Our sin. My sin. Me. That's really the bottom line I think. I need to be delivered from myself. When I'm left to do what I want to do I sin. It's in my nature to sin. (A church-speak phrase that means, "I do bad things because I want to.")

I need Jesus to deliver me, to retrieve me, to save me from myself. For me, that's what "Deliverer" means.