This picture was borrowed from a web page offering tips on how to take photographs of the night sky. Wonderful, heh? And as we move towards the springtime and the light is increasing, we might think about Genesis 1:14, the account of the fourth day of creation.
God said, 'Let there be lights in the vault of heaven to divide day from night, and let them indicate seasons, days and years. Let them be lights in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth.' And so it was. God made the two great lights: the greater light to govern the day, the smaller light to govern the night, and the stars. God set them in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth, to govern the day and the night and to divide light from darkness. God saw that it was good. Evening came and morning followed; the fourth day.
Hmm. Some folks wonder - how is it that in Genesis 1:3 God begins the first day by saying, "Let there be light, and there was light," and yet it isn't until the fourth day that the sun, moon and stars are created and put in place?
The light of the first day is God's own light. It is called God's shechinah - God's glorious, dwelling-presence. I remember being at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City a very long time ago, and the moment when the great crystal chandeliers started to dim while being raised up to the ceiling, and the spotlights were turned towards the golden stage curtain, and four thousand people stopped talking and everything was hushed. There is that same sense here: God's presence is revealed as light and we are hushed as the story of creation unfolds. It's not a newspaper account, but so much more wonderful than that.
But how does God create the sun, moon and stars, or anything for that matter, because before this, there is nothing? God creates instantly by his spoken Word. God speaks and creation happens out of nothing.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
by the breath of his mouth all their array.
He collects the waters of the sea like a dam,
he stores away the abyss in his treasure-house.
Let the whole earth fear the Lord,
let all who dwell in the world revere him;
for, the moment he spoke, it was so,
no sooner had he commanded, than there it stood. Psalm 33:6-9
God speaks creation into existence, and we seem to be in the center of all the spoken-gift. It's as if it's all there for us, to help us, to energize us, to make life happen for us. The psalmist is in awe of it all:
I look up at your heavens, shaped by your fingers,
at the moon and the stars you set in place -
what are human beings that you spare a thought for them,
or the child of Adam that you care for him? Psalm 8:3,4
And of this divine self-gift, this speaking, this shared exhaled word...
The Word became flesh,
he lived among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory that he has from the Father
as only Son of the Father,
full of grace and truth. John 1:14
When I was a first year seminarian, I remember one night feeling utterly overwhelmed by the reading I had to do. So in frustration I piled up all the assigned books to prove it. That pile turned out to be taller than my head. I've saved one of those books from decades ago - a 303 page book on the psalms. I didn't "get it" then; I don't "get it" now. For all the heady scholarship, not a word of awe, nothing to invite a hushed wonder before God, nothing to excite love for God. While I'm not anti-intellectual (though I do believe too much intellect can block the heart) I'd say to a seminarian today (or any of us really) - get your nose out of the book, go outside where the earth's electric lights haven't blocked out the night lights in the sky, and look up.
O Lord, our Master,
how the majesty of your name fills all the earth!
Your greatness is high above heaven itself. Psalm 8:1
But how does God create the sun, moon and stars, or anything for that matter, because before this, there is nothing? God creates instantly by his spoken Word. God speaks and creation happens out of nothing.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
by the breath of his mouth all their array.
He collects the waters of the sea like a dam,
he stores away the abyss in his treasure-house.
Let the whole earth fear the Lord,
let all who dwell in the world revere him;
for, the moment he spoke, it was so,
no sooner had he commanded, than there it stood. Psalm 33:6-9
God speaks creation into existence, and we seem to be in the center of all the spoken-gift. It's as if it's all there for us, to help us, to energize us, to make life happen for us. The psalmist is in awe of it all:
I look up at your heavens, shaped by your fingers,
at the moon and the stars you set in place -
what are human beings that you spare a thought for them,
or the child of Adam that you care for him? Psalm 8:3,4
And of this divine self-gift, this speaking, this shared exhaled word...
The Word became flesh,
he lived among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory that he has from the Father
as only Son of the Father,
full of grace and truth. John 1:14
When I was a first year seminarian, I remember one night feeling utterly overwhelmed by the reading I had to do. So in frustration I piled up all the assigned books to prove it. That pile turned out to be taller than my head. I've saved one of those books from decades ago - a 303 page book on the psalms. I didn't "get it" then; I don't "get it" now. For all the heady scholarship, not a word of awe, nothing to invite a hushed wonder before God, nothing to excite love for God. While I'm not anti-intellectual (though I do believe too much intellect can block the heart) I'd say to a seminarian today (or any of us really) - get your nose out of the book, go outside where the earth's electric lights haven't blocked out the night lights in the sky, and look up.
O Lord, our Master,
how the majesty of your name fills all the earth!
Your greatness is high above heaven itself. Psalm 8:1
