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Star Gazing
By The Rev. John Crist
Last summer, while camping in northern Wisconsin I went our one evening to look at the stars. It was a very clear night with no city lights to drown out the stars. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness the heavenly hosts were spread out above me in their magnificent splendor. After a few more minutes I was even able to see the Milky Way, that band of hazy whiteness which is the result of looking directly toward the center of our galaxy.
Words like “magnificent” and “awesome” pale when confronted with such a sight. Astronomers can, of course, point out stars, binary-stars, nebulas, galaxies and so forth; and people familiar with folklore can explain the stories behind the constellations. But my thoughts were about God.
It seems to me that our normal human images of God get blown away in such a moment. God is the architect and creator of a universe which began 15 or so billion years ago and now has expanded outward billions upon billions of light years. Christian theologians have always said that we can never fully comprehend or describe God because God is above and beyond any human concept or any description. And I believe that star gazing brings this point home to us.
Yet, the God who created “the vast expanse of interstellar space” is a personal God who knows and loves each one of us as an individual. A former Archbishop of Canterbury once said that at the center of the universe beats the heart of a loving God. Such a belief should take our breath away every bit as much as looking into the dark night sky and seeing all of the stars spread out from horizon to horizon.
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