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Religion in the universeTuesday, March 22, 2005
Isaiah 49:4 How many stars are there? "Does the number 10 billion trillion stars really mean anything to you?" he says. With our eyes on a clear night we can see maybe 1 40-millionth of the stars in the Milky Way. Davis says these numbers make him feel insignificant. Today, listening, I felt that way too. Isaiah's words reverberated through my own empty feelings: "I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing." Is it difficult for an astronomer to put his faith in God? Maybe it's easier for him, because the concept of infinite-creator-God is all that can transcend the ever-expanding-but-created universe. Isaiah did not have a telescope. I don't either. Even without one I don't have to look far to feel insignificant. I am born alone and die alone. Not many years between. Past and future are limited so sharply by birth and death. Religion gives me hope, perhaps, but what force can religion have when it's written by man, read by man, proclaimed by man? Did Jesus feel some of this? He made it clear that the purpose of religion was to point us toward God, and not to define Him. God will not be bound by religion. Jesus is about to die, and it sounds like he can't wait: "Now is the Son of Man glorified." He will escape the bonds of earth. "I will be with you only a little longer." Following Jesus means to share this glory, I think. Giving up my insignificant self to him turns me from caterpillar to butterfly. Time and distance measure finite geography, not the eternal. No matter how tiny I am in the universe, no matter what shadows fall on my relationships with others, no matter how all I treasure turns dusty and old, Jesus beckons me to follow him into knowing God. Turn my awe from the universe to you, Lord. Let me be overwhelmed by who You are. |
I listen to lots of books on tape. This week it's Don't Know Much About the Universe by Kenneth Davis. Stars, he says, are "really really far away." A light year (the distance light travels in a year) is a little less than 6 trillion miles. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is 100-130,000 light years in diameter. Besides the sun, the nearest star to earth is 25 million-million miles away. And there are lots of other galaxies.