“‘In our world,’ said Eustace, ‘a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.’ ‘Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.’” (C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)
NASA has released a breathtaking video sampling of the 200 million images captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory taken over 5 years in space. A kaleidoscope set to music, it provides unprecedentedly clear pictures of the sun’s activity. You can view it at http://www.cnn.com/videos/tech/2015/02/16/vo-nasa-solar-dynamics-observatory-5-years.cnn.
The sun is our source of heat and light, sustaining life on earth. If it were hollow, it would hold one million earths, and yet there are stars 1,500 times larger. God created the sun and placed it just the right distance from the planet we call home—a little farther away and we’d freeze; a little closer and we’d fry. We believe the ordering of the cosmos did not happen by chance, but that Christ orchestrated it. We believe the universe is no accident, but that the Almighty planned it.
Christians do not, like some of the ancients, worship this star; we worship the Starmaker—the omnipotent God who commanded the sun to stand still, slowing the rotation cycle of planet Earth until Hebrew warriors defeated their enemies (Joshua 10:13); the omniscient God who enables us to “rise like the sun in all its power” to live in the moral highlands (Judges 5:31; Philippians 3:10); the omnipresent God who is “our sun and our shield”, who “gives us grace and glory” (Psalm 84:11); the Sun of Righteousness who promises that when heaven on earth dawns, we will “go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture” (Malachi 4:2); the Savior of the righteous who will make us shine like the sun in our Father’s Kingdom (Matthew 13:43); the Lord of a city that will not need the sun, since it will be illuminated by His glory (Revelation 21:23).
Francois La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680), French writer and moralist, was right—“No one can stare for long at death or the sun.” The sun is an object lesson in humility—stare at it and we would go blind; but glance at it just a second, and we may worship its Maker. “The spacious firmament on high, with all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, their great Original proclaim. The unwearied sun, from day to day, does his Creator’s power display, And publishes to every land the work of an almighty hand.” (Joseph Addison, 1672-1719).
“The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.
Day after day they continue to speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard.
Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, to all the world.
God has made a home in the heavens for the sun. The sun rises at one end of the heavens
and follows its course to the other end. Nothing can hide from its heat.”
(Psalm 19:1-6 NLT)
Johnny R. Almond
Author, Gentle Whispers from Eternity
Interim Pastor, Nomini Baptist Church; Montross, Virginia
Blog & book info http://GentleWhispersFromEternity-ScripturePersonalized.com/
