When you can see it.
Most of us can't. Most of us can't and don't see it all that often. We fall prey to something called light pollution, and no, that doesn't mean pollution that isn't too heavy. That means that we have put so much light up from our cities that we can't see the stars anymore. They get crowded out. It's the same principle that governs why you can't see a flashlight in the middle of the day, that sort of thing. And when we look up in our cities now, we can see, what, twelve stars, total? Look up and count the stars, if you can number them. Sure, no problem. I only just barely need to use both hands.
Now, we have set up a great many lights up in our earthly dwellings these days, you know. We have set up a great many lights, a great many things that threaten to cloud out the promises of God to the point that we can't see them anymore. God has told us a great many things through his word, he has informed us of his care for us, how much attention he has for us, what he seeks to bring to us, what he wants to give to us. The reading from the Holy Gospel from Sunday discusses that at great length, with the account, the words of Christ about how we ought not be anxious. We ought not be anxious about what we should wear, not about what we should eat, nor about what we ought drink.
You know, all those things that occupy almost all our thoughts.
All the ads that we see are concerned with those sorts of things, the base things of this world that occupy almost every single surface that we look at. Surfaces are covered with advertisements, smeared with messages designed to pique your interest, to get you to consider how bad your life is right now, and how much better it would be with a big mac, or a coke zero, or a new blouse, or a new car, or whatever else they're hawking to jam into your heart and rend it asunder with want. This is what occupies essentially all our thoughts, all our motivations, is all this stuff, and each thing that diverts us, that occupies us, that draws our attention is one more lightbulb that we light up that drowns out the stars of the promises of God.
Now, if you've ever gone camping, or have gone outside the city at night, maybe out to grasslands national park or whatever, then you will see the stars. And when you get back into the city, you'll notice that the stars are all gone. But they haven't gone anywhere. You just can't see them anymore. Now, this is the issue that we have with the promises of God. God has made a lot of promises to us, promises of daily bread, which promises to give us house and home, wife and family, clothing and shoes, and all the things of this world that give us the life that we have enjoyed. And what we see happening on a regular basis is that we have clouded things over so heavily with our own pollution that we absolutely cannot see the promises that have always been there, and which are not going away. Jesus tells us clearly in his word that heaven and earth will pass away, but his words will never pass away. And we have to believe him.
Now, ignoring the promises of God doesn't mean that they go anywhere, they're still there, and still as effective as they ever were, just that we can't see them. And every once in a while, it's incumbent on us to listen to the words spoken to Abraham in the Old Testament, and to hear the direction that God gave him, which was to trust in Him, to believe him, to go to a destination that he could not see, to take steps away from what was comfortable, and to live and reside in the promise of God almighty himself. And he took those steps. He believed in what God was saying to him, and that is what sets Abraham apart from everyone else. He wasn't better or stronger or holier than everyone else, but he did believe in what God said. And God credited it to him as righteousness.
Us now? We have a hard time believing God on anything at all. He tells us in a most straightforward way what he has promised to do for us, how much he cares for us, and he follows that up by giving us this encouragement: 'Sell your possessions, and give to the needy.' Wow. That's in straight up black and white, with not a whole lot of room for wiggling out of it. Sell your possessions and give to the needy, and most of us just really don't want to do it. Most of us don't really feel like going through with that kind of initiative. We would rather hang onto our bucks, and not get too deep into giving what we have to someone else. We can talk in glowing terms about love and trust for God, about what Noah and Abraham and the rest of the Biblical heroes were able to accomplish thanks to their faith in God, and yet, and yet, our trust for God gets hung up on relatively simple things, like not really trusting that he will take care of us.
So what's to be done? Back to the stars, at night, all our lights and smog and clouds have a way of obscuring those stars so we can't see any of them. Sure, we know they're there, but we honestly don't see them too readily. Everything we have made and built blocks them out, and they're hidden from our eyes based on what we've done. And living in cities means that we are in a situation where we never really see that rich tapestry spread out before our eyes. Oh sure, we could pull an Abraham, and go far outside the cities and towns, head into dark sky preserves where the stars can finally be seen, but very few of us are going to do that. And knowing that, God decided to do something entirely different. He decided to break right the way through the issue of our concealed hidden stars, and get us to the point where we would finally see the stars again.
You know, it blew my mind when someone finally explained to me that the sun, our sun, is a star. That's what stars look like when they're up close. That's what a star looks like, and it's massive, and all the planets in the solar system orbit it. And it doubly blew my mind to hear that our solar system only has one star in it, namely the sun. It seems strange that at night, you can stars from way far away all the time, but during the day, you can't see any star except one. And that one star, not only can you see it, but thanks to it, you can see everything else. At night, you can go way out to a dark sky preserve, you can go far from the works and worlds of man to go and find the stars lighting up the sky, or you can wait for the morning, and see the one star that illuminates everything.
Abraham was asked by God to look up in the sky, and to try to count and number the stars, numbering and counting all the promises of God. He couldn't count that high. Today, we have blocked out not just the real stars, but the promises of God get crowded out by the various things we say and do. We have blocked out the stars in the sky and thanks to what we built, the blessings of God seemed very small. So God sent his son, Jesus, to break through all the things we have brought and built, to show us the promises of God large as life, that illumine, warm, comfort and light the way. Think about those times where you have noticed that street lights are still one during the day, and you can't see the light coming from them almost at all. Or when traffic lights lose their little hoods during the day, you can't see the light, not because it's not there, but because the light from the one star you can see is so bright. You see, you can either cloud out all the promises of God with what you're worried about, what you're concerned about, or you can look to Christ, to the son, and let him crowd out all your worries, all your cares and concerns, and let you see exactly how small your concerns really are. All your anxiety, all those tiny lights that you light up, they are small and worthless next to the massive presence of that great promise, which lights up and overshadows all the issues and concerns, all the lights you've lit up for yourself, it blocks that out.
The reading that comes up for this is the one that comes up for Christmas, talking about Jesus Christ as the light of the world, the light that shines in the darkness, the light that illumines everything, that casts light and in whom there is no shadow. What God asks, that we put all of our worries behind us, that we focus on him, that we look to the stars and number our blessings with them was proving to be impossible to this and all other weak and faithless generations, and so God sent his son, blessing us and cutting through all our worries and cares, and pointing us to the one who holds the future, and who prepares a place for us, an eternal place, where all the lights we have lit for ourselves can be seen for what they are: not enough to block out the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment