Are there fewer stars? No, we probably have the exact same number of stars in the sky that Abraham would have seen. But these days, most of the stars in the night sky are completely invisible.
Where did they go? Well, they didn't go anywhere. They're still there, you know, still there, still hanging around, still shining in the darkness. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Would that the stars only had to worry about shining in the darkness, though. Which they don't. For it isn't the darkness that keeps you from seeing the stars, it's the light.
Canadian musician Mike Ford penned and performed a song called 'Stars Shone on Toronto,' and in this song, he brought up in an extremely moving way the strangeness of never seeing the stars, or what he calls in the song 'that great eternal firmament.' You don't see the stars because of the light from the buildings, roads and cars. Cities have gotten so big, so full and so vibrant that you can't actually see very many stars from where you're sitting at any given moment. So if God were to take you outside and get you to count the stars tonight, you'd probably say 'I dunno... fifteen?' You can't see the stars because you've made too many things to be able to see them. To quote 'the gods must be crazy': "They're there! You cannot see them, but they are there."
In Abram's time, there was very little man-made light. A torch, a fire, that sort of thing, but nothing more. When Abram looked up, all the stars were visible. He could see all the rich tapestry of stars flung out into space, and any attempt to count them was laughable. So he moved himself, and his entire family to a land that God would show him, through dangers and trials, in order to live out the promise that God was giving him. Good so far.
Now, why are we bad at this? Why are we bad at trusting what God has promised to us? In many ways, it consistently comes down to our inability to see the promises of God for what they are. And it's not because things are too dark, or too difficult to see in, that kind of thing. It's because of the weight of what we have made. Think on it carefully, and muse upon it. In the life of the average person, what is it that prevents them from seeing God, from trusting in his promises or holding fast to his laws. There's too much in the way that you have, for whatever reason, held fast to and prioritized, making it impossible for you to see God's promises anywhere you look.
And this is where the Gospel reading comes in. People have a hard time with what seems to be a dismissive attitude from Jesus Christ, where he glibly says to people 'just don't be anxious. About anything. Don't worry, don't fret, don't get too worked up about much of anything.' It seems dismissive, especially coming from the son of God who can manufacture more loaves and fishes and wine out of essentially nothing. What does he ever have to be anxious about? But if you take the time to get to grips with the reading, not just dismissing it wholesale, then you can see how it is that Christ wants to deal with your anxiety. He wants you to deal with it not by thinking about what you don't have, about what you need, about what you want, but about what you already have. That's really the only path out of this, you know, is to think on, meditate on, and ruminate on what you have already been given. Anything else will lead to you spinning into more anxiety. You'll be more anxious precisely because of how your brain works, yours and mine. Think about the way people shop, and this is especially notable with children. They want something until they have it, and then once they attain it, they move on to the next thing they don't have yet. Christ our Lord wants very much to break that cycle with you. He wants you to stop, to take a moment to consider all the ways in which God has blessed you, and blesses everything else in creation as well. That's part of the reason we pray daily, part of the reason we say grace before meals, so that we can take stock of all the wonderful ways he has blessed us. We do this not because He needs to hear it, but because we do. We need to hear this all the time, we need to hear this daily. We need to repeat it to ourselves every day, thinking all the time about how many ways in which God has blessed us, and continues to do so. House and home, food and spouse, clothing and shoes, all of those things that we forget really easily, thinking nothing of them until they're gone. But your anxiety, your concerns will be gobbled up as soon as you realize two things - first, that you have been richly blessed here on earth, and secondly, that you have a place prepared for you in paradise.
Because sometimes counting your blessings is hard, or troublesome. Sometimes it's difficult to do because the world truly does get in the way. Sometimes people get sick or die. Sometimes relationships fail and children get abused. Sometimes things truly don't work out as they should, and there is death and calamity. Trouble. But the good news of the scriptures is that Jesus flat out said that those times would come, that there would be trouble, that we would be scattered, but the work of Jesus Christ isn't just to keep us mollified and safe in this space, but in eternity. If the days get to the point where it is hard even to look at the lilies, or the ravens and be emboldened by how God cares for them, then remember that in this life you will have trouble, but to take heart, for he has overcome the world. The eternity that God has promised to you through his son isn't promised to the ravens, nor to the flowers, which are here today then are gone tomorrow, but they are promised to you. Directly. Take heart in that, even in the darkness.
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