THE HEAVENS DECLARE …..

It is very difficult not to admire the courage of Professor Stephen Hawkins, the Cambridge astrophysicist. After wasting his prodigious intellectual talents in his ‘teens, he was stung in his early twenties into intense and diligent research into the universe by the onset of a progressive wasting illness. He has shown enormous character in the battle of life.

It is profoundly tragic, therefore, that, as yet, he has been unable to leap from the vast erudition of his studies into a grasp of the Creator God. One can only sincerely pray that he will do so. Like a supreme technician analysing exactly how a masterpiece was painted, but never standing back to see what the masterpiece is saying, so Professor Hawkins’ focus is on the "how" of creation, not the message of creation. But the “how” will never yield the “why” – that is a totally different perspective.

For Paul the Apostle the message of this masterpiece of creation was all too clear. He writes, “God has made it plain. Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made”. The words, “plain” and “clearly seen” stand out. It seems to me three things at least demand that we see God in creation; the incomprehensibility of time and space, the sheer unspeakable beauty of it all and the meticulous order of it all. It is a most extraordinary thing that we are actually consciously aware of time and space; we know that something must lie beyond it. That very awareness points to an eternal being.

David, the psalmist, spent many a night as a shepherd contemplating the stars (something of which our city life has deprived us). He, just as plainly as Paul, saw the message of the masterpiece he was surveying; “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Ps. 19). Clearly he was reading the majesty and the beauty of what he saw. He also may well have been frequently in awe of what he was seeing. Certainly he would have been in awe if he had known as much as we do about the distances and time involved in creation.
The heavens “spoke” to him; “Day after day they pour forth speech, night after night they display knowledge” – a constant reminder of our Creator. Not only the heavens spoke, but his own self as a created being spoke to him; “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps 139), not merely physically but mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Secularism goes on battering at us and has plenty of sympathetic scope in the media, certainly more than the Christian viewpoint. Thank God, however, he has left us a witness that can never be totally obscured. The very creation, as Paul reminds us, leaves us “without excuse”. May God open the eyes of many to the obvious.



Bob

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WISDOM FROM THE CHILEAN MINE

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” Ps. 90:12

An awful lot of “wisdom” came out of the mine with the rescued trapped miners in Chile. All of them were in a situation where every moment was forcing them to “number their days”, or as we might put it “recognise that their days were numbered”. Face to face with life or death there was no alternative but to take stock of life, and many “applied themselves to wisdom” (where “wisdom” in this context refers to God and his ways).

One of the miners, the grandfather miner (63), simply said on his return to the surface, “Sometimes you need something to happen in your life to really reflect and understand that we only have one life. I am a different person”. His first intent was to give his wife of thirty years standing what she had always wanted – a wedding dress and a marriage in church. He had changed – he had a new and deeper respect for life, for his loved ones and for God.

He was not the only one who felt a deeper soberness about life. Another miner was impressed in a very similar manner and on his return knelt down, crossed himself and then told his girlfriend of twenty five years “we’ll buy you a wedding dress and get married in church”. Yet another miner received a marriage proposal from his girl friend with whom he has daughters and they will get married straight away. Such painfully gained sobriety is all to the good. It is “wisdom”. It is learning the real measure of life. It contrasts vividly with the comments of the editor of the Times who in his editorial comment seems to have felt obliged (as the media generally is) to include only a somewhat sordid sexual reference to another miner’s wife.

Interestingly in the background to the Chilean story we hear of Jose Henriquez who was the drill master and became the spiritual leader of the trapped group; he led prayers and boosted spirits. We hear also that among the “liberty kit” sent down to the trapped men was a T-shirt with the slogan “Thank you Lord, because nothing is impossible with God”. These were sent down by the “Jesus Film Project”, along with a copy of the film of the Life of Jesus for the men to watch. The second miner out, wearing his Jesus T-shirt said, “I never doubted I would get out alive. God and the Devil fought for me, and God decided to save me”. He also said he had “buried 40 years of my life in the cavern”, which one hopes was a remark indicating a new kind of wiser life.

Catastrophe, therefore, does not always end in disaster and death. It can create a focus we too often lack. It can end in powerful and positive amendment of life. When we look at impending catastrophes on a wider scale, in national affairs and in the economy in particular, we can only pray that for a great many people some wisdom, sobriety and renewal will emerge even from them. That is God’s intent and desire.

Bob

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A NEW SONG

I hope you’ll forgive an illustration from Greek mythology. I heard it used very aptly recently by a bishop. It featured the sirens, fabulous nymphs who lured sailors to destruction by their irresistible sweet singing. The Greek hero, Odysseus, having to pass close by their abode ordered his sailors to fill their ears with wax and tie him to the mast so he could hear but not go after the sirens; the seafarers all escaped, but with huge agony for Odysseus. Another Greek hero passing the same way, Orpheus, simply played even sweeter music and drowned out the sirens; he and his companions also escaped, but in much better manner. The dictionary defines the word sirens as “charming temptresses”.

What a picture of the world in which we live! In our own generation it is full of sirens, sounding out their compelling songs, calling us to follow pathways that are destructive. We have featured them often enough in this column by way of warning; profiteering, unrestrained sex, material possessions, unlimited feasting and pleasure etc. They are not, however, just at one small part of our life’s journey; unfortunately they accompany us every day, and much of the time. The media make sure of that, being the trumpet for such alluring “songs”. And there is no question of the fact that they are alluring, very alluring to the unwary.

We cannot keep wax in our ears all the time, neither can we be so tied down that we can’t physically respond. What we need is, like Orpheus, a better, a sweeter song. Like him we need to keep the better song in our minds all the time. When something better than temptation is sounding in our ears, temptation loses its attraction, and even becomes a matter of distaste.

We’ve actually been given such a song; that is the astonishing thing about our faith in Jesus. This new song is a song about “the beauty of holiness”. In coming to Him we are awakened to the sheer beauty of a godly and righteous life, a “pearl of great price” and something to really sing about. There are a lot of things in the world that are beautiful but never appreciated, and an upright character is one of them. True conversion is to have a clear perception of that and to have an eager personal desire to share in such beauty.

The true follower of Jesus has an eagerness to live as He lived because it is so wholesome, so good to see and so releasing of joy and peace in the innermost being. Those who follow will spend a great deal of their time looking in the mirror, but at their heart, not just their outward appearance that takes precedence in the modern world. They will spend much time thinking on “whatsoever is beautiful and whatsoever is of good report”.
In this way we have a much more powerful music that the sirens of the world; we move much more safely through the world; we are aware of the world’s music, but it is so distasteful in comparison that we recoil from it.


Bob

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