The Night Sky

This summer and even now Bekkah and I have been spending a lot of time sitting outside in our backyard looking up at the sky at night. We had a great time in August when we were watching the Perseids meteor shower. Not only did we see quite a few of them, but there were some that were very bright and moved across most of the sky we could see.

The night sky and planets and beyond are all something that has always been of interest to me. And this last Monday proved to be a very good week for the world of astronomy. How many of you saw the news about the discovery of phosphine in the upper atmosphere of Venus? The reason why that is sending waves in the field of astronomy and beyond is that on earth, phosphine is created by living organisms and that Venus doesn’t have the intense pressure and types of storms that places like Jupiter has which accounts for the phosphine in it’s atmosphere. So there could be another explanation for phosphine, but scientists are wondering and maybe even hoping that when a mission is sent to determine what is causing this that they’ll find ‘life’ on Venus. The discovery of any form of life, even on the tiniest microorganism level, on another planet is something science has been waiting for for a very long time. There has been, needless to say, a lot of chatter going on about this discovery since it was announced on Monday.

Abram was also someone who waited for a long time. We pick up with Abram in chapter 15, but we first see Abram and Sarai in chapter 12 of Genesis when God says that he will make a great nation out of him and eventually tells him that his own offspring will be given the land. It’s not until chapter 21 when Abraham and Sarah have their son Isaac. Now in terms of reading the story it doesn’t take too long for us to read about the promise and the birth of Isaac, but Abraham was 75 when God first made the promise and he was 100 years old when that promise was fulfilled in the birth of Isaac. It took a lot of time in our eyes for that promise to be fulfilled.

We even see Abram wondering when things will happen because he is upset that a slave in his house will be the one who will inherit everything he owns and will be the one to carry on the promise that God gave him.

I don’t know about you but waiting 25 years for a promise to be fulfilled seems like an awfully long time to wait from a human perspective. Can you imagine telling your 16 year old child that you promise you will buy them a car and then not buying them one until they are 41 years old when they probably already have a family of their own and they and their spouse probably both have cars. There is also a chance that if they had kids that the oldest one could potentially be 16 themselves and looking forward to the day they owned a car, hopefully soon? What do you think a typical reaction would be or the thought process be like for that person? Do you think they’d forgotten about the promises or dismissed it?

Everything Abram owned would be going to Eliezer if Abram didn’t have a son. Just as much I think Abram also wonders about that promise that God made him and how that would go to him too. Abram was wondering about all these things, so God takes him outside and shows him the stars in the sky.

When we were watching the meteor shower in August there were really good viewing conditions and we got to see a good number of meteors and a lot of stars in the sky. Can you imagine the wonder and awe that was flowing through Abram when he looked up at the night sky unimpeded by any lights from the city or neighbors and saw the number of stars in the sky?

I wonder how excited he was at this promise made to him by God. I think in this moment Abram realized that it was about more than him. Yes he had been promised by God that he would have an heir and it would be born from him and Sarai and not inherited by a slave. But as he stands out in the night sky he sees the stars in a completely different way. Maybe he always looked at them with a bit of wonder at the majesty of it all, but now as he looks up that night and probably every night until his death, and sees a promise made by God that goes beyond him. It goes beyond his son Isaac that he will eventually have. A promise that spans the amount of stars in the night sky.

I know that the idea of what phosphine gas on Venus could mean has really created a lot of chatter and buzz around the astronomy community and now everyone is scrambling to find a way to find out as soon as they can, while knowing it will take time to find the answers. Can you imagine what it must have felt like or been for Abram to stand outside that night and to hear God say those words to him? I wonder if Abram was full of chatter the rest of his life as he told the story over and over again to anyone who would listen to him as he and others sat down at a campfire and looked up toward the night sky. I’m sure that Abram told it to Isaac so many times that, as a child, Isaac possibly got sick and tired of hearing it. Yet in all likeliness, Isaac told his Jacob and Esau the story of the promise and the night sky.

God’s timeline might take longer than we humans would like or hope for, but the truth of it all is that God’s promises are faithful and true. Every one of them. So much like the chatter around Venus and Abram about that night promise under the stars, how do we as Christians chatter and buzz about what God has done for us through Christ Jesus? How do we share the awe and wonder of the mighty works of God and look back and see how God has worked through our lives and see how God was there and maybe it took longer than we wanted, but God was there every step of the way like he was with Abram and Sarai?

No matter the circumstance, no matter our own wondering of timeline, God is here in our midst keeping the promises that God has made to us because God’s promises are always faithful. We have been given a covenant and a promise through Jesus Christ that is available for all people. Count the stars in the sky if you are able, so shall your descendants be. A promise made and a promise kept and fulfilled through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.