A week or so ago, I joined the bandwagon astronomers, the millions who peered through special eye ware to witness the eagerly anticipated total eclipse of the sun. Our house teeters on the southern brink of the 115-mile-wide “path of totality,” so I drove just a few miles North to witness “the difference between night and day.” My favorite — and completely unexpected — part: the silver ring. “Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh!” And it dawned on me that this was one of life’s events that binds people together in a singular awe, for in those few moments of celestial splendor, there was no left or right, no us versus them—just an expanse of onlookers witnessing in union something — Someone — far greater than us all. It reminded me of a Biblical foretelling of another united moment when “at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and . . . every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”1
My thoughts continued. . . Given the vastness, power, and beauty of creation, how much greater must its Creator God be, He who spoke it into being and who lives forever in sovereignty over all of it? Seriously! How much greater? “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.”2
Then if “all things were made through [Jesus],”3 and it took His divine life to redeem my guilty one, then how astronomical must my sin be? For “you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”4
The universe continually expands in all directions, so they say, which is as encouraging as amazing, for though our sin is vast, we live in this blessed reality: “as far as the east is from the west, so far does [God] remove our transgressions from us.”5
And why? Because greater still is God’s love for us, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.”6
God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.7
1 Philippians 2:10-12 NASB
2 Psalm 103:19 ESV
3 John 1:3 ESV
4 Colossians 2:13-14 ESV
5 Psalm 103:11-12 ESV
6 Psalm 103:11 ESV
7 1 Timothy 6:15-16 NIV
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Paul Nordman—Author 