Seeing into the Infinite

I think that we have made God too small. In our culture we compose parameters around Him, confine Him to churches, and maybe even just to Sunday worship. It helps us to think of Him like a human being which is easier for our minds to comprehend, but sometimes, I think that we forget God’s divine powers that exist in the known universe.

I own this book of images from the space telescope entitled, Hubble, Window to the Universe by Giles Sparrow. Enclosed within its 225 pages, I get to see Eternity, Home of God. I can see where stars are born and where they die; star fields of infinite beauty that stretch across the pages like an artist’s canvas. Planets spin, galaxies swirl, clusters form and reform; God has shown us the depth and breadth of His worlds. I can only gape in astonishment.

There’s one photograph that is special to me called The Pillars of Creation. It is composed of dark gas, shaped like pillars, glowing with a soft yellow radiance, illuminating the area surrounding them with tints of green, teal, and brown. A fuchsia-colored star is a beacon flashing beyond them, set like a jewel gleaming in
the Great Beyond. Here stars are birthed.

To look at the photographs in this book is to me seeing the hand of God at work in the cosmos. The universe is exploding with color: yellows, oranges, soft blues, purple, violet, greens, pink, yellows, the whole gamut of the spectrum. It is the ultimate watercolor splashed across a telescopic field. Everywhere is infused with stars, bright and bold, soft and hazy, bringing the canvas to life.

For God to empty Himself of all of this to take on a human form is even more astonishing to me. To care about us, to love us, to want to be with us, how could a Being be so contained? And yet, He was. Sometimes, we get a glimpse of that power and majesty that created all of universe, as in when Jesus calmed the storm or was transfigured on the mountain with Peter and John or when the earth was in upheaval when He died. The energy of the Resurrection may be the same energy used by the stars. The hand that brushed the stellar nurseries, that breathed life onto a barren earth at the beginning of recorded time, that controls the where and when of not only space, but of space-time, decided to come to earth to save us all.

In our limited way, the breath of the Universe, metaphorically God’s breath, is visible for all of us to see. When we go outside and look up at the stars, we are looking into the past, a marvel of engineering that involves our brains and sight. The glitter of the constellations shows us signposts that stimulate our imaginations, but underneath all the wonder is the utter marvel of it all, the absolute stupendous power of God’s thought turned into action. Our God is a God of infinite majesty. Let us witness His signature that He left among the stars, this great gift of His to carry in our hearts, and let us remember that even though He holds the galaxies in the His consciousness, so too does He care enough about us to do the same.

- S. Becker