The God Who Made . . .

You couldn’t miss the hype, especially if you live in or close to what was described with the word “totality.” Of course I’m thinking about the total eclipse that a good portion of the United States experienced on August 21.  When I think about these things – I wonder how frightening it would have been before we knew that the solar system is heliocentric and not geocentric! Thanks to the world of astronomy who took away that fear.

My office in West Point, Georgia was in the 95% totality zone and I really needed to be a work that day so I didn’t make plans to travel up to north Georgia where the eclipse would be 100%. At around 1:45 that afternoon I went outside, only to realize that there was a pretty heavy cloud covering. But the clouds seemed to be moving rapidly, so I hoped it would clear up by 2:36 p.m.

A colleague came out and we were talking about the weather. I kept looking at my Weather Chanel app and it really didn’t look too promising. It started sprinkling a little bit. Then harder. Soon a down pour. 2:36 p.m. came and went – I missed the likely only opportunity in the area where I live to see a near total eclipse! To make it worse, on the Weather Channel radar the only place it looked like it was raining in Georgia at that time was West Point, Georgia. I have a friend who teaches seventh and eighth grade history at a school in Savannah who told me it was raining there also. In the spirit of “misery loves company,” that made me feel a little better!

Friends who went up to northeast Georgia and northwest South Carolina had stunning pictures and stunning descriptions. Same is true for family and friends who live near Charleston. Stunning. Amazing. Can’t describe it. Those were some of their descriptions. And I missed it!

This semester at Point University I’m teaching an exegetical course on Hebrews. I’ve been reading through Hebrews all summer, in part because that’s the only way a piece of literature, including biblical books, can really get inside you, as perhaps the writer of Hebrews means when he says “have tasted the goodness of the word of God” in Hebrews 6:4. I also love Hebrews 11:3: “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” I’m pretty comfortable thinking I don’t need to explain the mechanics of how God did it, but as a matter of faith, I should believe that however it happened, He did it!

Then there is that sermon Paul gives in Acts 17 to a group I often describe as “the smartest people in the world” of his day. Walking past all sorts of sorts of pagan idols – even one to an “unknown god” - Paul starts out his conversation with Epicureans, Stoics, and other smart people by saying, “The God who made the world and everything in it . . .” (Acts 17:24) The starting point for Paul was that the God we worship made the world and everything it.

For eons there have been these moments – sometimes lunar, sometimes solar – when “this fragile Earth, our island home” as the Book of Common Prayer describes it, and the moon and the sun combine for a spectacular reminder of the intricate design observable in creation. No wonder Paul will declare to the Romans that “his (God’s) invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world.” (Romans 1:20)

But it’s much more than an occasional eclipse of the sun or moon – as spectacular as such moments are. Everyone we look in creation there is something at which we can marvel. The blessing of the advances science has made includes the fact that we don’t have to assume that it is all magic, or something worse. The danger is that we might think we have it all figured out and have no need for God.

But . . . in faith, we can glory that the God who made the world and everything in it has plans to renew and restore all of Creation to its God-intended glory (Romans 8:18-25) and even more cause for giving glory to God – He invites us to participate!

The more we pay attention to the created world in which we live, the greater our opportunity to praise the God who made it.