An Evening at Amboy

High above, the space between the constellations Virgo and Leo seemed as full of galaxies as it was of stars. With no light pollution to drown them out, I bounced from one to the next. So many galactic smudges went by that it was hard to tell which was which. They came in all shapes and sizes: face-on, edge-on, elliptical, and angled. At one point, Markarian’s Chain, an asterism of galaxies, filled up the field of view in my eyepiece. With seven galaxies in view all at once, how many billions or trillions of stars must there be looking at me as I looked at them? “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them,” the Lord had said to Abraham (Genesis 15:5). “What is mankind, that you are mindful of them,” humanity replies (Psalm 8:4).

Later I got down to the business of serious searching. I wanted to go deep, very deep. There were two quasars on my search list. These “stars” are the product of a black hole interacting with gas at the center of very distant galaxies, outshining the galaxies in which they live. I star-hopped to the spot and then double, triple, quadruple checked the view in my eyepiece with the view in my sky atlas. This must be it! I was looking at light 2 billion light years away. Then off to another, which I think I had right (I’m a pastor not a scientist), whose light came from over 4 billion light years away, the time when our solar system was just forming. Astounded, I sat back in awe, contemplating the distance as I watched the river of stars from our own galaxy come up on the eastern horizon.

The vastness of the universe and stretches of time measured in units beyond any ordinary human reckoning is a reminder for me of the unfathomable greatness of the holiness of God. That such ancient reaches of the universe could be accessible to my eyeballs with some fairly ordinary equipment never ceases to amaze me. I keep telling myself that that light left that galaxy to travel to my eye how many years ago?! I sit there cackling at the eyepiece, believing that “He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name” (Psalm 147:4).

And he knows me by name too, because at the same time that the vastness of the universe suggests for us how wide and long and high and deep is the holiness of God, the Scriptures also insist that the love of God is just as big. “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him” (Psalm 103:11). Our lives are so short and small, like those lovely little creosote flowers that come out in the spring, set inside a universe vast beyond knowing. But our value to our Creator is revealed by his love for us in Christ the Redeemer at the cross. “For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him” (Psalm 103:14-17).