CHRISTMAS MESSAGE – Look up and marvel at His love and mercy

On one of the cold clear nights this winter, take the time to go outside and look up. Try to get away from all other sources of light and give your eyes time to adjust to the beauty of the stars. As you do, ponder over the fact that people have been studying the stars for many years. In fact that is how the Wise Men from East of Israel came to discover where Jesus had been born.

Our galaxy has many stars. Reportedly the naked human eye can see a few thousand of them, however with increasingly powerful telescopes, we know that there are literally billions of stars in our Milky Way galaxy. It’s difficult to think about how many stars that really is, as it means to multiply a million by a thousand. That’s a tremendous amount of size, mass and energy, but it’s only the beginning.

By looking outside of our galaxy, scientists have discovered that there are many more galaxies. In fact there are trillions of other galaxies! In other words there are a thousand times more galaxies than there are stars in our galaxy! If each of those galaxies has on average the same number of stars that our galaxy does, according to NASA there could be a Septillion stars in the universe. You have to multiply a thousand by a thousand, 7 times in a row to get to that number. That’s a lot of mass, energy, or you might say; glory.

This of course is only the beginning of the amount of mass floating in space as each of those stars likely has at least one planet orbiting around it, as ours has 8 or more. The sheer magnitude of all that is not only beautiful and intimidatingly powerful, but admittedly, unfathomable. 3,000 years ago Solomon only knew a fraction of what we know about stars today, and yet it already led him to admit that God “has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecc. 3:11). King David declared something similar, that “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalm 19:1).

That unfathomable glory of God is what you should look for when you look up at the stars. Colossians 1:16 says that all things in heaven and on earth, both visible and invisible, were created by Jesus and for Jesus. As many passages of Scripture say, He truly is “the King of Glory”!

As you stare up at the stars, trying to wrap your brain around the magnitude of what Jesus created and how vast His glory really is, consider the amount of love and mercy that He demonstrated by minimizing Himself to human form and allowing Himself to be born as a baby, to offer salvation and relationship to those who accept Him. No wonder the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on who His favor rests.” (Luke 2:14). The ancient text from Paul describes it well, “For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Rom. 11:36).

And as you stare up at the stars, recall the northern lights that we have seen this fall. Although world renowned for their splendor, they are only another minuscule glimpse of the glory of Jesus. According to His own words, when Jesus comes back soon it won’t be as quietly as the first time, but with “great glory” that gets the attention of the whole world (Matt. 25:31).

With that in mind as you gaze up into the starry sky, a good response to the soon returning Creator Jesus, is this, “Lord Jesus, You truly are the King of Glory, and it is an honor to submit to You as Lord and Savior.”