From the Rectory

  Recently I read an article that enthused about the fact  that the planet Mars will appear to be as big as the moon in our night skies during August. Sadly it is a hoax. Mars will be very close, but it was in January this year that it was the closest it has been for many years.

However, it has been calculated that there was a similar close approach, when Mars would have appeared very large and bright in the night sky, some 5,000 years ago. At the time the great pyramid was being built and the ancestors of Abraham, the father of the three great monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, were nomads in Mesopotamia. The world was just beginning to wake up. But already God had started to put things in place for his people to begin to find out who he is. Very soon Abraham would hear God speak to him and would travel from Harran in Mesopotamia to Canaan – the modern Israel. Then God’s biography would begin to be firmly on people’s minds and lips as the stories of the Old Testament began to take shape. It was still another  1,500 years before Moses was born and the children of Israel began their journey to the promised land.

I have a small telescope and have already seen Mars, the rings of Saturn the craters of the moon, and have watched an eclipse of the sun. I have been overwhelmed by the stunning night sky as I gaze back into the past. It is a really amazing experience which brings to mind the beautiful language of some of the psalms which surely themselves were born of the awe that was felt by  their authors 2,500 years ago when they saw how small they were  and how big God is. :-

 When I consider Your heavens,

the work of Your   fingers, the moon and the stars,

which You have  ordained,

What is man that You are mindful of him,

and the son of man that You visit him?            

For you have made him a little lower than the  angels,

and you have crowned him with glory  and  honour.

You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands… psalm 8

William Shakespeare paraphrased psalm 8 as Hamlet speaks to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and it has been used countless times to help us to see that this awe inspiring God who has guided human history for at least 5,000 years cares about each and every one of us. 

You may not feel like I do about God or creation, or how we can see the work of God all around us, but during these summer evenings I challenge you to find somewhere where light does not pollute the sky, and  just look up. You won’t see Mars as big as a grapefruit but you will see far out into our universe and you will see light that had just begun it’s journey when Jesus was a boy, when the disciples first realised that Jesus was back from the dead, and when God’s Spirit first came among us.   

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers….

Nigel McGregor

This year Harvest Festival is on Sunday September 6^th so book the date as it will be a Family Celebration