When I consider the heavens… the works of your fingers…

Vacation Bible School 2022 is over!  A year in the planning… months in the creating… one week in the experiencing… and now just a few remaining decorations mark the event.  But the echoes of vibrant children’s voices singing God’s praise still fill the minds and hearts of many of us.  If you joined us for worship on July 24th you were graced with a taste of an amazing week at Lenape Valley.  What a joy to have our children and our neighbors’ children back in the building for a rowdy week learning about the awesome God who loves us. The theme for the week was Monumental: Celebrating God’s Greatness.  We sang songs like: How Great is our God, Awesome God, and Great is Thy Faithfulness.  Imagine 70 children, 18 youth, and 40 adults gathered to praise God with stomping feet, waving hands and joyful voices.  Many thanks to our staff and volunteers who gave sacrificially to create the week.  Many thanks to our whole LVC family for your generosity that allows us to give this experience as a gift to all who come.  As our children sang last week: Our God is an awesome God… and how beautifully God works through our faith community!

As I reflect on all that God did in and through us last week, I am reminded once again of the message of Psalm 8:

O LORD, our LORD, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
 From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise…  
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him?

When I consider your heavens…  Just recently, the science community has focused our attention on the heavens.  First, came the natural phenomenon of the Super Moon.  Three times a year the moon’s orbit around earth draws it to its closest point, making the moon appear larger in the night sky.  When the Super Moon happens in mid-summer, it is also called the Hay Moon (marking when farmers bring in the hay), the Buck Moon (when buck antlers are growing), and the Thunder Moon (reminiscent of our summer storms).  If you saw the Super Moon in the night sky on July 13th, it was an amazing sight.  Yet did you know that it would take 64 million moons to fill our sun.  And our sun is just one of 100 thousand million stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.  Even as we marvel at the moon in our night sky, our scientists help us to realize that our moon is just a speck in our galaxy.
When I consider the heavens…

Recently, scientists have given us another gift: glimpses of the universe through the Webb telescope.  The Webb telescope is an international project with scientists from the United States, Europe, and Canada searching the heavens to uncover mysteries and marvels that are so vast they are beyond our comprehension.   Do you remember in 1990 when we began to see images of the universe through NASA’s Hubble telescope?  We not only saw intricate details of our Milky Way Galaxy, but also began to understand the immensity of the universe.  Early scientists believed that our solar system was the extent of God’s creative genius.  Then we began to realize that our solar system existed in a larger gathering of stars and planetary systems we know as the Milky Way.  Then, our understanding stretched even further to realize that our galaxy was just one among many… perhaps thousands… millions… billions… And now the Wedd telescope has shown us trillions of other galaxies in the universe, with new stars forming all the time.  When I consider the heavens… the works of your fingers… how amazing is the universe that God is still creating!  The Psalmist tells us that God’s glory is above the heavens whose expanse is beyond our imagining.  So… one has to wonder… how great is our God?  I can only stand in awe…

All this wonder brings me back to the question that the Psalmist raises:

When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers…  
what is man that you are mindful of him?

In this vast universe, you and I are just a speck on a speck in a swirling speck.  How is it that God even knows that we exist?  How is it that God would even care about us?  Yet, that is the claim of our faith.  John writes:

See what great love the Father has lavished on us,  that we should be called the children of God!  And that is what we are!  
I John 3:1

Jesus is the demonstration of that love.  He is the Emmanuel- God with us… God choosing to take on human flesh to live with us, to die for us, so that we might live in communion with God for all eternity.  How extraordinary that our great God, the Creator of an ever-expanding universe, would care for each of us… for the reality happening in our lives… yearning for a relationship with each of His precious children!  Our God is an awesome God!

At the end of each VBS evening, we would close with the exchange- God is good… All the time… All the time… God is good… Especially Today!  As you gaze at the night sky tonight, stand in awe of our awesome God… and be amazed at His great love for you.

With you standing in awe,
Anita