Wonder in the Sky: Annual Astronomy sermon
By The Reverend Doctor Thomas C. Willadsen
Spanish Springs Presbyterian Church, Sparks, Nevada
April 28, 2024
Isaiah 40:21-31, I Corinthians 15:35-41
Astronomy enlarges our idea of God
Early in his career, Willard Sperry assisted a minister who preached once a year on the latest discoveries in astronomy. One day he asked, “What use could such a sermon have?” His colleague responded, “My dear boy, it is of no use at all, but it greatly enlarges my idea of God.”
I love that quote for so many reasons, mostly because a preacher confesses that his sermon is of no use at all! Also, because the preacher wants to enlarge his idea of God.
The Wonders of Astronomy
I have served here a little more than a year and a half, so I’m a little overdue for preaching about the wonders of astronomy. The founder of Presbyterianism, John Calvin, wrote, “The created order is the theatre of God.” For Calvin, just looking around was a way to connect with the Living God. I agree with this sentiment whole heartedly. And Meister Eckhart, a medieval mystic wrote this, “If I spend enough time with the tiniest creature, even a caterpillar, I would never have to prepare a sermon. So full of God is every creature.”
There’s a line in one of our hymns this morning that goes,
Lord, how thy wonders are displayed,
Wher-e’er I turn my eye,
If I survey the ground I tread or gaze upon the sky!
My grandmother told me years ago that one night as a baby I cried when she took me in to put me to bed when I was looking at the moon. Apparently, this fascination with the night sky runs in my family, one cold, clear winter night when I was carrying my older son in from the car, this was before his first birthday, he saw the stars and I wish I could capture the wonder and glee that his face radiated. He was not speaking with words at that point, but his face expressed marvel and wonder!
Astronomy and the Bible
There are some Christian believers–faithful, conscientious followers of Jesus Christ, same as we try to be–who believe that the Bible should be read as a history textbook. I have a friend who believes, for example, that the world was created around 6,000 years ago, because that’s what the Bible tells him. Historians of the Bible have done the math, and going back through the genealogy in Genesis, they have established a date when Creation began.
While the Bible is an enormously helpful book, when we read it together, guided by the Holy Spirit, in helping us live our faith, I do not believe my friend’s approach is wise. Again, our founder, John Calvin, said, “He that would learn astronomy and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere,” for those truths. I had to look up “recondite;” it means, “deep” or “highly specialized.”
You probably know, the Christian church does not have an admirable record of accepting the truth that astronomers and other scientists have discovered and publicized. Galileo, for example, was famously excommunicated from the Church, for among other things, saying that there were spots on the Sun, and that the planet Jupiter had moons. At that time, the prevailing dogma was that the Sun was the center of the universe, and to say that there were other heavenly bodies worthy of having things orbit them was heresy.
Astronomy and Faith Have Come a Long Way
We’ve come a long way. Seriously. I went to an event in Chicago a few years ago. The Adler Planetarium hosted an event for ministers who are inspired by the wonders of scientific discovery. That day I met Brother Guy Consolmagno. He’s a Jesuit, the director of the Vatican Observatory. I spotted him in the lobby, dressed as a Jesuit brother, and greeted him with a hearty, “Bon journo! That’s all the Italian I know!” He returned my greeting, then informed me he was from Florida and received his PhD in astronomy from MIT. He was good with English.
Brother Consolmagno “believes in the need for science and religion to work alongside one another rather than as competing ideologies. In 2006, he said, “Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality…” Guy Consolmagno – Wikipedia
Science is continually making discoveries—I’ll talk about some of those in a moment—but each discovery reminds us to hear the words of Isaiah, “lift up your eyes on high and see. Who created these?” Isaiah asks, rhetorically, “Who is like God?” and the answer is, of course, no one. The name Michael comes from the Hebrew question: “Who is like God?”
I said before that one cannot use the Bible as a science textbook, but in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians we find these words:
The Glory of the Heavens
There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.
That is exactly what astronomers are learning now that we’re getting data from the James Webb Space Telescope. This telescope is the most sophisticated telescope ever built, and it is in space, so it can see objects without interference from the earth’s atmosphere. We are getting better and better at building machines that are generating new data. For example, the JSWT detects ultraviolet, optical and infrared wavelengths, that is it “sees” light that human eyes cannot see! And because it can spot objects that are farther away than any telescope ever built, it is, in effect, looking farther and farther back into the past. Some of the data it has generated has surprised astronomers, whose theories about how galaxies are formed have been upended by new information.
New data generates new questions which generate new theories about how the universe works. I can’t begin to understand how learned astronomers are making sense of what their research is showing them. Far from solving the mysteries of the universe, their research is expanding our imaginations. Pointing us to the creation of a creator God who is even more wonder-filling than we can comprehend.
God’s heart is big enough to love the universe God made, which is bigger and more complex than we can imagine. We’re not less special because we keep learning how vast and mysterious the universe is. Instead, we’re growing into understanding how vast and unknowable the Living God we worship and serve is.