Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on October 20, 2013
Scripture text: Psalm 121
I want to show you all something. Recently, there were a number of news articles about Voyager 1, the deep space probe NASA launched way back in 1977. Voyager had reached a milestone in human history as the first and so far only human-made object to leave the solar system and enter into deep space. It is now roughly 93 billion miles (with a b) away from Earth.
Twenty years ago, long before it ever reached the edge of our solar system, NASA sent a command to Voyager’s on-board computer. They ordered it to turn itself around and snap a picture of the planet Earth. This is that picture, one of the most famous photographs in astronomy. It is called the “Pale Blue Dot.”
Can you see planet Earth upon it from where you’re sitting? I’m going to guess no. It’s right here, a tiny speck on this piece of paper. That tiny speck contains the whole of human existence. The whole of your life and every life has taken place on that near-invisible dot.
Hard to imagine, isn’t it? But it’s true.
We human beings have a tendency to think of ourselves as the center of the universe. That we are the top of the heap, masters of our fate, lords over all that we survey. We are in control of our lives. Mighty, limitless, unstoppable. We can do anything.
But none of those self-perceptions can change the simple fact that in the grand scheme of the universe, we barely show up at all. We are tiny, finite, weak, and forgettable.
If only all the times in our lives where we are reminded of that truth were as painless as this bit of astronomical trivia...
Unfortunately, they are not. More often, we are reminded of our true limitations in ways that are deeply painful and damaging to us.
A corporation goes under, perhaps by mismanagement, perhaps by the whimsies of the marketplace. Jobs are lost. Our job, and there’s nothing we could have done to stop it. There was no controlling that fate.
Politicians misbehave. They are spiteful, angry, ready and willing to stick it to their opponents in the other party. As recent events have shown, some are even willing to bring our government to a screeching halt rather to talk to one another and work out their differences. How many were furloughed? How many others did that impact? And what were we to do about all that? Did we have any control at all, any say in what happened over these past two weeks?
And then, perhaps most germane to our purposes today, is the question of sickness. Who here seeks to fall ill? But who of us can stop it from coming? None of us want to be injured in an accident, but it’s called an accident because we couldn’t see it coming. There was no stopping it, no avoiding it. It just happened. It’s beyond our control.
This is what life is like for millions of people, struggling with circumstances bigger than they are, more powerful than they are, and (in some cases) deadlier than anything they’ve ever faced before. And who are we to face down the power of death in whatever form it may take? We who are less than a tiny speck in a vast universe. Where can we turn?
Our psalm for today has the answer to that question. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence is my help to come? My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth.
When we are faced with something far bigger than us, we can turn to one who is far bigger than it. The one who made a universe so vast that even our home planet is no more than a tiny dot on this photograph.
Now why on Earth would God bother? After all, he’s got a whole vast universe to run and compared to it we’re nothing. But that’s the funny thing. He does bother. In the vast scheme of the reality we live in we would seem to be nothing, except to God. Time and again, he has fixed his gaze upon our tiny little world and into our tiny little lives. We are precious to him. We matter to him.
Why else would he incarnate to live among us as Jesus? Why else would he deign to talk with us and teach us? Why else would he heal us of our infirmities? And why else would he die upon a cross and then rise again for us? The creator of all that is deeply invested in your life and mine.
So when our lives take an ill turn, when disease or some other misfortune strikes, God notices. It pains him to see us suffer. So he sends his spirit in our lives, to strengthen us against the trials we face and to remind us that he is the one that calls the shots in this universe. He is the one with power over life and death, and because of Jesus what he has chosen for you and for me is life.
There will always be things bigger than us. Disease, misfortune, heartache, calamity, the folly of the so-called powers-that-be. But there is one bigger than all of it, one who loves you more than words can say. My fate and yours is in his hands. Whatever we face in this moment or in the future may loom large before us, but they are nothing to the Creator of Heaven and Earth. Amen.
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