The moon
Just look at this full moon which appeared a few days ago. Could not resist taking a photo. You know it has been suspended there for thousands of years, ever since the fourth day of creation. And while it rules the night, it has no light of its own. Man has always been fascinated with it, especially scientists and astronomers. We have even landed on it, that is, a few astronauts. If you are near my age you remember watching with intense interest as they landed and stepped out on the lunar surface. Can you even begin to imagine their thoughts?
Those first words spoken from the moon were for the ages. Neill Armstrong’s famous words: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” He said he actually said for a man. Either way, historic! So, what is the obsession over the moon? Many songs, especially love ballads, have been written and sung. My favorite is ‘Blue Moon’, written by Rodgers and Hart in 1934. The Marcels made it a number one hit in 1961. It was the title song in the movie Manhattan. Enough trivia.
Majestic glory
The psalmist writes: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” (19. 1-4). David had to be mesmerized by God’s majestic glory being shown during his nights as a shepherd. No city lights to dim its brilliance.
If you look carefully at the verses, you see that God’s existence and glory are being manifested in his creation. Paul exclaims: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Rom. 1.20).
A Christian woman (now a missionary) gave testimony at our church a few years ago, one I have never forgotten. As a Japanese woman whose family was entirely Buddhist, she would stand on the shoreline looking out at the vast ocean and majestic sunsets wondering if there was a God who had made all this. She started exploring and the Lord led her to understand the gospel, and she received salvation. God’s eternal attributes were evident to her in what she was seeing. Psalm 19 in spades!!
A purposeful God
See, the moon is there for a purpose in the world, but more than that, it is witnessing to us of God’s all-powerful glory. Paul says no one on the face of the earth has any excuse when it comes to who God is and what he is about. Only an Omnipotent Creator could set a moon in its proper place and maintain its existence and purpose.
It should lead us to cry out with the psalmist: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens… When I look at 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, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psa. 8. 1,3-4) What this is saying is that God is so much greater than his creation, and yet he is mindful of you and me.
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (I Pet. 3.18). The same God who set the moon in its place bent down, sent his only Son, Jesus, to make it possible to live eternally with him in all his glory. We should never take God for granted.
