light from a star

Right now, at 6 am, morning looks like night.  Visiting my favorite pond I needed light from my cell phone to walk to the water's edge without falling into the pond.  But overhead was a stunning display of stars, with familiar constellations standing out like portraits in a velvet gallery.  I thought about just how far we can see, even with the naked eye.  It turns out that we can see stars that are over 2.5 million light years away.  That means that the light we see from those stars emanated 2.5 million years ago.  It is really something to think that I can see something that predates the coming of the Lord, the history of Israel in the Old Testament and that hearkens back toward the beginning of Creation itself.  The morning light from those stars reminds me that, even now, I am living in eternity.   Like the stars of heaven, whose light is washing up on our shores from ages ago, so does the eternal light of the Lord shine through time to reach us now.  Even as the stars are a small part of the vast blackness of space, their message of eternity triumphs over the backdrop of darkness.  And our knowledge of the light of the Lord triumphs over darkness as well...no matter how deep and dark it seems!

Genesis 26:⁴ And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;