A Journey into Space

Man has always been curious about the sky and the stars. The Hubble telescope has provided us with dramatic pictures of the farthest regions of the starry heavens. In 2016, the British billionaire Richard Branson’s, second spaceship Unity was unveiled that can take 6 passengers and 2 pilots to the space and back. During during its unveiling ceremony, famed cosmologist and physicist Stephen Hawking said in a recorded voice, “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don't just give up.” Mr Hawking, who has been suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease, for more than 50 years and was bound to a wheelchair for most of his life passed away in March of 2018 at the age of 76. He added, "Taking more and more passengers out into space will enable them and us to look both outwards and back, but with a fresh perspective in both directions and help us recognize our place and future in the cosmos."

In Genesis Chapter 15, God told Abram who was tired and weary and resting in his tent to go out and look up at the sky and the stars. To quote from Mr Hawking, “God told Abram to look both outwards and back, with a fresh perspective in both directions" and to recognize his place in the future. Abram got out of his tent and looked up into the sky, saw stars and constellations. Stars bright and stars dim, surrounded with hundreds of thousands of other stars. The more he looked, the more stars he saw. God said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. So shall your descendants be.” He believed the Lord and was accounted for him as righteousness.

Abram was an ordinary man, but a good and wealthy man. He lived with his wife Sarai in the land of Haran; they had no children. When he was about 75 years old, God appeared to him one day and said, “I want you to pack up all your things and leave your home and go to the land I will give you. I promise that I will bless you, and make your family great.” They packed up everything they owned in the land of Haran and started their journey towards the land of Canaan. Several years have passed and they saw no signs of having a child. After about 25 years, on a warm starry night, Abram was resting in his tent after a hard day’s work God appeared and said to Abram, “Do not be afraid! I am your defender! I promise that I will give you a great reward.” But Abram said, “What kind of reward? I don't even have any children!” And then God took Abram out beneath the starry sky. “Look up at the stars in the sky. You will have a son. He will be the father of many children and generations. They will be as many as the stars in the sky.”

God asked Abram who was 100 years old to get out of the tent to see stars in the sky. Tents can become our comfort zones where we can get trapped inside with limited or no vision of the bigger picture. Personal interests, wealth, fame or beauty can become our traps. Sometimes, job, family and even church can become traps that can prevent one from experiencing the vision of heaven and to see God’s promises. There are other tents like excuses, doubts, fears and worries that will limit our vision of the future. In urban areas with full of lampposts and headlights, where there is too much artificial light that may mask our vision to see stars. Too much gets in the way in the form of busy lives that obscure our vision and crowd out God's promises. But if we go to the countryside or the woods, we can see a lot more stars and constellations. Abram saw a lot more stars than we probably could see today with our naked eye.

Implicit in God’s promise was a challenge to believe, to rise above human failings and pain; to trust in the promise that it will never fail. Abram said, "How can this be? I am old and my wife is out of her child bearing age. How may I know that I will possess the promise?”. This is similar to the question Mary asked the angel how can it be that a virgin can have a baby. Then God told Abram to do a strange thing to bring several animals and birds as sacrifice and cut them in halves except the birds. Abram obeyed and laid the pieces each half over against the other and waited for God to do something, but nothing happened. As the sun was going down, Abram was so tired and fell into a deep sleep just like Adam had when God created Eve. During his deep sleep, God showed him the vision of what was to come. His descendants would be multiplied, taken to suffering for 400 hundred years in a foreign land, but will be delivered and redeemed. Suddenly fire and smoke flared against the darkness of the night, and Abram saw a smoldering smoking firepot, such as the ones they used to bake bread. Then a flaming torch seemed to walk up and down the butchered animals. It was a a cutting, flaming and moving covenant. Abram believed God's promise, and Abram's faith pleased God.

The sacrifice was the seal of the covenant with blood. The blood of any covenant means “If I do not hold up my end of the covenant, may I be like these dead animals”. It is sealed at the cost of one’s life. "Those who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces" (Jer 34:18,19). That is an important thing to remember! God kept his promise, but man did not. The depravity of human life immersed in sin could only be redeemed by a sinless man to take up the sacrifice by giving life. The fire was a symbol of God's plan on the cross, where Jesus the son of man and Son of God was crucified. When the Prince of righteousness was burned in the fire of sin, the sun refused to shine and darkness pervaded the earth. Jesus took up on the penalty of sin and gave His life for all human beings.

Today, we don't have to search among the stars, but just look up to the mount of Calvary, where there is the cross of Jesus. The symbol that was given as shame and suffering has become victory and glory to those who believe. It is the greatest covenant in history, that God sealed with the blood of His own son. That covenant cleans up any stains of sin, blots out any bit of darkness of doubts and fear. Generations after generations look upto the cross and are being added to Abraham's family like countless stars in the sky. To look up, then, is a constant reminder of the impossible dream that God had shared with our forefather Abraham where the creator of this Universe made a covenant with His creation.

When our hands droop, our knees are weak, and we are weighed down with worry and burdens, and feel like giving up, we can remember that we have a Saviour who will not let go of his grip on us. Life may not be easy but Jesus’ love for us and His forgiveness are as strong as ever. “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). His plan is for us to know how good He is, and how much He loves us. In fact, faith looks forward to a time when all Abraham's desendants will be welcomed into the promised land of heaven.

Blessings