Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent

 Lectionary: 183

Lift up your eyes on high
and see who has created these things...
Why, O Jacob, do you say,
and declare, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my God"?
Do you not know
or have you not heard?
The LORD is the eternal God,
creator of the ends of the earth.

 C arl Sagan did his darndest to overcome the faith of millions as he pointed to the "billions and billions" of stars and galaxies. But when we lifted up our eyes on high and saw those things, we saw the glory of Isaiah's "eternal God."

This mystery of infinity was not discovered after we built the Hubble and James Webb telescopes. We have been looking at the stars since the very beginning and trying to count all the stars, and we've yet to come to the end of that. But the wonder of God's infinity wasn't our response to the deep mystery of the sky. 

It came as a revelation, as the voice of the LORD spoke to our hearts. It came as we trekked out of Egypt and across the Arabian peninsula without food or water but were neither hungry nor thirsty. It came as we collected the little that was there and shared it among ourselves and found that no one had too little and no one had too much. 

Now, this is what the LORD has commanded. Gather as much of it as each needs to eat, an omer for each person for as many of you as there are, each of you providing for those in your own tent.” The Israelites did so. Some gathered a large and some a small amount.
But when they measured it out by the omer, the one who had gathered a large amount did not have too much, and the one who had gathered a small amount did not have too little. They gathered as much as each needed to eat. (Exodus 16:16)

It was the experience of our own generosity as we gave to others and insisted, "There's plenty more where that came from" even when we didn't know where it came from. It came from the Lord, and we knew it. And we knew God's infinite capacity for generosity. And that we shared that virtue with God. 

That superabundant generosity is absolutely characteristic of God. We see it in the LORD's infinite love as he begets the Son of God whose authority is endless. And we saw that their love for one another spirates the Holy Spirit. But an infinity of generosity remains to call from nothingness an apparently endless universe -- or multiverse! -- with Mr. Sagan's "billions and billions" of stars and galaxies and black holes and what all! 

And they, as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry suggested in his book, The Little Prince, are guided in their courses by singing choruses of little princes and princesses -- whom we know as angels. And if the Carl Sagans of this world insist there are no angels, we simply ask them who put such a curb on their imagination, and why. 

And still there is an infinity of compassion for us poor sinners, and our wretched behavior does not exhaust his mercy. For he knows each of us, even as he knows every hair on our heads like the count of the sand on the seashore. With endless patience he insists that we sing...

Pied Beauty 

 

Glory be to God for dappled things –

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                               Praise him.

                                                                 Gerard Manley Hopkins