9. Glory

Dear children,

We see stars as pinpricks of distant light. Remember when we looked at a planet - and in our little 4-inch telescope we saw Venus as something like a dime in a sea of darkness. We were stymied by the light around us in the city. We just don't see the sky at night the way the ancients did when they had no electricity.

I think the new Webb telescope is one of the most amazing things I have ever come across. Thousands of people from all over the world for the past 25 years have worked together to complete this project. The creation and launch of the telescope is one astonishing thing after another, at least it is for me, because I know how things go sideways in a complex project. There were in this project so many parts that had to be folded up to get them into the rocket, and then unfolded flawlessly after getting into space where they had room for the immense mirrors to focus light from ancient times. There has to be such precision and coordination of the parts. The final telescope operates at ultra cold temperatures - near absolute zero (-273°C) where flesh would instantly freeze and disintegrate. And we will see the images when all is set up this summer on our home TV screens.

The language they use to explain what they have done is more language that you will learn as you study science. And it is directly related to time. This telescope will be able to peer into deeper and deeper space to observe the formation of galaxies from near the beginning of time.

This makes me ask ‘What happened before the start of everything?’ Will we be able to see the whole puzzle?

A brief interruption in the thought process.

No wine for you at present, but here is a saying of Jesus - in the old English - No man having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.

That's how I feel about the old and new testaments. I must make the move from old to new, but I want to come through the front door - moving from old to new - rather than going in through the kitchen door - assuming the conclusions in the new and then reading these into the old. Whichever door we enter, we must be shrewd about how we deal with the ancient texts - because both parts of the Bible are old from our point of view. I also like to play with language and imagination.

As in tennis, one asks who is going to win the match, the old or the new, and we can study the two players and their history. Yahweh plays for the old and Jesus for the new.

Tennis - love all

Yahweh, apart from a few stories of appearances, is invisible. Yahweh is called God and Lord in the first testament in the Bible.

The 39 mostly Hebrew books (or 24 volumes depending on how you count them) are written, collected, and copied by people from ancient Israel over a long period approaching if not exceeding 1000 years. Lord is the word used instead of Yahweh in Greek and English Bibles. Yahweh is God, Lord, and Sovereign. In the Hebrew tradition, people substitute adonai (Hebrew for my lord, or master) when reading or reciting the name in the text - or they say HaShem, the Hebrew word meaning "the name".

Jesus is called the Messiah - a word meaning anointed. In the old days - and still now, people pour oil on the head of the king or the queen when the king or queen is about to be crowned. This is what is meant by anointing. In Hebrew mwk (the k is chet, a strong h). Jesus was born and died about 2000 years ago. You can see that we number our years from his birth (roughly speaking - mistakes were made in the calculations and calendars changed and so on). He was anointed before his death and he was crowned with a crown of thorns. We remember his birth on Christmas day - but December 25th wasn't his birthday exactly. The stories of the shepherds and the magi are as famous as the stories of Yahweh at creation and at the rescue of his people from slavery in Egypt.

We remember Jesus' death as he asked us to in the churches and particularly each year on Good Friday. The New Testament that tells his story and the story of the birth of the church is a collection of 27 books: 4 gospels, a history, and various letters all written in Greek by students and followers of Jesus. Messiah becomes Χριστός in Greek, Christ in English. Jesus is also called the Word of God, and the Son of the Living God. So Jesus Christ is a child of God like you and like me, an older brother of sorts. But he has been considered almost if not equal with God these past 1700 years. Some of these beliefs are formulas - not necessarily meaningful from a practical point of view.

So how can I compare Jesus the Anointed (Christ, Messiah, and also called Lord) with Yahweh - God - who is known by The Name - remember Yahweh said: "this is the name by which I will be remembered. This is my name forever and this is my memorial generation by generation."

Imagine - another course correction

Mass limits our speed along spatial dimensions. If we are heavy, it takes a lot more effort to move faster. The speed of light is constant. Photons have zero mass. There is no passage of time for a photon. Time stands still. The clock never changes for a photon. Nothing moves faster than the speed of light. (But there are odd questions about quantum entanglement.) At the beginning of all things, all time and space could have been held in one hand. What then was before the beginning when there was no time to measure because there was neither light nor any material thing that was moving? So the whole idea of was or before is senseless.

Suppose there was a God who could hold the whole of time and space in its imagined hand. What solitude! What quiet! As quiet as space is at L2 where the Webb telescope is, 10 million miles from us?

Was there conversation - even if silent, within this God?

'Let our glory be present into this potential in our hands'.

And one fluctuation answers, 'Let it indeed'.

And the other says, 'But what will we let loose?'

And the other says, the communication being mediated by spirit, 'Wisdom will find a way to its origin'.

And the mediator responds, 'Let such a pouring out come to birth. She will stand and call continuously, upright, without guile or deviousness.'

And the original fluctuation agrees, 'We will be in the whole effort. I buy this beginning of my way. Let it be.'

And the other before the beginning says 'From everlasting, I am the libation poured out from the beginning, out of the precedents of earth, an ambit engraved on the face of the abyss.' And they inscribed the ball with an endless interlocking pattern of circles.

And they as one agree that there will be play, the one next to the other as confidante, reveling in the created day by day, reveling with the children of humanity, circles of glory entangled in all their ways.

Happy they will be who keep the ways of this glorious unity of persons.

And then in anticipation, together, the stars of the morning shout for joy, and all the children of God shout in triumph.

So there was a fluctuation out of the hand of the One and into a created reality of time and space that is always occupied by a unity of information, word, spirit, being, wave after wave, the created order seeking its own understanding.

And in due time, the word that was from the beginning became flesh and knew what God had let loose firsthand. And the mediator knew. And God knew. Occasionally he was impatient: How long must I put up with this generation? And he was rejected. He suffered as we suffer - so now he knows. And the mediator knows. And God knows. And he died. A temple destroyed. A sanctuary destroyed. But God rebuilt it. Jesus was seen in his body after his death.

And people tried to make sense of this at the time and for generations after. Over the next 300 years, speaking humanly now, formulas were established and governance over what was right or wrong to believe. This was not done flawlessly. The full puzzle was not complete.

Glory, however, is not so easily banished from its own creation, nor is it so easily controlled. The same spirit of Christ is still present even as Yahweh is present, whatever rules were made up. All time and space is present to glory, and there is no limit to its speed or its presence.

So those who experience time moment by moment and call within our space time world, will find these puzzle pieces within it, holiness, compassion, and completeness. The puzzle will be revealed in the fulness of its patterns. What is endless is not time but the glorious origin of all time and space. And we are given the privilege of discovering this creation and participating with its creator.

There is a poem that begins like this: The heavens proclaim the glory of God. What if all those elemental particles and forces are infused in glory? We are certainly observing God's handiwork - of course we do not expect to find 'an old man in the sky'. No graven images or imaginations necessary.

I think we are teachable, perhaps, like a lively horse.

So here is a link to the new telescope and its unfolding.

And this short video gives a reasonable overview.

We still don't know who will win the tennis match. I think it is time to deal with some smaller puzzle pieces. 

Till the next letter ...