The Hubble Space Telescope and the Sparrow

On April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope, with a resolving power calculated to be ten times better than any telescope on Earth, was put into an orbit 375 miles above the earth. Though it has not provided any complete understanding of our universe, it has put an eye in space allowing us to see things never seen before. Producing over an encyclopedia amount of data daily, the many pictures generated by this instrument (and carried on the Internet in several sites such as: http://hubble.nasa.gov) gives us an ever deepening appreciation of what we call “The Universe.”

A few facts: Our sun is one of an estimated 400+ billion stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. The estimated number of galaxies in the universe is 50 billion+. The estimated number of stars in universe is 5 billion trillion.

If you are like me, looking at this picture from the Hubble Telescope, showing star formations some 7,000 light years away — you will be overwhelmed by the beauty and the vastness of God’s creation.

The NASA site describes this picture as showing “. . . newborn stars emerging from ‘eggs’ — not the barnyard variety — but rather, dense, compact pockets of interstellar gas called evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs). Hubble found the ‘EGGs,’ appropriately enough, in the Eagle nebula, a nearby star-forming region 7,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Serpens. These striking pictures resolve the EGGs at the tip of fingerlike features protruding from monstrous columns of cold gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula. The columns — dubbed ‘elephant trunks’ — protrude from the wall of a vast cloud of molecular hydrogen, like stalagmites rising above the floor of a cavern. The gaseous towers, [in this picture] are light-years long.” (courtesy http://hubblesite.org)

Looking at these remarkable photographs, puts us in awe of the power of God to create such size, such distance, and such a magnitude of stars. Then we must stop to consider the size of you and me in the greater scheme of things — how small we are in comparison. Makes us think about the possibility that just perhaps we are a lot less important than we think we are?

However, just as we are about to relegate “us” to the category of “nothing much,” think about the sparrow!

Our Lord Jesus must have known that someday we would have this insight into our Universe, and that we would have to deal with the question of “what are we really worth in the eyes of God? Why should He ever bother with things as small as we are in the context of His Universe!!”

Jesus, speaking to His Disciples, explained with authority exactly how God feels about us. There is no way we could have guessed this on our own.

“Are not sparrows two a penny? Yet without your Father’s leave, not one of them can fall to the ground. As for you, even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So have no fear: you are worth more than any number of sparrows.” (Matt 10:29-31)

How incredible to think that we, tiny spots in this vastness of God’s beautiful creation, are known and loved individually by a Creator of such vast proportions. It gives insight into the meaning of the word “Reverence.” Paul Woodruff, writing in his book of the same name, suggests that Reverence is when you view something with awe because it is beyond your ability to understand.

Knowing that the Creator of such vastness remains aware of even a tiny sparrow, teaches us how much God really loves each and everyone of us. As unbelievable as it may seem, even in the context of “Billions of stars, etc.,” God knows and loves you and me. God thinks of us as important to Him, even in our smallness. How can we ever have anything less than total Reverence for our God?

But now and then, when we get discouraged and feel as if no one cares — let’s think first about the Pictures from the Hubble Telescope. Then — for just a moment — think about the lesson Jesus taught about the Sparrow.

Nebula Photo Credit: Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen (Arizona State University), and NASA