In the last blog, I wrote about how science has basically two exclusively different foundations for its choice of philosophy by which it interprets data: one foundation is that there is no God (commonly the position of evolution) – or perhaps better put: that there is no God that is involved with the universe; the other approach is that there is a God Who is involved.
“Without God” is a position of despair, because annihilation and extinction are its eventual conclusions. Truly, it is postulated that such an end “probably” is billions of years in the future – that is, unless the direst of predictions for 2012 come true – but the extent of time really does not matter. The striving of us or of any organism is in the end-analysis useless. To make this life “better,” or whatever the thought may be, would seem at best to merely prolong the agony. So what that life is short or long, it does not matter. So what that new organisms may come through evolution – who will ever really care when it all shakes out? Quite realistically, there are some who are satisfied with this perspective. It is strange when those who seek power, fame, and/or fortune will declare this position, because they are declaring that their striving is meaningless – or as such passages as Ecclesiastes 1:14,17; 2:11,17 indicate, “this also is vanity and a grasping for the wind.”
On the other side, there is the position of “With God.” Such a stance does have that rather distasteful idea that God is actually paying attention – it does matter to Him who we are and what we do – and that we are accountable to Him – distasteful to our human nature, that is, which does not want to have to own up to all that it does.
But equally so, the Jehovah of Covenant is paying attention because we really do matter, and that our value actually lasts, in fact, lasts eternally. In John 1:43-51, when Philip brings Nathaniel to Jesus, Jesus tells Nathaniel, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you” – as far as Nathanael knew, nobody had paid any attention to him. And yet Jesus demonstrated that he had indeed been noticed. I would venture to say that for the large majority of us, it is important when someone notices us – even negative attention is far better than no attention at all.
Does God really care about what happens on this earth and to its in habitants? How can we know? This is where the Ballet of the Heavens is useful. As indicated in previous blogs, planet conjunctions have followed their routines since when the heavens first existed. Then a series of religious festivals that are commanded 1500 years earlier (in evidence 500 years earlier during “the Babylonian Captivity”) precisely coincide with a specific series of conjunctions in a specific place in the sky at a specific time in history – this challenges the idea of mere happenstance.
The precision is startling – in the sequence of the three conjunctions of Jupiter with the “king” star Regulus, a “circling” movement that has been called “the Crowning of the King,” the circle looks like a lop-sided crown: from the first to the second conjunction is a loop of 156 days (over 5 months), but from the second to the third conjunction is only 80 days (less than 3 months). One might have expected a more symmetrical look, yet any variation in the lengths of these two loops would have destroyed their connection to the festival year.
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When a third element, the time periods of gestation and purification, overlays the time periods of these conjunctions with exact accuracy – this even more defies mere chance. Why would this be so arranged so as to turn out this way, especially since this all occurs only from the point of view of the earth?
On top of this, these conjunctions occur at the time of Jesus’ birth. Within these conjunctions, all that has been prophesied by a variety of authors over hundreds of years in the Bible as to the Who, what and how of Jesus and His life is emphasized in these festivals. Yet of all the commanded festivals, the one that is skipped in this sequence is Passover, which will have its own special accent in 33 years.
Yet none of these connections could have been seen from anywhere else in the universe. It cannot be claimed that all this is merely a Christian reconstruction after the fact, since the path of the stars and planets are easily tracked, and the festivals are well in place for hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth. Not coincidence, but a strong sense of design seems to be taking place here – but who, and why, and how could anyone have designed all this to occur with such precision?
Some will never be convinced, but a good logical explanation is that there is a God, and that this God actually pays attention to this earth. In fact, what is only begun in this combination of conjunctions, festivals and the birth of Jesus will be a lifetime that continues to declare an amazing personal involvement of God with our world. He will walk among us, experiencing joy, celebration, disappointment, discouragement, loneliness, even betrayal. Even more powerfully will this God sacrifice Himself on behalf of human creatures, yet not end the Story there, but will go on to a resurrection. And there is more; in Revelation 21:3-4, echoing Ezekiel 37:26-27 and Isaiah 25:8-9, notice Who gets to live with whom:
I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes …”
Johannes Kepler once stated that “Science is thinking God’s thoughts after Him” – and once we do that, in contrast to despair, we discover the truth behind God’s words in Jeremiah 29:11: “’For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,’ says the LORD, ‘thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.’”