And The Word Became Stardust

St. Andrew

Almighty God, who gave such grace to your apostle Andrew that he readily obeyed the call of your Son Jesus Christ, and brought his brother with him: Give us, who are called by your holy Word, grace to follow him without delay, and to bring those near us into his gracious presence; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

from The Book of Common Prayer

There’s a Reason It’s Funny

Click here.

The Magnificat

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

(Luke 1:46-55, ESV)

I keep coming back to this passage of Scripture because I keep learning stuff from it.

Mary, a young, unassuming Jewish girl, is still processing the fact that she, as a virgin, is giving birth to the Jewish Messiah. I can’t even possibly imagine how she’s handling this one. But we find this magnificent passage in St. Luke’s Gospel, where Mary places this strange event in her life squarely within the story of God’s salvation of his people.

It seems like such a strange connection to us. Her pregnancy is placed in the context of “scattering the proud” and “filling the hungry with good things” and “sending the rich away empty.” But this all familiar to her. This is the story of the God of Israel, the saving God who comes to set everything right. Sure, the angels will speak of “on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased” (Luke 2:14, ESV), but peace comes to God’s people when God brings justice to the world, and puts an end to sin and evil and wickedness.

Which can sound a little scary, if you ask me. Because I’ve spent enough time in selfish pride to probably deserve to be scattered. And by the world’s standards I’m probably pretty well off, and I don’t always use that to feed the hungry. So if God is coming to “set everything right,” and bring justice to the world, he might just start with me. And that’s scary.

So…. ummm…. Merry Christmas?

Well, then there’s the rest of that story. The story that has that baby, which will indeed judge the world, come to save the world, to give his life as a ransom for many. To take my sin and wretchedness upon himself on the cross, to pay the penalty I deserve for all of that selfish pride and living. And then to usher in the firstfruits of the glorious New Creation by rising from the dead, declaring victory over sin, death, and Satan, and guaranteeing the same will happen to his people. Indeed, “his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.”

Rare Moon

BBC NEWS: “Earth’s Moon is ‘cosmic rarity’”

Well, sure.

This was realized theoretically a long time ago but now it has observational legs.

The Moon was created when an object as big as the planet Mars smacked into the Earth billions of years ago.

The impact hurled debris into orbit, some of which eventually consolidated to form our Moon.

The Astrophysical Journal reports that just 5-10% of planetary systems in the Universe have moons created this way.

“When a moon forms from a violent collision, dust should be blasted everywhere,” said lead author Nadya Gorlova of the University of Florida in Gainesville, US.

“If there were lots of moons forming, we would have seen dust around lots of stars - but we didn’t.”

We’ve got a big moon that stabilizes our axis of rotation. We’ve got a big magnetic field and thick atmosphere that deflects most of the deadly radiation coming from the Sun and parts elsewhere. We wouldn’t be here without any of this.

So take some time this Thanksgiving to thank God for the great place we have to live in the universe.

Babies Have Innate Social Skills

MSNBC.com — Even babies judge their companions

Interesting. Fascinating.

A quote from the article:

Babies as young as 6 to 10 months old showed crucial social judging skills before they could talk, according to a study by researchers at Yale University’s Infant Cognition Center published in Thursday’s journal Nature.

The infants watched a googly-eyed wooden toy trying to climb roller-coaster hills and then another googly-eyed toy come by and either help it over the mountain or push it backward. They then were presented with the toys to see which they would play with.

Nearly every baby picked the helpful toy over the bad one.

The babies also chose neutral toys — ones that didn’t help or hinder — over the naughty ones. And the babies chose the helping toys over the neutral ones.

Before anyone says anything, I’m not in the slightest using stuff like this to justify infant baptism. It is interesting to be seeing babies “choose” things, however. Hmmm… (j/k)