BLOG # 77 THE MOON

BLOG # 77 THE MOON One evening last week as I was out walking just as it was about to get dark I noticed the moon high in the sky. After a few moments of reflection on its beauty and marveling at the fact I could see it at a distance of about a hundred and twenty-nine thousand miles it occurred to me to think of verse eighty-eight of psalm eighty-nine. There the psalmist refers to the moon as a "faithful witness in the sky". How beautiful and powerful that image is! The moon has a real substance of its own but no light. All the light we see coming from the moon is coming from the sun, reflected down to us from the moon but coming from the sun. Whenever we see the moon 'shining' we know the sun is shining. The moon is a faithful witness. Then I began to apply t his image to ourselves as believing Christians. We have something definite of our own as simple creatures of God just as the moon has something of its own independently of the light of the sun. We share with other creatures certain natural gifts. With other creatures of the one Almighty Creator we have life sight hearing, the ability to move about, reproduce, and death. These realities in us can be compared to the substance of the moon, real in itself, capable of reflecting light, but with no light of its own. Receiving light from the sun the moon reflects the light to us and becomes the faithful witness in the sky. We believing Christians are invited and empowered to do something similar with regard to the very special gift which Jesus came to share with us and which He refers to as "life". ( Jn 10: 10). "I came that you may have life." (Jn 8: 12 ) "I am the light of the world. No follower of mine will ever walk in darkness, no, he will possess the light of life." (Jn 14: 6) "I am the way and the truth and the life." (Jn 5: 39f. "...you are unwilling to come to me to possess that (eternal) life." As the sun is to the moon Jesus is to those who believe, bringing us the light of truth about ourselves and all of creation. His light reveals the answers to the fundamental questions we all have with regard to the purpose and meanng of our life as creatures of an all-loving all-powerful Creator, about the meaning and value of suffering, and about death and eternal life beyond the grave. We reflect the truths we have received by faith into the darkness of the secularized culture around us in the form of joy peace kindness patience hope and love, just as the moon reflects to earth the light of the sun, no matter that it is a hundred and twenty-nine thousand miles away! In living out our faith we are faithful witnesses to the presence of Jesus in our world today. Praised be He, now and forever!