This talk was delivered at a youth club in Sunderland in May 2008

Contact - journey to the heart of the universe

What thing or places make you feel really small?

One place that I have been to that makes me feel small is the top of some of the peaks in the lake district.  Now, on a world scale, these 'mountains' are just bumps on the earths surface, but when you are up them looking down it makes you feel very small.

One picture that gives me a similar feeling is this one.  (see link) It is a photo by Jean Guichard.  This size of the waves in comparison to the man are terrifying but amazing at the same time.  It makes me feel small.  And I am small.

Watch the clip from 'Contact' - 0:00:30 - 0:03:27

At the start of a very interesting movie we are brought face to face with how small and insignificant we really are and how enormous and glorious the universe is.  It is good for us to be realistic for once.  So often we love to show how big and important we are.  How significant we are to other people, and the universe around.  In fact we often live as though the universe revolves around us.  Isn't it ridiculous.  Actually, images like that make me feel very insignificant.  And that can be a good thing.

Around 3000 years ago a man called David was looking up into the sky.  There were no street lights, no 'glow' from the nearby city.  And no distractions from noisy neighbours.  Just the lights of the sky in all its beauty and enormity.  In the film, when Ellie Arroway finds herself stunned by the beauty of the universe she bemoans her lack of words to describe it.  She complains that what they should have sent was a poet, not a scientist and astronomer.  Well David was one of the worlds greaters poets and song writers, and as he looks, that is exactly what he does.  He writes a song. 

And this is what he wrote -

'When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,  the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?'  Psalm8:3-4

Someone else has translated it like this -

'I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings.  Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us?  Why take a second look our way?'  ¹

When we look at the universe that exists, we are supposed to be wowed by it.  Do you ever do that?  Take time to think about it, to reflect on how massive, how enormous and awesome it is.  Some will see - we are not mean't to be wowed by it.  That is just the way it is.  Well, we could reflect on the origins of this universe but lets leave it for another day.  Surfice to say, many leading scientists who believe in evolutionary theory and who don't believe in a creator who created for a reason.  The Bible gives us the reason.

Earlier in the song David says - 'O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.' 

The beauty and awesome magnitude of the universe is mean't to show us the beauty and awesome magnitude of the God who dreamt it up, created and sustained it. We are supposed to be wowed by it and therefore wowed by him!

And that should lead us to an even more awesome conclusion.  'Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us?  Why take a second look our way'

Why would the God who made this be bothered with little old me.  I am so insignificant, so small and weak.  The sort of creation that can be carried away my a strong wave from a light house!  Why?

Because we humans are unique.  We are made like God to be like God,  and therefore he loves us in a unique way.  He loves you in a unique way.  With all the expanse of the universe at his grasp he cares for and loves you.  And he wants to know you.  Now that is gobsmacking. 

As you think about something big, as you look at the world around you this week, ask yourself a question.  Why does it mean to me that the God of the universe loves me.  And what am I going to do about it.  The heart of the universe is about a God wanting to make 'Contact' with you.  Do you want him?

¹  Eugene. H Peterson, The Message (Navpress, Colorado Springs: 2002)p918