Lost in the Stars

(A devotion given at Fullness Christian Fellowship)

A musical premiered on Broadway in 1949 called Lost in the Stars. One of the verses of its title song went like this:

Could you visualize the poem—see the person, or yourself, on a horse, stopped in the woods on a snowy evening? Now let me ask you, how many of you have actually done that—ridden on a horse and stopped in the woods on a snowy evening? Probably not many of us. And yet, we could see it, feel it, imagine it? Do you know what that is? That is the image of God in you! We might like to think our cats or our dogs can do that, but I tried it with our puppy, Teddy, and got nothing! That ability to imagine unknown worlds is what God did when he imagined all of the worlds He could have made, and then chose to make this one—like this. His immaterial spirit is imprinted on you.

And when He created this world, we’re told in Genesis 1 that He made morning and evening before there was the sun. How can that be? And yet each day we can walk in the first light before the sun has risen, or the dusk of evening after the sun has set and experience that initial creation. The manifestation of His Spirit through matter. When you go to the gulf shores, you can see the limits He placed on the water. When you look at your calendar you have a seven-day week. A day is a rotation of the earth on its axis; a month is a lunar cycle; a year is a rotation of the earth around the sun. But a week—7 days? There is no natural reason for this measurement beyond God’s creation. The immaterial is imprinted printed on our material world—even our calendars.

In Genesis 9 after the flood, God made a covenant with Noah reminding Noah that He still values human life. In the covenant he first stated its terms, and then gave a picture of His promise:

“Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you; and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth.

“I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.”

I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.

“It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh.

“When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

(Gen. 9:9-17).

The covenant? God will not destroy the earth again by water of the flood.

The sign: My Bow (קַשְׁתִּ֕י, qašti)—this is the word for an archer’s bow and arrow—a weapon used for hunting or in war. God says—and this is an imprint of the immaterial on the material—that he will hang his weapon in the sky, like a hunter hangs his weapon over the fireplace! When we see it, it looks like a God-sized bow hanging in the sky.

Finally, he says, when He sees the bow, He will remember his promise. It is not as though God is forgetful. He is not. When God remembers, He acts to fulfill His promises. On the 40^th day of the flood, it says God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark. (Gen 8:1). By remembering, God acted on His promises and delivered them.

So too tonight, as we come to the Lord’s Supper—another imprint of the immaterial on our material world—the Lord says to do this in remembrance of me. I think the sense is the same. We are in a covenant relationship with the Lord. When we partake of the bread and cup, we are partaking of a sacrifice which He offered on our behalf—a covenant of salvation that reaches back to the early images of the Passover. By eating his body and drinking his blood we are appropriating his death to our lives like Israel appropriated the lamb by placing its blood on the doorpost and eating the lamb on the night of the original Passover. As participants in this covenant memorialized through these elements, we are saying that we will be loyal—remember—the covenant with Jesus.

So, let’s partake together. On the night before he was crucified, he took the bread and said, all of you eat this—this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

Likewise, he took the cup and said, this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. All of you drink it. Do this in remembrance of me.

We are not “Lost in the Stars.” He is here and has imprinted his immaterial self on our material lives so that we can walk in it with our imagination, in the shadows of every morning and evening, in our seven-day week, and see it after a storm as his bow is hung in the sky, or experience Him as we assimilate His provision for us, and we remember, commit anew, our loyalty to Him.