Abstract expressionist painter William de Kooning, who lived most of his adult life in New York City, spent one summer in the country. One night he and his wife were in the woods and saw a night sky full of stars that stunned them. Having lived for years amid the pollution and lights of New York, they weren’t used to seeing the sky look so dazzlingly bright. Finally, de Kooning wanted to get up and leave the woods and go back to their home.
“The universe,” he said, “gives me the creeps.”
Yes, it’s totally understandable how someone could contemplate the stars, the vastness of space, in contrast to our smallness, our fleetingness, and get the creeps. It can be quite daunting, quite overwhelming, don’t you think?
However, when you look at a night sky full of stars, and think of the words of the Psalmist: “The heavens declare the glory of God;/ And the firmament shows His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1), instead of the creeps, you will experience a sense of awe, of wonder, of astonishment. Look at the beauty of those stars, burning like cosmic chandelier, and think about the awesome power that not only created them but sustains them in the heavens. This is all the word of God, our Creator God, the same God who loved us so much that He came down and in the person of Jesus died for us.
That is—the One who “by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers” (Colossians 1:16), is the same one “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24).
So, next time you look up at a night sky full of stars, think not only the majesty and glory of the One Who created them but the amazing love that brought that same one down here as a sacrifice for us as well.
