Haunted Cosmos--Psalms 19:1-3

Day 2

So about asteroid 2024 YR4:

Alex Wilkins writes in New Scientist just yesterday:

“NASA has upgraded the risk of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth in 2032 to 3.1 per cent, or about a 1-in-32 chance, the highest odds yet of collision. Astronomers discovered that the asteroid was barrelling towards Earth in December and it has been a focus of the world’s telescopes and space agencies ever since. As they gather more data on the asteroid’s precise orbit, astronomers have been able to calculate the likelihood of it hitting Earth with greater precision. The asteroid is thought to be between 130 and 295 feet wide and has the potential to release energy equivalent to 7.7 megatons of TNT should it hit Earth – enough to destroy a city.”

So an asteroid the size of a soccer field or an airplane hangar has 3% chance of hitting earth in 7 years.

A 3% (or 1 in 32) is essentially the same odds of hitting a number on a roulette wheel. That doesn’t seem too bad to me.

I can’t even win with scratch off lottery tickets and those odds are about 1 in 5–so I’m relieved.

Sort of.

Hmmm. I wonder how Asteroid 2024 YR4 fits into Brian Sauve and Ben Garrett’s Haunted Cosmos: Doing Your Duty In A World That’s Not Just Stuff ?

A city-killing asteroid seems like more than just a haunting. 🙂

Ben Garrett (in his chapter) references how God reveals Himself in Psalms 19:

Psalms 19:1-3 The heavens tell of the glory of God; And their expanse declares the work of His hands. 2 Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor are there words; Their voice is not heard.

If the heavens and their expanse declares the work of God and His glory what could Asteroid 2024 YR4 tell?

I hesitate to say something patently obvious and probably noxious as God MUST be displeased to send an asteroid our way to MAYBE obliterate a city-sized piece of earth.

It’s tricky thinking about something that seems random like an asteroid hurtling through space as being part of God’s design–but if you believe as I do– that luck and coincidence have no place in His design, then we are left with ascribing meaning to WHY God would want or do such a thing.

And again, that’s above our paygrade.

Garrett notes that most moderns will go with the theory that getting hit by a rock the size of a Bass Pro Shop would be pure random, DUMB, luck:

“Moderns–especially the secular ones–absolutely mock the idea of intelligent design. They sit in the scoffer’s chair. Atheists, pantheists, panentheists, agnostics, pagans, neopagans, the alphabet soup crowd, and all others who deny God functionally laugh at the idea that all of this–everything we see and touch and smell–could actually mean something–could actually matter. They think that believing in the overall coherence of creation and history is for the dullard, and they’re dead wrong.”

I notice that in verse 1 that only the “heavens” tell of the glory of God. Not anything else–not the oceans, the forests, the rivers, or the face of my beautiful wife.

When we were cabining by a campfire at Cheraw State Park a couple of weeks ago, we were thrilled at how clear the sky is out in the woods away from the ambient lights of civilization.

I figure there must have been a couple of thousand stars in just our limited fields of vision.

(According to space scientists our galaxy, The Milky Way contains 100-400 billion stars of which our sun is one, and folks, those same science people say there are TRILLIONS of galaxies).

To contemplate the vastness of the universe like that is overwhelming. It’s almost hopeless.

(That’s why we stopped looking up and concentrated on roasting marshmallows on a stick).

But to not contemplate the vastness and the wonder of God’s universe is even worse. It’s soul deadening.

Garrett writes:

“Find the key everything’s singing in. Tune your heart to the guiding light of all creation. Tune in your heart to the guiding light of Christ over His Bride, the Church. Once you know the key, your soul will naturally start to spring forward into the crucial second step, which is to live there.”

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis in The Discarded Image, we aren’t just merely existing–like a rock. We aren’t just passively sitting around and growing–like a cucumber. We aren’t even just growing and running around–like a fiddler crab. We exist, grow, feel and see and smell and hear things–and we REASON.

In Disciplines of a Godly Man R. Kent Hughes describes the connection between adoration of God and contemplation:

“At the very heart of adoration is contemplation. Numerous psalms call us to contemplate God as seen in His creation. They never suggest that God is in His creation, but that His excellencies can be seen in His created works.”

And that’s where my cognitive dissonance lies.

If Asteroid 2024 YR4 is on the way and there is a 3% chance of impact–what does that mean about “His excellencies?”

Only the heavens declare His glory–asteroids come from deep space, ergo…what is God’s plan for us with this out-of-control, soccer-field sized rock?

Too early to tell, but definitely not too early to contemplate, right?

Lord, let us be like the skies and continuously proclaim Your goodness, 100% of the time. Help us to find knowledge in Your creation and to appreciate the lessons taught to us by the natural world.

Lord, let us live in harmony with Your creation and understand that every aspect of Your creation points back to You–even Asteroid 2024 YR4.

Amen.