CBB. 1/2/23
A year ago, after the Webb Space Telescope launch, I wrote this based on multiple news reports…..
“NASA has hired a team of theologians, led by Reverend Dr. Andrew Davison, to guide humankind through potential worldview-shattering information that might come to light as a result of exploration of the cosmos by the new John Webb telescope that launched in December….it is 100x more powerful than Hubble and is already giving new glimpses into mysteries of the universe.
“The “most significant question” Davison is trying to answer is how theologians might react to the notion “of there having been many incarnations [of Christ]” in the universe, he wrote in a blog post for the University of Cambridge Faculty of Divinity.”
Uh, God has been presenting Himself to humankind since He created it. If He created other beings in other places, He would certainly make Himself known to them, as well. Theophanies (appearances of God to man) are expected. Just because He chose to incarnate to us through His own Spirit’s birth into the physical human realm in the person of Jesus Christ does not make any other theophany less meaningful to the individual to whom God appears. It simply shows that God created this special means of union between two to bring forth new beings called “birth” to prepare us for the reality that He may enter the physical world and life of humankind any way He chooses…… and may well be doing it in many ways all the time, including through the physical birth of other beings similarly (but without that supernatural virginal means the way He did with Jesus) to establish a precedent, the “Firstborn” among redeemed mankind. It certainly demonstrates that He can do it any time, any way, and any where He chooses.
The birth of every baby is a miraculous event, full of possibilities. Maybe God just chooses to remain anonymous now after having made Himself known through such a special, well-heralded birth appearance in Bethlehem all those years ago, showing us that He could do that. Maybe He walks the earth today in another body, more anonymously, even to the person in whom He chooses to dwell to direct the path of people, families, nations, even worlds. And we know from Old Testament reports He’s been able to come and go as He pleases among mankind by His Spirit, abiding in a person, for however long He chooses, unknown to the person. Maybe He still does. The difference is, if the individual embraces the Gospel of Jesus Christ and surrenders to Christ’s Holy Spirit permanently abiding within and striving to live obediently, then God in Christ resides and guides that person’s spirit forever (and dwells in one’s physical presence, too, as long as the person remains in the body.)
None of these possibilities distress me. God is God. I am not. His ways are not my ways and my thoughts are not His thoughts.
What I do know is God is sovereign over all. God is good. God loves His creation and is personally and intimately engaged in each person’s life for His glory, our good, and others’ gain. How that works out in each life is God’s work, not ours.
If humanity has finally matured enough to embrace and be capable of receiving the reality of the “fullness of the Grace and Truth of God” such that God is ready to reveal Himself and the mystery of His Being to us in more direct ways than most of us have known before, then I’d say this truly could be the Year of The Lord’s Great Appearing.”
Now I’m curious to know what Rev. Davison and his team have observed this past year….Turns out we were strung along….