On the Relationship Between Light, Time, and the Mystery of God

I was meditating on time today, precipitated by some mysteries I’ve recently learned about the light of the Sun that reaches this earth.

I have long known that to look up into the night sky is to look far into the past. Looking up at the star Sirius, I am seeing 9 years into the past. Looking over at the star Antares, I am seeing 250 years into the past. And when I look the star Rigel, I am seeing 600 years into the past. Looking further still at the Andromeda galaxy, I am seeing one million years into the past. That is how long it takes the light of these stars and galaxies to reach us! We are not seeing them as they are now, but as they were then. The past, even the distant past, is very present to us.

The light of the sun takes 8.25 minutes to reach us. Thus we see the surface of the sun not as it is now, but as it was more than 8 minutes ago.

But I learned yesterday that the light of the sun is even older than I had thought. A little research on my part revealed this astonishing fact: the photons of light that reach the surface of the sun (and then reach us 8+ minutes later) were actually generated 100,000 years ago in the sun’s core.

Emerging from the sun’s core as the result of nuclear fusion, a photon of light enters the radiative zone (see diagram above). The plasma in that radiative zone is quite a maze for the photon to get through, such a maze that it takes the better part of 100,000 years to make the journey to the convective zone and the photosphere where it finally begins a rapid journey out into the vacuum of space.

Why does it take this long? Imagine being in a large room filled with people, trying to get to the door on the other side the room. But as you try to make your way across the room, person after person strikes up a conversation with you, delaying your progress. It won’t take you 100,000 years to get to the door, but you get the idea.

The diagram above shows the meandering, zigzag motion of a photon as it makes it way through a maze of plasma that detains the photon for up to 100,000 years!

Thus, the sunlight we currently bask in is much more than 8 minutes old; it’s 100,000 years old! The light we see today was made in the sun’s core back during the beginning of the last ice age.

The great mystery of time is on display for us at every moment. The past is present in many ways. And our past is on display and still present as well. If anyone on a planet near Rigel were looking back through a telescope at the earth right now, he would not see us as we are today, he might see Joan of Arc and her contemporaries of the 15th century. The light of our “today” will not reach Rigel for 600 years.

What is the present? That is mysterious as the sum total space of the universe and it depends on where you are. God, who is just as present at Rigel as He is here, has the same access to the images of 1415, as he does to those of 2015. Indeed, He is present at Andromeda just as much as here on earth; and a million years ago is just as accessible to Him as is now.

The future is even more mysterious, but that is just as available to God as is the past.

Do not miss the irony of the fact that the light of the sun (and the reflected light of the moon), by which we set our clocks and calendars to measure time and tell what time it is now, is 100,000 years old.

Does anybody really know what time it is? Only God, only God. Time is very mysterious and the more we think we know, it seems the less we really do.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you (Psalm 139:16-18).

It’s also a control issue.

We think we can do a better job than anyone else at anything, and do not relinquish control very readily.

But really, who better to surrender control to? Do we really think that we can do a better job of assuring a place in heaven for ourselves than God?

And really, it’s a matter of trust. Those who won’t surrender control to God, who knows the beginning from the end, and is omnipotent and omnipresent, don’t really trust God to do what He says, or they wouldn’t be trying so hard to do it themselves.

But who better to trust? The omniscience, omnipresent, omnipotent Creator of the universe, who is love personified, or me who can’t control myself much less the guy next to me and don’t know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow morning?

So it gets down to either lack of trust, or simply not believing that God is going to do what He promised.

My salvation is secure, not because of anything I have done, but because of the trustworthiness of the One who promised that I am secure. He remains faithful, even if (when) I am faithless.

John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

John 6:37-39 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

John 10:25-30 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.”

1 Corinthians 1:4-8 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus,that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge—even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you—so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 1:21-22 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

2 Corinthians 5:4-8 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

Ephesians 1:13-14 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Colossians 1:13-14 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 2:13-14 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Colossians 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

1 Peter 1:3-5 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Hebrews 6:17-20 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3156607/posts?page=313#313

2 Corinthians 1:21-22 Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

For which the Greek, from the Byzantine, is:

2Corinthians 1:21-22 ο δε βεβαιων ημας συν υμιν εις χριστον και χρισας ημας θεος ο και σφραγισαμενος ημας και δους τον αρραβωνα του πνευματος εν ταις καρδιαις ημων

The first word in bold above is “bebaion,” the idea of confirmation, frequently used in commercial settings to confirm a bargain. Which of course makes sense of the remaining terms used here, which are also elements of a secured contract.

The second word in bold above is “sphragisamenos,” being sealed is to be marked by the signature, signet ring, or other unique proof of identity, that we belong to God, and this sealing is done by God, who is the one taking action in this verse. We do not and cannot seal ourselves. We do not, by our own powers, have access to God’s “signet ring.”

The third bolded word above is “arrabona,” and indicates what we might loosely refer to as earnest money, but in Hebrew culture conveys more the idea of a pledge of covenant, a security given as a guarantee that the deal will go through, though we only receive part payment at the beginning. See ערב for the related Hebrew stem indicating “pledge.”

I figure that God is a God of love and mercy as He tells us in Scripture, and when you read about how long He pleads with people to return to Him to avoid judgment and how much time He gives them to repent, and the lengths that He went to to save us, it makes no sense that He’d leave us unsure of our future, or that it could be so easily lost or cast away.

He WANTS to save us. The way I see it, is that He’s not looking for a reason, or excuse, to damn us, so that if we slip up just once, we’re hellbound, but He’s looking for a reason to save us, so that He takes our feeblest efforts in His direction and honors them with a response on His part, and saves us.

He knows we’re not perfect and we never will be, but as Psalm 103 says, He does not treat us according to our sins or repay us according to our iniquities and He knows our frame and remembers that we are dust and He shows us GREAT compassion.

When I was a Catholic, I never felt like God really wanted to save me, but it was more like an obligation on His part. If I did X, Y, and Z, then He HAD to save me. Since the God that the RCC presented was one who was so capricious and intolerant and impatient with our short comings, you had to be just about perfect to even think you had a chance of making it.

When my kids were little and disobeyed, it never even crossed my mind to disown them and make them come groveling back to me doing works to *prove* to me how sorry they were. Yes, I was grieved and disappointed by their rebellion, but they were still my children and I loved them anyway. A Father’s heart is not one to throw the child under the bus anytime they slipped up. Or even willfully sinned on occasion.

What a joy and what freedom to come to know the God of the Bible, the one full of compassion and mercy and grace, who understands when we slip, even when we throw our spiritual temper tantrums and deliberately sin, He and forgives us anyway.

THAT is security.

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