Last night I attended the opening service of the World Methodist Council. It was a bit like the Methodist church version of the opening ceremony of the Olympics as each country processed in with a banner for their nation while we sang lots of verses of ‘Jesus the name high over all’. There was a fabulous choir, excellent musicians and probably a couple of thousand worshippers raising the roof!
My favourite part was a talk by Dr Jennifer Wiseman, an astro physicist and Rev
Dr David Wilkinson a scientist and theologian. They showed amazing pictures of stars and galaxies and talked about the awesomeness of God’s creation and how vast the universe is. They went on to read Psalm 8 and how the Psalmist looks at the world and the heavens and asks ‘What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?’. They reminded us that we do indeed have significance and worth, not because of our own achievements, status, wealth or education but because God created us, loves us and sent Jesus to die for us. They quoted one of the Apollo astronauts who said, ‘Jesus walking on the earth was more important than man walking on the moon.’.
It was good to be reminded to keep our lives in perspective against the vastness of creation and yet to realise how special we are to God and how he cares for the details of our lives. At the end of their talk we sang ‘How great thou art’ and it was so powerful and moving to sing that after all the pictures we had just seen of space. A fitting talk in the city which houses the NASA space centre!
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| An amazing photo from the Hubble telescope of gases from a dying star forming a butterfly image. |
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| The wonderful choir at the service. |
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