Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Commemoration of Polycarp, bishop and martyr 156

Reading: Genesis 15:1-12

Genesis 15:5 “God brought Abram outside and said: ‘Look toward the heavens and count the stars.’” 

            Abram considered himself accursed (Hebrew, ariri), because he had no biological heir, no male child, and so his line was going to end. But God promised that Abram would indeed father a child with Sarai his wife. “Look up and count the stars,” God told Abram. To the naked eye, the night sky holds about 6000 visible stars. (Our Milky Way galaxy alone is made up of over 200 billion stars, but not all are distinctly visible.) Counting one star per second (using the Sumerian number system based on 60) would have taken Abram ten hours. What an exhilarating promise and blessing to Abram. And what a blessing to us as followers of Christ, for in Luke 3:23-38 (and Matthew 1:1-16) the line of Abraham is traced through the generations first to David the King and on to Jesus of Nazareth. Count the stars…

O God, our shelter, you keep your promises beyond what we can even imagine. May we live each day in the joy of your faithfulness. Amen

• Go outside or to an east window this evening  and view what the lakota call the Full Hunger Moon,  so called because foodstores were almost depleted at this time of year. Give thanks for the moon and the stars and the sun.