“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, what is man that you should be mindful of him?” Psalm 8, verse 3, 4a.

We, who believe have an awesome God; and it makes life better just knowing that, and living with that awesomeness. We know we have a powerful God, one who can cause lightening, and thunder, the workings of the weather; the multiple revolutions of the Earth around its axis, the Sun, the Galaxy and the Universe. All of these are a part of the wonderful mystery of the God we praise. All of it comes from our need to understand that which is beyond our understanding; the why of our being here. 

Human life has spent more than five thousand years trying to picture with sense, and fact, and study the how and why of our being here; and the answer has always come up, God the creator, the entity, the Word, that started it all. God spoke, Genesis tells us, and things came to be. Science and philosophy have tried to explain; and while they have come close, the goal has never been quite reached; and we Christians offer God, the creator and father of all there is. God saw that it was good.  

The work of God continued and creation by God goes on; we humans discover new things in this world everyday which we can only blame on God. God loved what God had done. But it is our guess that God wanted what God offered to the people he had created. God wanted a return of the love he had offered so plentifully. It was because of that that God decided to send a part of himself, to teach us by example how he wanted us to live and act.

And Jesus, that part of God himself, was born in the most common of circumstances. Jesus lived as an ordinary child and boy, and then young man, learning what human life was like. As he grew, he also learned how those who professed a knowledge of God had corrupted that knowledge to the detriment of God’s people. It was then God in the form of his own son acted in the way of sacrifice to bring us understanding. We rehearse those events of his life each year, and they teach us again the love of God. His death, his return to life, and his return to be with that part of him we call the Father. 

In keeping with his love for us, he sent in a whirlwind and fire that part of himself that remains with us to this day. God sent His own Holy Spirit. To teach us, direct us, comfort us, and love us. That Spirit is God, and for all who love and believe, that spirit is never far away. God the father and creator, God the Son and redeemer, and God the Holy Spirit; all three are the one god who loves us, his creation. AMEN

The Rev. George O. Martin is an Ordained Deacon at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 17th and Adams, Great Bend. Send email to georgeom@hbcomm.net.