Magnificent Monotony....Brennan Manning

Sir James Jeans, the famous British astronomer, once said, “The Universe appears to have been designed by a Pure Mathematician.”  Joseph Campbell wrote of “a perception of a cosmic order, mathematically definable.”  As they contemplated the order of the earth, the solar system, and the stellar universe, scientists and scholars have concluded that the Master Planner left nothing to chance.

            The slant of the earth, for example, tilted at an angle of twenty-three degrees, produces our seasons.  Scientists tell us that if the earth had not been tilted exactly as it is, vapors from the oceans would move both north and south, piling up vast continents of ice.

            If the moon were only 50,000 miles away from earth instead of 250,000, the tides might be so enormous that all continents would be submerged in water – even the mountains would be eroded.  If the crust of the earth had been only ten feet thicker, there would be no oxygen, and without it all animal life would die.

            Had the oceans been a few feet deeper, carbon dioxide and oxygen would have been absorbed and no vegetable life would exist.

            The earth’s weight has been estimated at six sextillion tons [that’s a six with twenty-one zeros].  Yet it is perfectly balanced and turns easily on its axis.  It rotates daily at the rate of more than a thousand miles per hour, or 25,000 miles per day.  This adds up to nine million miles a year.  Considering the tremendous weight of six sextillion tons rolling at this fantastic speed around an invisible axis, held in place by unseen bands of gravitation, the words of Job 26:7 take on unparalleled significance: “He poised the earth on nothingness.” 

            The earth revolves in its own orbit around the sun, making the long elliptical circuit of about six hundred million miles each year – which means we are traveling through space at nineteen miles per second or about 68000 miles per hour.

            Job further invites us to meditate on “the marvelous works of God” [37:14].  Consider the sun.  Every square yard of the sun’s surface is emitting a constant energy level of 130,000 horsepower [that is, approximately 450 eight-cylinder automotive engines] in flames that are being produced by an energy source much

more powerful than coal. 

            The nine major planets in our solar system range in distance from the sun from 36 million to about 3,664 million miles; yet each moves around the sun in exact precision, with orbits ranging from88 days for Mercury to 248 years for Pluto.

            Still, the sun is only one minor star among the 100 billion burning orbs that comprise the Milky Way galaxy.  If you were to hold out a dime at arm’s length while gazing at the night sky, the coin would block out 15 million stars from your view, if your eyes could see with that power.

            When we attempt to comprehend the almost countless stars and other heavenly bodies in our galaxy alone, we resonate to Isaiah’s paean of praise to the all-powerful Creator:  “Lift your eyes and look:  He who created these things leads out their army in order, summoning each of them by name.  So mighty is His power, so great is His strength, that not one fails to answer” [40:26].  Small wonder that David cries out:

            Yahweh our Lord, how majestic is Your name throughout the world!  Whoever keeps singing of Your majesty higher than the heavens, even through the mouths of children, or of babes in arms, You make him a fortress, firm against Your foes, to subdue the enemy and the rebel.  I look up at Your heavens, shaped by Your fingers, at the moon and the stars You set firm, what are human beings that You spare a thought for them, or the child of Adam that You care for him? [Psalm 8].

            Creation discloses a power that baffles our minds and beggars our speech.  We are enamored and enchanted by God’s power.  We stutter and stammer about God’s holiness....

            We must go out into a desert of some kind [your backyard will do] and come into a personal experience of the awesome love of God.  Then we will nod in knowing agreement with that gifted English mystic Julian of Norwich, “The greatest honor we can give the Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of His love.”   We shall understand why, as Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament notes, that in the last years of his life on the island of Patmos, the apostle John wrote, and wrote with magnificent monotony, of the love of Jesus Christ.  As if for the first time, we shall grasp what Paul meant when he said, “But however much sin increased, grace was always greater; so