by Rob Caudillo
In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe, Pioneer 10. According to Leon Jaroff, in TIME Magazine, the satellite's primary mission was to reach Jupiter, photograph the planet and its moons, and beam data to earth about the planet's magnetic field, radiation belts and atmosphere. Scientists regarded this as a bold plan; for at the time, no earth satellite had ever gone beyond Mars, and they feared the asteroid belt would probably destroy this space probe before it could reach its objective.
But Pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and so much more. Swinging past the giant planet in November 1973, Jupiter's immense gravity hurled Pioneer 10 at a higher rate of speed toward the edge of our solar system. At one billion miles from our sun, Pioneer 10 passed Saturn. At two billion miles, it went by Uranus; Neptune at three billion miles; Pluto at almost four billion miles. Ten years ago and twenty-five years since it was launched, Pioneer 10 was more than six billion miles away from the sun. And despite the vast distance and amount of time, Pioneer 10 continued to beam back radio signals to scientists here on earth. "Perhaps the most remarkable," wrote Mr. Jaroff, "those signals, which take nine hours to reach earth, emanate from an eight watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom nightlight."
This "Little Satellite That Could" was not qualified to do what it has done. NASA engineers designed Pioneer 10 with a useful life of jest three years. But it kept going and going. By simple longevity, its tiny 8-watt transmitter radio accomplished more than anyone thought possible.
| "The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told." Luke 2:20 |
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And as we move closer to another Advent Season, who would have thought that the birth of a baby by a teenage peasant girl and a scandalized blue-collar laborer - a carpenter from a backwater place called Nazareth in Galilee, would emit such a world changing event? How would anyone know that this ordinary activity would signal the extraordinary? Years later, following Jesus Christ's death, resurrection and ascension and the beginnings of the early Christian church, Peter and some of the other apostles were brought before the Sanhedrin and ordered to stop "teaching and speaking in the name of Jesus Christ". But they refused to do so. The members of this Jewish Court wanted to kill them right then and there. Then one of their members, Gamaliel, a Pharisee and person honored by all the Jewish people, spoke. He ended his words that day with the following. "...Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God." Acts 5:38-39
What is so striking to me, is that this simple, ordinary "8 watt" event of the birth of a baby in a stable in the small town of Bethlehem was to be the epicenter of God's redemptive word & work. The birth of Jesus reaches back to creation's beginnings, moves out from the moment of his birth down through the years - over 2000 years, to this moment and continues to the end of the age. Gamaliel was right - it's a God thing!
It's a God thing, indeed!
Peace,
Pastor Rob