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After watching Project Hail Mary at the movie theatre I set out to read Andy Weir’s book. It’s been a good read.

I appreciate Rocky the extraterrestrial life form that our human explorer and hope for humanity encounters in space. Weir has included enough anthropomorphic qualities to make Rocky relatable, and enough to indicate that “life” in another setting may be different.

But what remained most touching as I reflect on the book and movie has been the issue of “address.” Where are you from? Where is home?

And of course the Odyssey question: Can you get back home?

The hero’s journey home may be a sentient quality.

We live in a big universe. I read The Guardian’s Long Read article this week and was gobsmacked again by the number of starts in our galaxy and the projected number of galaxies in the universe. The information is part of the the discussion of the Drake equation:

“For the first variable – how fast are new stars formed in the Milky Way – it’s now estimated that 10 to 20 new stars are born every year (a far slower rate than when the galaxy was young and richer in star-forming gas). The total number of stars in our galaxy is on the order of 100bn. In the visible universe as a whole, there are an estimated 2tn galaxies, yielding a total of about 100 sextillion stars. So much is still unknown about the universe that this figure is certain to be revised, but it’s sufficiently mind-boggling to get the Drake equation off to a promising start.” (The Guardian article is an adaptation of Adam Kirsh’s latest book: We Want to Believe: How Aliens Went Mainstream and Why It Matters, published by Columbia Global Reports on 25 August.)

Two trillion galaxies!

100 sextillion stars!

What’s your address?

Where is your home?

Christian faith invites us to believe to believe there is something more to the “universe” than the stuff of earth or the stuff of the cosmos. There is our Creator — in whom we find our true home. Our recorded engagement with the Creator and His with us in the Scripture and in the person of Jesus Christ breaks in to announce that God knows our address and He even knows us. But there is more.

I am recalling a conversation with William Lane Craig at UBC several years ago in which we both marvelled that the God of the Universe knows us by name and loves us. It was a brief but warm encounter celebrating the security of having our home in Christ Jesus. Dr. Craig’s smile and joy in the moment was infectious!

How marvellous!

Psalm 8:3-4
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?

(The picture is a screenshot from https://youtu.be/udAL48P5NJU?si=AYtbp4EJ1rAfMI4k)

It’s the week after Pentecost Sunday. When Peter explained the meaning of 120 disciples in the streets of Jerusalem declaring the wonders of God, he went to the prophet Joel. “This” is “that!”

“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days and they will prophesy… and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Acts 2:17-21) 

That’s what was happening right in front of them. Men and women filled with the Spirit of God were declaring the wonders of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That’s how the church started and that’s how it’s meant to continue.

The Gospel reading for the week is John 20:19-23. I am gripped by the forgiveness mission of Jesus. John recounts: Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me. I am sending you. And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven. I you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (John 20:21-23)

The Father sent Jesus on a forgiveness mission and he is sending the disciples on a forgiveness mission too. Each week we recall this mission when we receive the bread and the cup. Together as brothers and sisters, Paul says, “We proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.” (I Corinthians 11:24)

With the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus — the forgiveness of sin — is good news! Brothers and sisters we have been given the best news.

Jesus’ forgiveness mission is also a restoration mission. The sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve are restored into the fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

And now they may speak the truth, now by the word of their testimony and the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 12:11) they overcome Satan. 

From the day of Pentecost the Spirit indwells the souls of those who have entrusted their life to Jesus with the life of knowing Him, and will energize their tongues with fire from Heaven, so they may speak truth.

Thinking theologically we can say that the forgiveness mission of Jesus forgave Eve and her daughters, forgave Adam and his sons. So in Christ, the forgiven are empowered to preach.

We see it from the first moment a human encounters the resurrected Jesus. After Mary recognizes Him in the garden, he commissions her, “Go… to my brothers and tell them…” “Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord.” And she told them that he had said these things to her.” (John 20:17-18)

And with that she became The Apostle to the Apostles.

It seems to me that the way the movement of Jesus started is the way it is meant to continue. 

Between Pentecost and Parousia both the sons and daughters, the servants — both men and women — will declare, preach, the Word of God.

So dear brothers treat the daughters of Eve as if she  has been forgiven and restored. Let’s open our ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church. The Word of God shall not be silenced, nor shall it return void.

“Your sons and daughters will prophesy.”