Smoke and Mirrors: And the Stars Also
There’s a strange kind of clarity that comes from staring into the night sky. It’s vast but calming, silent but full of truth. Astronomers measure distances in millions of light-years, sketch the cosmic web that binds galaxies together, and speak of unseen matter with a confidence that feels almost magical like something from Harry Potter. Yet Scripture captures that same endless expanse in a whisper: “He made the stars also.” Three words in Hebrew. A whole universe tucked under God’s fingertips.
Recently, my boys and I built a LEGO model of the Milky Way galaxy. Hours around the table, sorting tiny pieces meant to represent structures no human eye has ever seen from the outside. When we snapped the spirals into place, I wondered, “How do we know this is what it looks like?” And suddenly I was on a Google rabbit trail that spoke of parallax measurements, dust lanes, radio waves, and how we’ve mapped our home from the inside like explorers tracing a forest by counting trees.
There was something beautifully ironic about it—building a galaxy out of bricks, fitting grand mysteries into our hands. It felt like a picture of what all science is: humble creature trying to trace the fingerprints of their Creator with whatever tools they have. A childlike act of wonder.
The more you learn, the stranger and grander the universe becomes. A Milky Way filled with hundreds of billions of stars. Trillions of galaxies spread out like lanterns across the cosmic web. Distances measured not in miles but in millions of light-year intervals. Intergalactic space that is almost nothing – just a lonely hydrogen atom here and there, a wash of radiation, invisible threads of dark matter holding everything together.
It’s vast beyond thought. And yet the Bible speaks of it with such quiet understatement. Scripture refuses to be impressed. It simply says: and the stars also.
Ecclesiastes shares the same tone. The Preacher looks at the world’s enormity and reminds us:
“God is in heaven and you are on earth.” (Ecclesiastes 5:2)
Not to belittle us – but to anchor us. To teach us that awe should lead to humility, not pride. That wonder should draw us upward, not inward. That the scale of creation should remind us of our dependence, not our significance.
And maybe that’s the heart of this reflection: cosmic knowledge dazzles us, but it doesn’t exalt us. The universe is immeasurable, but it’s not ultimate. All of it – galaxies, dark matter, voids, and spirals – rests within the sovereignty of God.
The same God who holds a trillion galaxies in place is the God who knows us by name. The heavens preach his majesty, but they also preach His nearness.
Everything we see is a reflection, a window, a veil of smoke and mirrors pointing to a greater reality behind it all. And in that quiet, ancient line from Genesis, the curtain lifts just enough for us to glimpse the truth that steadies everything:
He made the stars also.