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Arise, shine, for your light has come,and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. Isaiah 60:1 

Happy New Year! The New Year brings lots of sparkle, light, and fireworks. But that’s nothing compared how God’s light shines in the galaxies of our universe. The explanation for this Snowstorm of Stars photograph by Astronomer-photographers S. Djorgovski (Caltech) and F. Ferraro (University of Bologna) is fascinating: These stars make up the globular cluster Messier 79, located about 40,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Lepus (The Hare). Globular clusters are gravitationally bound groupings of up to one million stars. It contains about 150,000 stars.  

This is the kind of unfathomable light that Isaiah promises from God in Christ when he says, Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. Isaiah prophecies that God’s everlasting light will end our sorrow. He envisions nations will come to God’s light, and kings to the brightness of God’s dawn. It’s a cosmic vision of Christ our redeemer making us radiant and joyful in His light. 

As we bring in 2022, we celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ, the light of the world! We must lift our eyes to the Lord for guidance to see his light bringing life in dark places. As the New Year begins, I have highest hopes for healing and recovery for our church, communities, and world. We have seen much darkness but the light of God’s love is always breaking in and can make our hearts burst with joy!  

Thank you for all the light you shine with our mission of sharing Jesus’ love. Our new missional service opportunities and the 500 Hour Project bring us new opportunities to shine Jesus’ light brightly in 2022. Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. May the Lord be our everlasting light.

Shine brightly, Pastor Andrea

Snowstorm of Stars, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.  https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56825