On a Rather Insignificant Sphere

Friends,

Phillip Yancey in "The Jesus I Never Knew” tells the story of a senior angel who showed a very young angel the splendors of the universe. They viewed whirling galaxies and blazing suns, and then moved across the infinite distances of space until at last they entered one particular galaxy of 500 billion stars. As the two of them drew near to the star which we call our sun and to its circling planets, the senior angel pointed to a small and rather insignificant sphere turning very slowly on its axis. It looked as dull as a dirty tennis ball to the angel, whose mind is filled with the size and glory of what he had seen. “I want you to watch that one particularly,” says the senior angel, pointing with his finger. “Well, it looks very small and rather dirty to me,” says the little angel. “What’s special about that one?” To the little angel, earth did not seem so impressive. He listened, in stunned disbelief, as the senior angel told him that this planet, small and insignificant and not overly clean, was the renowned Visited Planet. “Do you mean that our great and glorious Prince…went down, in Person, to this fifth-rate little ball? Why should He do a thing like that?” The little angel’s face wrinkled in disgust. “Do you mean to tell me,” he says, “that He stooped so low as to become one of those creeping, crawling creatures of that floating ball?” “I do, and I don’t think He would like you to call them ‘creeping, crawling creatures’ in that tone of voice. For, strange as it may seem to us, He loves them. He went down to visit them to lift them up to become like Him.” The little angel's look was blank. Such a thought was almost beyond his comprehension.

Blessings, Don