A number of news outlets have recently published a photograph of New York taken by the American astronaut Frank Culbertson from the International Space Station on September 11 2001. This shocking image has reawakened for many of us a sense of the horror and impotence that we felt when we first heard of these attacks. There is something especially powerful though about an image from space. In her 1987 album ‘Lone Star State of Mind’, the American singer Nanci Griffith recorded the Julie Gold song, “From a Distance”.
“From a distance the world looks blue and green
And the snow-capped mountains white
From a distance the ocean meets the stream
And the eagle takes to flight
From a distance we all have enough
And no one is in need
There are no guns, no bombs, no diseases
No hungry mouths to feed”
The singer sums up the beauty, and the remoteness, of the view of this world from space. That trail of smoke that drifts across the photograph could be anything … but because we have been told, we know it is not. Where I part company with the song lyrics is when Griffith sings, “God is watching us, God is watching us / God is watching us from a distance”. For a moment, we could perhaps be forgiven for thinking that the view from the International Space Station is somehow analogous to the Divine perspective of earth. But it isn’t! God said to Abraham, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me” (Gen. 18 vs20,21). Of course the language is figurative, but the point is clear, God knows exactly how this world is behaving. More relevantly, God sees exactly how I am behaving – and this is no remote view, the Lord Jesus reinforced the point when He said, “Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered”, Luke 12 vs7.
Whether we view the intimate Divine knowledge as a blessing or as a threat very much depends on the basis of our relationship with Him! I take it as a great comfort that even if the true perpetrators of 9/11 are never brought to justice and even if the reaction against this outrage by the ‘West’ has perhaps resulted in even more injustice and suffering, there is a Divine eye upon the throne that will see that justice is finally done. But what about my life? What about the petty injustices that I am guilty of? The ‘Judge of all the Earth’ cannot simply ignore these. Thankfully, the Divine perspective came even closer. The prophet Isaiah could write, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all”, Isaiah 53 vs4-6. God has sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, right down to where we are – to take the responsibility for my injustices and to pay the penalty for my sin! God knows all about me, yet “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”, John 3 vs16.