Sun 5 Jun

One of the advantages of growing up on a farm was the darkness. It meant that when you went out walking at night you had to make sure you didn’t walk into machinery or trip over a log. It could get quite dark. 

However, the advantage of the darkness was that you could see quite clearly the stars as they shone in the darkness. Sometimes they were different colours – blue through to orange. You could see the various star formations such as the Saucepan or the Southern Cross. 

The apostle Paul used the brightness of the stars to illustrate the impact the Christian would have as they lived out their life with Christ. Some stars shine more brightly than others. That might be due to how close they are to us, or to their size. Stars will come in all sizes. 

The question Paul would ask of the church and of the Christian, “How brightly are we shining for Christ?” Or, sadly are we indistinguishable from the darkness all around us? What would it look like if there were no shining stars? How dark would it be?