THE AMAZING STAR-BREATHER

John Updike died this week. In the past year we’ve lost Norman Mailer, William Buckley, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn as well .Frankly I don’t feel so well myself.
So I’d better write something today.
Track these four threads with me please.
1. I was born in Atlanta and grew up in a suburb .For my first 25 years I knew I’d never be able to live far away. Venturing to Dallas for Seminary stretched me no end. I felt like Ferdinand Magellan. As it turns out I haven’t lived in Georgia since 1972-- the year I finished college.
2. Through the years I heard from home-town friends about Louie Giglio, who spreads the fame of Jesus from North Atlanta.
3. Four years ago I was taking out the trash at my mother’s house in Flowery Branch, Georgia. I don’t take the trash out often so the memory is vivid. Nearby a lady I’d never seen was parting with a little trash of her own. She asked:” Are you Ronnie Stevens?” Stalling for time as I pondered my next move I recklessly admitted to the charge.
Her first name is gone from memory, but she registered her surname as Giglio. I said I was pleased to make her acquaintance, and asked if she were related to LOUIE Giglio. She confided that he was her son. Turns out my own mother had been regaling Mrs. Giglio (whose friend was a neighbor) with tales of her own missionary son. Mrs. G., a budding trivia expert in her own right, had somehow remembered my name. “How do you know Louie?” she asked. “I don’t know Louie,” I answered. “Your son is famous.”
Now that’s a line bound to make any mother feel those tiresome trash-disposal efforts are well worth the trouble. I’m sure I hoped the encounter would lead to joint ministry at some dazzling venue.
Alas it was not to be.
In fact I never saw Louie Giglio’s face or heard his voice until today
And today only on DVD.
4. Last Sunday after worship a young Hungarian put the DVD into my hand. He asked if I knew Louie Giglio. I had waited almost 5 years for that opening so I pounced immediately, “No, but I know his mother.” He told me I had to watch the presentation. Not only I, but the whole Congregation as well. Such was the lad’s fervor.
Well today I did watch. The talk is called HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD. I know the expression is dated and of suspect provenance, but the words ‘mind blowing’ are not amiss.
The title is more than justified. Louie begins with a survey of the macrocosm. Think immensity. Prominent among the projected images is the black hole at the center of the Whirlpool Galaxy perched at an angle perpendicular to our own. The image of that galaxy center is shaped like a Cross. Perhaps I should say “THE CROSS”. As he descends to the microcosm he explores the wonders of human conception, the way eyesight is conferred, the human genome and, finally, the subject of laminin –the substance which holds our cells together. Turns out the structure of laminin is also cross shaped.
The juxtaposition, shaped by a master communicator, was powerfully wrought. There was a running exposition of Psalm 33 throughout.
“By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made
And by the breath of His mouth all their hosts.”
The’ hosts’, of course, are the heavenly bodies.
He calls God THE STAR BREATHER. And when he moved in toward the Cross he declared that THE STAR BREATHER BECAME THE SIN-BEARER!
You can view an excerpt at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e4zgJXPpI4
I hope you get the 40 minute segment entire.
The effort won’t disappoint.
Hands could be raised.
Tears could be shed.
And that would be entirely appropriate.
THE STAR-BREATHER IS AN AWESOME GOD.