MOON

The moon boasts a diameter of 2,160 miles, about a third that of the earth.  While to us it seems to shine  bright in the clear night sky, it actually reflects only about 7.3 percent of the sunlight that strikes it.  It rotates on its axis every 29 days, identical to the time it takes to compete its orbit around earth – which explains why it always shows us the same face.  Some of the crates pockmarking its surface measure more than 125 miles wide, with ridges rising almost a mile high. 

At the surface of the earth the gravitational force of the moon measures about 2.2 times greater than that of the sun.  Every day the moon silently lifts the world’s oceans- vast basins of water soundlessly and irresistibly heaved into the air.  In Boston the ride recedes ten feet.  In Eastport, Maine, it recedes nineteen feet.  If the moon were only 50,000 miles away from earth instead of 240,000, gigantic tides would submerge all the continents under water; even the highest mountains would slip beneath the waves.

How awesome is the moon!  If you stood on its surface, unprotected from the sun’s ferocious radiation, the fluids in your body would boil; but if you walked into the shadow of a large rock, you would quickly freeze solid.

AND YET…

To God the moon is nothing but a “lower light to govern the night” (Genesis 1:16).  When He commanded it to stay still in the sky, it instantly obeyed (Joshua 10:13).  What we consider bright He sees as dark (Job 25:5) – and one day He will replace the light of the moon with the brilliance of His own glory;

“THE SUN WILL NO MORE BE YOUR LIGHT BY DAY, NOR WILL THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE MOON SHINE ON YOU, FOR THE LORD WILL BE YOUR EVERLASTING LIGHT, AND YOUR GOD WILL BE YOUR GLORY.”

(Isaiah 60:19)

“How Majestic is Thy Name”, 2001.  www.newleafpress.net