“Let the stars in the heavens be for signs and for seasons…”

Genesis 1:14

Reading Genesis 1 on a starry night is quite an experience.

I was walking home from my car this night and I was looking upward at the beautiful array of stars. I came home and began meditating on Genesis 1.

This passage says that God put stars in the sky for signs.

And there I recognized, as strange it sounds, the similarity between stars and John the Baptist.

You see, John the Baptist, when Jesus came, told everyone that he was not the Messiah, but he was only there to prepare the way for Jesus. His job was basically to point to Jesus and get out of the way, summing up his own life in his humbling words to his own disciples: “He must increase, I must decrease.” (John 3:30)

I suppose what I was getting at was that what stars and John the Baptist have in common is that they both unashamedly point to the greatness of God.

As Genesis 1 says of stars, they serve as signposts by which the greatness of God is revealed. In their vast array of beauty and splendor, they simply point to the hands of the creator God. And John, as he steps into the shadows, Jesus is magnified as the light of the world.

God is magnified by their very existence. He is made great by what they do in life. People will look at them and see not them but the God behind them.

As I was reflecting about this, I desired that John the Baptist and stars would not be alone in the chorus. I desire that my life would be one great sign pointing to the greatness of the Maker of Heaven and Earth. That people, when they see my life, would see not me, but the greatness of the God who rescued and delivered me. As the stars are brilliantly aligned, may I step into the canvas of God’s story as merely a shadow, allowing Christ to be magnified in the light.