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Our collective home, planet Earth, can feel massive.  If you’ve ever flown over an ocean or the Sahara desert, it is hard for our minds to comprehend how much water or sand we’re covering at a speed of over 500 miles per hour for hour after hour.  You’ve likely seen – or maybe even constructed – models of our solar system.  Our closest star, the Sun, is huge compared to all the planets in our solar system. While Earth is bigger than some other planets, it is dwarfed by the largest planets Saturn and Jupiter.

     Our solar system, of course, sits within our Milky Way galaxy.  The largest star we can see with the naked eye in our galaxy sits as the left shoulder in the Orion constellation.  That star is called Betelgeuse (pronounced “Beetlejuice”), which is much larger than our Sun.  If the Sun was the size of a billiard ball, Betelgeuse would be the size of an apartment building!  I’m feeling kind of small right now, how about you?

     I find it cool that our ancestors in faith saw the same stars that we do.  They were likely humbled and overwhelmed like we might be when we take it all in.  I think taking time for stargazing can lend itself to peace.  I wonder if it did for Joseph, a key character in the birth story of Jesus:

The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they enjoyed their wedding night, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn’t know that.) Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.

     While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God’s angel spoke in the dream: “Joseph, son of David, don’t hesitate to get married. Mary’s pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God’s Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus—‘God saves’—because he will save his people from their sins.” This would bring the prophet’s embryonic revelation to full term:

Watch for this—a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son;

They will name him Immanuel (Hebrew for “God is with us”).

     Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what God’s angel commanded in the dream: He married Mary. But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus. – Matthew 1: 18-25 (MSG)

     Poor Joseph.  A poor carpenter truckin’ along in life, engaged to a girl his parents probably arranged years before, suddenly finds himself in a lot of turmoil – the opposite of peace, perhaps.  Whatever dreams he may have had before seemed lost, irretrievable.  Add to that the emotions revolving around this conflict – with Mary, but also her parents, his parents, the community, and internal conflict as well.  What a mess! 

     We don’t know much about Joseph beyond a few verses, but we do know that he chose to pursue peace even as he decided to divorce Mary quietly.  Matthew is envisioning Joseph as a mature, kind person who sees no need to make things worse for Mary, who’s life will be forever altered by this unwanted pregnancy – who would want her now?

     I can imagine him, heartbroken and the wind knocked out of him, drifting off to sleep, only to discover that he couldn’t even get peace while he slept!  How annoying! A powerful dream entered his consciousness with a crazy invitation to reconsider the divorce and choose to go forward with the marriage to Mary because the child she was carrying was going to bring salvation in some way to the world.  At a time when dreams were taken much more seriously than they may be today, Joseph found himself in more chaos.  What to do?

     This is a story, and we are invited – even expected – to engage in dialogue about it.  How did he get to a place of peace with all of this?  I wonder if part of what helped was like what we experience when we gaze at the stars.  Perhaps he was humbled by the magnitude of all that was happening, and especially the visit from the heavens that reminded him that he was part of something much bigger than himself. 

     When faced with the grand scope of things, perhaps his perspective was changed.  His ego needs were not as significant as the whole world. The world and God’s story was too big to get caught up in his own junk. Yet at the same time, life may have felt too big to ignore what he was feeling, too.

     He surely must have processed his feelings because he continued to be kind and supportive to Mary, and Jesus and his siblings appear to have turned out to be decent human beings, to which he surely contributed.  Life was too big to get hung up on his small issues.  His life was too short to lose too much by holding on to all that was not peace for him.  The salvation that this child would bring was a saving that connotes wellbeing and wholeness.  Apparently, Joseph was one of the first recipients.  Perspective can facilitate significant peace. 

     Back to stargazing.  Our solar system is part of the Milky Way galaxy.  We see the Milky Way because of where we are seated within it.  It’s as if we were somewhere toward the middle of a frisbee looking out, through it – we see the density of starlight which creates the milky band of light.  Earth is barely a speck within the Milky Way.  If the Milky Way was the size of the continental United States, our entire solar system would be the size of a coin in Denver, Colorado. The milky band and stars would be akin to seeing the light of the city of Denver.  We are quite small.  Take that into perspective.

     Sometimes we hold onto grudges.  We hold people in a state of unforgiveness because of what they have done to us (real or imagined).  The pain we have experienced is real, leaving us without peace.  To forgive feels like injustice, so we hold onto unforgiveness and often hold it over the ones who wronged us. 

     Lewis Smedes wrote years ago that when we finally forgive someone, we set a prisoner free, only to discover that we were the ones in chains.  Forgiveness is a process that requires intentionality but that results in tremendous healing.  We don’t forget, but we do create a new way of remembering.  Brenee Brown advises that recognizing that people are doing the best they can do helps in the forgiveness process.  It’s not that people are intentionally choosing to suck, but that they may not be able to do any differently given everything that has formed them.  There is much wisdom here. 

     While there are personal benefits to doing the work of forgiveness, no longer holding unforgiveness over others impacts ongoing relationships for the better.  I’ve been on both sides of this – holding unforgiveness over others and at other times not being forgiven. The relationship in an unforgiving environment is limited – it cannot get too deep because depth requires vulnerability.  When walls of unforgiveness are in place, vulnerability is not possible. The relationship suffers. All parties in that relational system suffer the consequences.

     Life is too small to allow the heartache we have endured to have an oversized impact.  Life is too short to waste on the negative energy produced by unforgiveness when peace is within our grasp.

     Up until about 100 years ago, scientists thought the entire universe was simply the Milky Way galaxy we call home.  The Hubble telescope changed everything, helping us to see beyond the Milky Way, only to discover that there are likely TRILLIONS of galaxies in the expanding universe.  It turns out that our entire galaxy is a mere speck in a massive sea of galaxies!  If we thought we were small before...  And yet within us is a microscopic galaxy all its own – we’re huge! 

     Joseph clearly did the hard work of sorting through what he was feeling and going through, eventually to devote himself to something bigger than himself without letting it sabotage his life.  He found peace, healing, wellbeing, and wholeness – salvation.  We are Joseph, facing our own struggles, our own messed up narratives and dreams because of outside influences.  Salvation is possible, but it requires genuine faith to get there.

     Richard Rohr, writing about the need for ongoing, deep, curiosity-filled work in our lives, offers this:

     God comes into the world in always-surprising ways so that the sincere seeker will always find evidence. Is sincere seeking perhaps the real meaning of walking in faith?  The search for truth, the search for authentic love, and the search for God are finally the same search. I would rather have “one who lays down one's life for one's friend” (John 15:13) by sincere seeking, demanding scholarship, and authentic service, than those who are on no search, do no mental or emotional work, and have no open heart for the world, but just want to personally “go to heaven.” We have coddled this individualistic non-Christianity for far too long, and with no encouragement from Jesus whatsoever. – Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations: Evidence for Things Not Seen (December 2, 2024).

     To a degree, healing comes with time.  Time heals a lot of wounds, but not all wounds.  There are some hurts that we nurse all the way to our graves.  What a tragedy!  Faith calls us to work toward the peace that was available to Joseph and is available to us.  It is not easy.  It is a process.  There are innumerable resources to help us move forward.  Therapy helps.  All of this is core to becoming who we are created to be.  Life is too small (and too big) to ignore this.  Life is too short to willfully live without peace, without shalom in its fullest.

     The Apostle Paul encouraged the Philippian church to this faithful pursuit:

     So, this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover’s life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul. – Philippians 1:9-11 (MSG)

     And in a letter to a different community, he offered this benediction: “May God himself, the God who makes everything holy (well) and whole, make you holy (well) and whole, put you together – spirit, soul, and body – and keep you fit for the coming of Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23 MSG).

     Christ is constantly coming, bringing salvation in myriad forms, including peace.  How will you welcome it?