The God of the Signs - The Sign of the Heavens
[Editor's note: This is part of a series by Corban Klug, author of A Light in the Darkness. This series will be published in its entirety here at Every Square Inch.]
How the Voice of Creation Teaches the Heart to Believe
By the Sign of the Heavens I mean not to refer to the strange and wonderful phenomena modern astronomers are constantly discovering in the seemingly depthless celestial sphere (i.e. quasars, black holes, cosmic background radiation, etc.). Such phenomena, I assert, are marks of Beauty and Order, which deliver their own missional testimony. I refer instead to the message of the constellations inscribed like a patchwork quilt upon the obsidian canvas of the night sky. I read once that one of the most enduring mysteries of the ancient world is the origin of the stories attached to the figures emblazoned in white fire upon the face of the Heavens. The author of that statement traced the roots of the Zodiac to ancient Egypt, Sumeria, Chaldea, and Persia but failed to divine a source for the stories that, when compared, appeared to him inexplicably similar. In this essay, I do not intend to suggest an explanation for such parallel narratives. Rather I wish to reflect upon the lessons taught by the simple order of the stars as they appear to the naked eye. This approach should make sense to the reader attuned to my overarching point about the redemptive potential of the Book of Creation, since it is only when the order of the Heavens is stripped of all traditions of human interpretation that it may become a sign, per se, pointing the heart softened by the gentle ministry of the Spirit to ultimate truth about reality.
Having studied the constellations extensively in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, I am continuously astounded by the simplicity, clarity, and univocal nature of the message they declare. In four resplendent scenes readily visible to the stargazing eye, the Heavens tell the story of a universe mired in a cosmic conflict, which conflict must end with the final defeat of evil by the unconquerable force of good. First, there is the scene of Orion and Lepus, the Warrior and the Snake. (For ease of reference, I will use the constellations’ Latin names). During winter in the Northern Hemisphere, Orion glistens brilliantly, his shoulders, feet, belt and sword unmistakable against the black canopy of sky. Beneath his feet, one of which is the beautiful first magnitude star Rigel, lies a less brilliant figure that the Romans construed as a hare but the much earlier Egyptians and Persians imagined to be a coiled serpent. (As I see it, Lepus looks like a snake.) The image is starkly defined and its meaning obvious to every nation, language, and people group: Though an Enemy haunts the original splendor of the cosmos, he is smaller and weaker than the Warrior of Glory who stands above him with lightened foot raised eternally to crush his rebellious head. How curious that such is the precise promise contained in the third chapter of Genesis. To the serpent God said: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
The second and third celestial scenes of cosmic conflict are much like the first, though both scenes are of a compound, and especially evocative, nature. In the second scene, the four constellations of Hercules (the Mighty Man), Draco (the Dragon), Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (the Big and Little Dippers), when considered in unison, clearly depict a man (Hercules) standing upon the head of a great serpent, or dragon (Draco), upon whose sinuous body is poured out a lesser and a greater cup (Ursas Minor and Major) the contents of which, given the context, are most sensibly interpreted to contain divine wrath. In the third scene, the constellations of Ophiucus, Serpens, Corona, and Leo depict a huge man grasping the body of a monstrous snake (both Ophiucus and Serpens are constellations of estimable size) whose head is at once straining to grasp a clearly articulated crown (Corona) and poised beneath the brilliant and descending foot of a maned lion (Leo). (Note that the star at Leo’s foot is named Regulus—meaning “regal” or “kingly”—and has a luminosity of the first magnitude). It is possible, of course, for one to question the capacity of an observer unversed in the ancient narrative of the constellations to discern and articulate such complex scenes as I have done. I would argue, however, that the sort of observer I am hypothesizing in this essay (i.e. one who, despite the burdens of a sinful heart and culture, is enthralled by the transcendent message of the Signs and longs genuinely to know the truth about the world into which he was born) would not only watch the stars with regularity but would examine them throughout his life and ponder at length their elaborate configurations. Such an observer, I believe, would make out among the starry host the very scenes I have set forth and divine from them their obvious meaning: (a) that the world is torn by strife because an evil being has sought to usurp a celestial crown, (b) that the machinations of that evil being are being resisted by someone mightier than he, and (c) that the end of such evil being will come as swiftly as the ravaging paw of a noble lion.
The fourth and final scene of cosmic conflict stitched upon the blanket of the night sky (but only fully visible south of the Tropic of Cancer) is the scene of Sagittarius and Scorpio, the Archer and the Scorpion. As any astronomically minded traveler will tell you, the southern sky (particularly toward the south celestial pole) is more sparsely adorned than its northern counterpart, but those stars that do appear are, on the whole, exceedingly magnificent. The interplay of Sagittarius and Scorpio is an ideal example of such majesty. I have never seen Sagittarius and Scorpio more clearly than when I had occasion to visit the island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, five hundred miles south of Tahiti and almost exactly at the latitude of the Tropic of Capricorn. Near midnight the almost artistically rendered figure of Scorpio stretched across a third of the Heavens, while its glowing heart, the red star Antares, rested at the very zenith of the sky. Of all the constellations, I believe Scorpio is the most clearly articulated. His pincers, bright and almost symmetrical, connect at the head of a serpentine trunk which extends downward through Antares to a hook-like tail, studded with an obvious stinger. Yet the beauty of Scorpio’s figure inheres not only in the sharpness of its image but in its supernal accompaniment—the figure of Sagittarius. As I looked up at the sky that night on the white sands of one of Rarotonga’s tropical beaches, Sagittarius stood to the east of Scorpio, his trapezoidal body taut and poised and his archer’s bow aimed unerringly at Antares, the scorpion’s poisonous heart. In all the Heavens, there is no more profound depiction of the inevitable triumph of good over evil than this. Though the virile malevolence of Scorpio is grandly described, one cannot doubt that the arrow of Sagittarius, when loosed at last, will destroy such evil once and for all.
Next time: The Signs of Creation and the Necessity of Christ
Trackback address for this post:
http://www.everysquareinch.com/htesi/trackback.php/228