The Sun and the Son's rays.

The sun is constantly bombarding us with stuff. As the sun spins,  fumes, and explodes, it sprays its own mass  out over the solar system, much like a lawn sprinkler. The stuff is magnetic, electrically charged, radioactive, and mostly invisible. In addition to visible light, this stuff includes ultra-violet light, infra-red light, gamma radiation, hydrogen and helium particles, and other chemical  elements. This constant pulse of sprayed material is called the solar wind.  While much has been studied about the sun, it being our closest star, there are mysteries yet remaining. The outer atmosphere of the sun is  about one million degrees Celsius, while the visible surface is only  about 6,000 degrees Celsius. No one knows why it is cooler near the  source of the sun’s power than farther away.

    Hebrews 1:1 "After God spoke long ago in various portions and in various ways to our ancestors through the prophets, 1:2 in these last days he has spoken to us in a son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he created the world. 1:3 The Son is the radiance of his glory and the representation of his essence, and he sustains all things by his powerful word, and so when he had accomplished cleansing for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. 1:4 Thus he became so far better than the angels as he has inherited a name superior to theirs.     1:5 For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my son! Today I have fathered you”? And in another place he says, “I will be his father and he will be my son.” 1:6 But when he again brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all the angels of God worship him!” 1:7 And he says of the angels,  “He makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire,” 1:8 but of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever and a righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom.    1:9 You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.  So God, your God, has anointed you over your companions with the oil of rejoicing.”  1:10 And,  “You founded the earth in the beginning, Lord, and the heavens are the works of your hands.  1:11 They will perish, but you continue. And they will all grow old like a garment,  1:12 and like a robe you will fold them up and like a garment they will be changed,  but you are the same and your years will never run out.” 1:13 But to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”? 1:14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to serve those who will inherit salvation?"

The book of Hebrews is all about how Jesus is better, better than all other religious figures, better than the Jewish Law, better than the angels. The author states that Jesus is better because he is the “radiance  of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (NIV). In the same way that the sun sends the  solar wind shooting out over the solar system, carrying the same ingredients that make up the sun, Jesus was sent to us. And he is better than anything that has come before, or will come in the future. Jesus is  superior because of his superior nature, he is exactly God, but a sent God, the original Apostle.

The old Joni Mitchell song “Woodstock” has an interesting line in it: “we are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” It is true that we are stardust, the sun is covering the  earth with it all the time, and in that Garden long ago, God scooped up some of that stardust and we were indeed golden. Can we get ourselves back to that Garden? No, but the Solar Wind, the Sent One, can,  and he can make us golden again.