“In the Son, the Father contemplates us from before all time, and is well pleased.” – Hans Urs von Balthasar
I used to look at the stars and think about how ancient and vast beyond all comprehension the universe is and ask myself with a feeling of doubt, “how can a God big enough to make this universe know and love someone as brief and tiny as me?”. I know I’m not the first or last to face this question. It is a question whose perplexity leads many to not believe in a personal God at all.
But something changed as I learned more about science and the vast and ancient make up of the human being. Simply and wondrously, there are atoms in each of us that were born billions of years ago across billions of light years that have come together to make the conscious and loving being that we are. Like everything else on our planet and in our solar system, we are quite literally a miraculous collection of particles that exist because of other galaxies and exploding stars from a bygone era. In a sense, I am not brief and tiny. I am, to say it as humbly as I can, a culmination of something closer to eternity.
Not only that, I have a soul. I think, I breathe, I love, I grieve, I believe, I try to make a difference. And as we explore further reaches of our universe and find just how truly rare a developed species like ours is in this moment in cosmic history, it is fair, indeed proper, to know we are special.
I understand that this will not add up for many. And that’s okay. But for me, this intersects with the story of the Triune God. My creator, the same creator that made the universe ancient and vast, had something as rare and special in mind as human beings when everything was starting. The Word of God, or the Son, has always been, as a founding model of what humanity would become over the course of billions of years of expansion, fusion, and evolution. This is not to say that we are the only life or intelligent life that matters to God. But that when it comes to our own reflections on existence here on Earth, we are the crowning of creation. We are made in the image of God, filled with the Spirit of God. And this didn’t happen quickly or haphazardly, but miraculously through the patience and love of the triune God.
The idea of contemplation is that there is beauty, satisfaction, and value in beholding the beloved. And the thought that “In the Son, the Father contemplates us from before all time, and is well pleased” somehow makes sense. If we are the crowning of creation, if we are the culmination of ancient and vast pieces making a body, mind, soul with the Spirit, if we are made in the image of the creator to become like the incarnate Word, and if we are deeply loved and cherished by God, then we would be contemplated from before time and it would please God. This means that above and before our sin and all the messes we’ve made of our planet and our societies, above and beyond all the evil and greed and violence we slip into, we are treasured by God. And that this truth is actually what will free us from the lies of evil and sin and the deception that we are worthless, depraved beyond redemption, and life is a mess and then we die. Those lies aren’t true. We are inescapably unique and miraculous, every last one of us. And we have been the objects of God’s affection and attention for billions of years. Return your gaze to the one who is gazing upon you.