Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Williamina Stevens was born in Dundee Scotland in 1857. In 1877 she married widower James Fleming and in 1878 the couple and their son emigrated to Boston. After her husband abandoned her and their young son, Williamina began to work as a maid for Edward Charles Pickering. Pickering was the director of the Harvard College Observatory. Pickering’s wife, Elizabeth, realized that Williamina had untapped gifts and encouraged her husband to give her a role at the observatory. Williamina began working part time doing administrative work.
Recognizing her talents himself, in 1881 Pickering formally invited Fleming to join the observatory team and she learned to analyze stellar spectra. She was part of a group of people who analyzed data and did the complicated mathematical calculations to classify what the observatory saw in the sky. From there she was put in charge of a massive project to classify as many stars as possible and in the process she developed new methods and a classification system which used not only what could be seen with the eye but also looked at stars in the ultraviolet range. Fleming’s most notable discovery was the Horsehead Nebula.
On the back of your bulletin is the black and white picture in which Fleming discovered that Nebula. It’s that little nub to which the arrow points. In that picture she captured the whole of the Horsehead Nebula. But that picture was not the end of humanity’s looking, noticing, thinking, calculating, studying, discovering, learning, and wondering about the Horsehead Nebula. That discovery was not the end!
Look at the next pictures in that series. Those are pictures from the Euclid space telescope, the Hubble, and the last one is of just the tip of the Nebula’s mane, taken by the Webb telescope. You can see SO MUCH MORE in them than you could in Fleming’s photo but still, even with what those photos show us… we know that an infinity still remains to be seen!
In the year 325, the Council of Nicaea established the Doctrine of the Trinity. Before that, the Church had within it, VERY different ideas about how to think about God. Settling on just ONE idea as a place to begin wasn’t easy. In fact at one point the Bishop of Myra, Nicholas, that’s St. Nicholas, you know… Santa Claus… punched another bishop in the face… but I’m sure it was in a loving, Christian way.
But in the end, the Council settled on the Doctrine of the Trinity as a picture of the wholeness of God. But that Doctrine was not the end of humanity’s looking, noticing, thinking, calculating, studying, discovering, learning, and wondering about God. That Doctrine was not the end! On the contrary, that Doctrine put theologians in a similar place to where Fleming’s photo put astronomers. BOTH are human descriptions of what people see when they look into infinity. Neither are meant to give us the complete picture or give us the ability for us to wrap our minds around the infinite. Rather, both are meant to be meeting spots in which people can gather, and from a common starting place, begin to further notice, to more deeply look, to more profoundly wonder, to more wholly think, and to more openly talk with one another about things we know we will never fully wrap our minds around.
Williamina Fleming did not believe that she was done when she took that photo and in it discovered the Horsehead Nebula. She took that moment as an invitation to look even deeper into something she knew she would never fully understand. The bishops too, in the Council of Nicaea, didn’t think they were done when they settled on the Doctrine of the Trinity. They too took that moment as an invitation to look always deeper into what they knew they would never fully understand.
That is our invitation as well. Out there in the world we, like Williamina Fleming, are called to never stop looking more deeply each day into the gifts we have been given. There is always more for us to discover and always more to share with the world. That is also our invitation when we think about God and the Trinity. We are are called to never stop looking more deeply each day into the depths of the Divine. There is always more for us to discover and to share. And finally that is our invitation when we read Scripture. We are called to never stop growing or to stop looking more deeply into what we have been given. Because when we read passages like “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” we must understand that is NOT the end. There is always more! “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” No matter how firm a discovery we might make, when it comes to the universe, Scripture, or God… we must always remember there is always, always more. Amen.
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