A Planet-Sized Wind
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"A Planet-Sized Wind" by Frank Ramirez
* * * * * * *
A Planet-Sized Wind!
by Frank Ramirez
Acts 2:1-21
And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
-- Acts 2:1-21
The Pentecost wind that swept the entire house filled more than the upper room where the disciples were huddled together. It swept aside the next 2,000 years of history, setting the world aflame. Nothing could be more spectacular in comparison.
Even so, a planet-sized windstorm is still pretty impressive, especially one that obscured a world waiting to be mapped for the first time.
Rewind fifty years or so. The solar system was a place of mystery -- and life! Venus was thought to resemble the earth during the age of the dinosaurs -- hot, humid, the abode of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. Mars, in the words of the astronomer and popular author Percival Lowell, was "the abode of life." Unlike Venus, which was thought to be a hot and humid, young planet, and according to science fiction writers resembling the earth during the age of the dinosaurs, it was assumed Mars was an ancient world, slowly drying up and dying. Lowell imagined that he saw a complex series of canals spanning the planet's surface. He speculated that an ancient race used the canals to desperately transport the planet's limited supply of water from the melting of the winter's snows.
When, in the early sixties, the era of serious planetary exploration began, it was hoped these questions would be answered. The Mariner series of spacecraft were designed to fly by planets. Mariner 2 quickly determined that Venus was far too hot to support any form of life. Mariner 4 was then sent to Mars to fly by swiftly and take some pictures during a very brief window. Perhaps finally it would be determined if Mars was truly the abode of life, and if there really canals that stretched across the planet.
Mariner 4 flew by Mars in 1965 and took 22 pictures. The results were shocking. Mars looked like the moon. Dry, cratered, a dusty and dead planet. No canals. No rivers. No water. No signs of life. But Mariner 4 had only seen a very small portion of the Red Planet.
Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 flew by Mars in 1969, taking a few more pictures, and hinting there might be more to our celestial neighbor than could have been guessed based on Mariner 4's mission.
Mariner 9 might finally answer some questions. It was designed not only to travel to Mars but to use braking rockets to park itself in an orbit in order to map the whole planet.
So on November 14, 1971, Mariner 9 narrowly became the first spacecraft to orbit another planet. Performing flawlessly, it parked itself into an ideal orbit to make a photographical survey.
There was only one problem.
The photographs showed nothing. No details. Not anything.
That's because there was a great and mighty wind on Mars, one so great that the entire surface of the planet was covered with a dust storm, the largest storm ever observed by meteorologists, whether on Earth, Mars, or any other world!
What sort of wind was necessary to blanket an entire world in dust? What forces had set that sort of storm in motion? The unprecedented and unpredicted dust storm made one thing clear.
If Mariner 9 had been a fly-by mission the whole effort would have been wasted. The spacecraft, however, was able to wait out the storm. Two months after it arrived it began to take the first of 7,239 photographs.
The photos revealed a whole different world! Yes, there were craters, but there was also evidence that rain had once fallen on the surface, and rivers had raced over the landscape. The cameras took pictures of all sorts of weather, including frost, fog, and snowfall. It mapped a canyon stretching across 4,000 miles, longer than the continental United States, and an extinct volcano five miles high. It revealed evidence that maybe Mars had harbored life long ago.
Fifty years after Mariner 4, more recent missions to Mars are still hunting for signs that the breath of life once graced Mars. In the meantime the winds still blow across the Martian surface. In both biblical Hebrew and biblical Greek the words for wind, breath, and spirit are the same. The breath of God, the Spirit of God, once moved across the waters according to the first few verses of Genesis. Just as a worldwide wind changed the appearance of a planet, the same breath/wind/spirit of the Creator moved through Jerusalem, causing a storm that has changed the appearance of our world, and our humanity, not only across the whole planet, but across 2,000 years.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids, and Breakdown on Bethlehem Street.
*****************************************
StoryShare, June 8, 2014, issue.
Copyright 2014 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"A Planet-Sized Wind" by Frank Ramirez
* * * * * * *
A Planet-Sized Wind!
by Frank Ramirez
Acts 2:1-21
And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
-- Acts 2:1-21
The Pentecost wind that swept the entire house filled more than the upper room where the disciples were huddled together. It swept aside the next 2,000 years of history, setting the world aflame. Nothing could be more spectacular in comparison.
Even so, a planet-sized windstorm is still pretty impressive, especially one that obscured a world waiting to be mapped for the first time.
Rewind fifty years or so. The solar system was a place of mystery -- and life! Venus was thought to resemble the earth during the age of the dinosaurs -- hot, humid, the abode of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. Mars, in the words of the astronomer and popular author Percival Lowell, was "the abode of life." Unlike Venus, which was thought to be a hot and humid, young planet, and according to science fiction writers resembling the earth during the age of the dinosaurs, it was assumed Mars was an ancient world, slowly drying up and dying. Lowell imagined that he saw a complex series of canals spanning the planet's surface. He speculated that an ancient race used the canals to desperately transport the planet's limited supply of water from the melting of the winter's snows.
When, in the early sixties, the era of serious planetary exploration began, it was hoped these questions would be answered. The Mariner series of spacecraft were designed to fly by planets. Mariner 2 quickly determined that Venus was far too hot to support any form of life. Mariner 4 was then sent to Mars to fly by swiftly and take some pictures during a very brief window. Perhaps finally it would be determined if Mars was truly the abode of life, and if there really canals that stretched across the planet.
Mariner 4 flew by Mars in 1965 and took 22 pictures. The results were shocking. Mars looked like the moon. Dry, cratered, a dusty and dead planet. No canals. No rivers. No water. No signs of life. But Mariner 4 had only seen a very small portion of the Red Planet.
Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 flew by Mars in 1969, taking a few more pictures, and hinting there might be more to our celestial neighbor than could have been guessed based on Mariner 4's mission.
Mariner 9 might finally answer some questions. It was designed not only to travel to Mars but to use braking rockets to park itself in an orbit in order to map the whole planet.
So on November 14, 1971, Mariner 9 narrowly became the first spacecraft to orbit another planet. Performing flawlessly, it parked itself into an ideal orbit to make a photographical survey.
There was only one problem.
The photographs showed nothing. No details. Not anything.
That's because there was a great and mighty wind on Mars, one so great that the entire surface of the planet was covered with a dust storm, the largest storm ever observed by meteorologists, whether on Earth, Mars, or any other world!
What sort of wind was necessary to blanket an entire world in dust? What forces had set that sort of storm in motion? The unprecedented and unpredicted dust storm made one thing clear.
If Mariner 9 had been a fly-by mission the whole effort would have been wasted. The spacecraft, however, was able to wait out the storm. Two months after it arrived it began to take the first of 7,239 photographs.
The photos revealed a whole different world! Yes, there were craters, but there was also evidence that rain had once fallen on the surface, and rivers had raced over the landscape. The cameras took pictures of all sorts of weather, including frost, fog, and snowfall. It mapped a canyon stretching across 4,000 miles, longer than the continental United States, and an extinct volcano five miles high. It revealed evidence that maybe Mars had harbored life long ago.
Fifty years after Mariner 4, more recent missions to Mars are still hunting for signs that the breath of life once graced Mars. In the meantime the winds still blow across the Martian surface. In both biblical Hebrew and biblical Greek the words for wind, breath, and spirit are the same. The breath of God, the Spirit of God, once moved across the waters according to the first few verses of Genesis. Just as a worldwide wind changed the appearance of a planet, the same breath/wind/spirit of the Creator moved through Jerusalem, causing a storm that has changed the appearance of our world, and our humanity, not only across the whole planet, but across 2,000 years.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids, and Breakdown on Bethlehem Street.
*****************************************
StoryShare, June 8, 2014, issue.
Copyright 2014 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
