The Universe Is Not Empty

In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a group of ordinary people are inexplicably drawn to a remote location in Wyoming. They cannot explain why. They just know they have to be there. Scientists are baffled. The government is covering it up. And then the ships arrive.

The film's researcher Lacombe looks out at the anxious, trembling crowd that has gathered and says something that stays with you: "I believe that for everyone of these anxious, anguished people who have come here this evening, there must be hundreds of others also touched by the implanted vision who never made it this far."

Hundreds of others. Drawn by something they cannot name, toward something larger than themselves, unable to fully explain the pull.

Steven Spielberg made a movie about contact with intelligent life beyond Earth. But here is what he may not have realized: the Bible got there first. And the universe it describes makes the one in Close Encounters look considerably smaller.

The ancient world did not look at the night sky and see empty space. They saw it as populated, active, and alive with beings whose existence and activity shaped everything that happened on earth below.

Job records God asking the creation's most humbling question: "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38:4, 7) The sons of God were there at creation, singing. The stars themselves are used as shorthand for spiritual beings. The universe was not empty at the beginning. It was full.

Nehemiah prayed and described what he saw: "You alone are the LORD. You have made the heavens, the heaven of heavens with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them and the heavenly host bows down before You." (Nehemiah 9:6) The heavenly host. A populated, active, worshiping reality that exists alongside and above the physical universe we can measure.

The lessons of Scripture reveal that this spiritual realm is not a simple place. Angelic beings appear in a staggering variety of forms: winds, flames, stars, birds, four-faced living creatures, wheel-angels from Ezekiel's vision, fiery Seraphim from Isaiah, archangels commanding armies. The book of Revelation presents such an array of these beings around the throne of God that no single image can contain them all. Seventy angelic princes administer the nations of the earth. Michael stands guard over God's people. Spiritual forces of wickedness operate in the heavenly places. A cosmic drama involving more intelligent actors than any science fiction writer has ever imagined plays out behind the scenes of ordinary human history every single day.

In other words: we are not alone in this universe. We have never been alone. And the beings sharing it with us are not distant or indifferent. They are deeply involved in the story being told here on earth.

Close Encounters imagined a first contact moment with life beyond our world. But Job, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the book of Revelation describe a universe that has always been in contact with realities beyond our perception. The veil between the visible and the invisible is not an impenetrable wall. It is a threshold. And at the end of days, what has been invisible will become visible. The angels will be seen. The powers will be shaken. The books will be opened. Every being in the heavenly realm will be present for the culmination of a story that began before humanity drew its first breath.

Now here is the part of this that should stop you completely.
In the middle of all of that: a cosmos filled with angelic hierarchies, spiritual armies, living creatures, sons of God who sang at the foundation of the world, the Psalmist looks up at the night sky and asks the most vulnerable question in all of Scripture:

"When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him?" (Psalm 8:3–4)

What is man. The smallest actor in the largest stage imaginable. One creature on one planet in one solar system inside a universe so vast that even our best instruments have not found its edges. Surrounded above and below by spiritual beings of terrifying power and beauty. And God thinks about him. God cares for him.

Jesus made it personal in a way that should permanently change how you think about your own life. He said: "Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows." (Luke 12:6–7)

The very hairs of your head are numbered. Not counted once and forgotten. Numbered and maintained in the active attention of the One who also commands the angelic armies that move behind the events of history. The same God who set the morning stars singing at creation and will send the archangels at the end of days currently knows how many hairs are on your head.

That is not a small comfort dressed up in religious language. That is one of the most theologically staggering claims ever made. The universe is not empty. It is full of beings more powerful and more ancient than we are. And the God who made and governs all of it turns His personal attention to you.

Lacombe believed that hundreds of people were drawn toward something they could not name. He was right that the pull was real. He just did not know the name of the One doing the drawing.

The bigger the universe gets, the more tempting it is to feel small. Every new discovery about the scale of what God made can either shrink your sense of importance or expand your sense of wonder. The question is which direction you let it pull you.

The Bible chooses wonder. It looks at the full scope of a cosmos populated by angelic beings, heavenly armies, and spiritual powers, and then points to you and says: God knows your name. Not because you are the biggest thing in the universe. Because you are the thing He loves most in it.

You are not an accident on a small planet at the edge of an ordinary galaxy. You are the reason the story is being told.

Do not fear. You are more valuable than many sparrows. And the One who counts the stars also counts the hairs on your head.
That is not a coincidence. That is the point.