Our family was not at Grace last Sunday because we were on vacation. Good friends from Pennsylvania flew up to spend the week with us, the highlight of which was three days of camping in Seward.

The area around Seward, including the Kenai Fjords National Park, must be one of the most beautiful places in all the world. We were blessed to go out on the water to take in some of that beauty. Here is a granite-faced island jutting out of the cold waters, providing a sanctuary for an incredible number of birds that nest there.

If you look closely you can see the gulls flying around the top. Of course a picture does not do justice the stunning beauty of it.

I like the way the two rocks are pointing toward heaven, like a medieval cathedral that leads the eye upwards where God dwells. What a fitting testimony to the truth that all of creation – whether a breathtaking scene like this, or whether the lowly earthworms my daughter has taken to collecting recently – testifies to the glory and majesty of God. As David said in Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

So to appreciate the beauty of a place like this (and how spoiled we are in Alaska to have such an abundance of incredible sights) is seeing only part of the picture. God wants us to be drawn from admiring his creation to recognizing that it is his good and wise hands that made it all. People come from all over the world to see sights like this – but how many of them “see” the Creator who brought it all into being by his powerful word? Such sight is a gift of God’s grace, and if the beauty of a place like this leads you to worship the Creator give him thanks for the faith to truly see.

And even more importantly, if you behold in the face of Jesus Christ the revelation of God’s glory (2 Corinthians 4:6), then praise God for this faith. The beauty of creation is one thing, but the beauty of Jesus revealing by his love the love of the Father is an even greater declaration of the glory of God.

Here’s another scene from our trip. This is from Girdwood.

Standing here and seeing this was like being transported into a J.R.R. Tolkien novel. Can such beauty be the product of a purely material world?

If not, how could the message of the incarnation, life, and death of Jesus Christ be the product of man’s imagination?

Surely God stands behind the Bible just as he stands behind his Creation. Sights like these should lead our eyes heavenward to our Heavenly Father, and then lead us on to his greater revelation, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Pastor Scott