When the Universe Came Into Focus

For decades, the Hubble Space Telescope sent back images that reshaped how we understood the cosmos — smudges of light resolved into galaxies, faint signals decoded into the births of stars. Each photograph was a revelation. But when NASA released the first deep-field image from the James Webb Space Telescope on July 12, 2022, astrophysicist Jane Rigby stood at the press conference in tears. "It's so much more than I expected," she said. Hubble had shown us the universe in glimpses. Webb showed it in full infrared glory — thousands of galaxies burning behind what we once thought was empty darkness, light that had traveled thirteen billion years finally arriving with breathtaking clarity.

The writer of Hebrews understood this kind of unveiling. "In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways," he wrote, "but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son." Moses, Elijah, Isaiah — each was a Hubble image, real and true but incomplete. Each prophet caught a frequency of God's voice: justice here, mercy there, a whisper of coming redemption. But Jesus was not another telescope. He was the radiance of God's glory itself, the exact representation of the Almighty's being.

The prophets helped us see. The Son let us see the One who made the stars.