Christian History Home > Issue 76 > Luminous Wonder, Heavy Cross
Luminous Wonder, Heavy Cross
A sense of cosmic awe sustained Johannes Kepler through deep sorrow.
Joseph L. Spradley | posted 10/01/2002 12:00AM
On an unforgettable night in 1577, a mother took her 5-year-old son to the top of a hill to view the bright path of a comet. The boy was Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), and that night his life course was set.
The reverent wonder of that experience shines from Kepler's later description of Copernicus's cosmology—which he was the first to publish in textbook form.
Kepler imagined the heliocentric universe as a reflection of the Trinity: The sun at the center represented God the Father, the outer sphere of stars represented Jesus Christ, and the intervening space represented the Holy Spirit.
This vision of the stars as a window into the eternal sustained the Lutheran astronomer through a life of unremitting suffering.
His father, a mercenary soldier, went missing in action when Johannes was 16. Kepler's first wife died, and he lost several children from both his first and second marriages. He was persecuted by the Catholic Church and excommunicated from the Lutheran church over views of the Lord's ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
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