The brightest supernova ever discovered: How to experience omnipotence today

Astronomers say they have discovered the largest and brightest supernova ever seen.

A supernova is defined as an extremely bright and powerful explosion of a dying, massive star at least five times the mass of our sun. A study published yesterday reports that the mass of this supernova, labeled SN2016aps, was between fifty and one hundred times greater than our sun. 

For a sense of scale: our sun could contain 1.3 million Earths and is about 333,000 times the mass of our planet. It contains 99.8 percent of the mass of the entire solar system. While it has burned off material that is more than 100 times the mass of the Earth, this is only about 0.05 percent of the sun’s total mass. 

But our sun is only 1 to 2 percent the size of the supernova now being reported. And there are estimated to be 100 billion such stars in the Milky Way galaxy, and ten trillion such galaxies in the universe. 

And our God made all of that. 

A path to triumphant courage 

Nearly half the people in the US feel the coronavirus pandemic is harming their mental health. As the Washington Post notes, “If you’re scared, anxious, depressed, struggling to sleep through the night, or just on edge, you’re not alone.” 

While COVID-19 is now the number one cause of death per day in the US, heart disease still kills 1,773 people every day and cancer causes 1,641 deaths a day. 

In other words, there’s a lot to worry about. But there’s a way of dealing courageously and triumphantly with life on this broken planet, a source of strength and hope that is available to every child of God. 

And we celebrated it just two days ago. 

“Eternal life is the gift of God” 

Christians around the world announced on Easter Sunday that Jesus is “risen indeed.” The grief of watching his execution and burial on Good Friday pales into the glorious sunrise of his resurrection from the grave on the third day. 

Now the risen Christ wants to infuse…