The first nuclear chain reaction reminds of another chain reaction in history affecting our present and future.
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As we remember the world’s first nuclear chain reaction, this historic event can help us appreciate God’s plan to reconcile the human race to Himself after sin entered the world.
In early December 1942, scientists in Chicago, Illinois, produced the first artificial nuclear chain reaction. Physicist Enrico Fermi and his team at the University of Chicago had begun work in a makeshift lab underneath the stands of the university’s football stadium on November 16. Team members worked around the clock to build a lattice of fifty-seven layers of uranium metal and uranium oxide embedded in graphite blocks. A wooden structure supported the graphite pile.
Fermi’s achievement of the world’s first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was a part of the secret Manhattan Project to develop nuclear weapons. Fermi later worked on the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. After World War II, he pioneered in research involving high-energy particles.
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, their decision started a chain reaction that ended in broken fellowship with God and eviction from their perfect home to a hostile environment. But nothing takes God by surprise; He had already planned a chain of events to bring about reconciliation between Himself and the human race. It began with God making a covering for Adam and Eve’s nakedness, continued through his creation of the nation of Israel and the miraculous birth of a Savior, and culminated with Jesus’ death to pay for our sins.
For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.2 Corinthians 5:21 (NLT)
The chain reaction from that first sin continues as the world progresses toward the time when God will pour out judgment on those who reject him. If we’re in a right relationship with God, we have no need to fear the future. He paid a high price so that we can know Him personally. Once we accept the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf, we will receive God’s love and forgiveness. And we’ll get a glimpse of His awesome power that makes nuclear energy look puny.
© Dianne Neal Matthews. Dianne is a freelance writer and the author of four daily devotional books. Visit her at her website, on Facebook, or on Twitter.
