Heka

Meissa, sometimes called Heka, Hatya, Lambda Orionis and 39 Orionis, is located at the head of Orion the Hunter, and is formed by a cluster of stars designated Collinder 69, of the Lambda Orionis Cluster. In the sky, this lies a little north of Betelgeuse and Bellatrix. Meissa is its brightest star, for it is an intensely hot body of the O-type spectral classification. The O-Type category refers to extremely hot stars whose surface temperatures range up to 50,000 Kelvins (some nine times hotter than the surface of the Sun, or 49,726 degrees centigrade). Such objects are a brilliant blue-white in colour, and are relatively rare in comparison with their cooler colleagues. Probably the two best known O-type stars in the sky are Alnitak and Mintaka, the two outer lights of Orion's Belt. Having burned my hand on my stove at 180 degrees centigrade several times, I know a thing or two about heat, but 49,000 degrees is seriously hot. Then again, I may have entered care homes for the elderly which were approaching that temperature.

Intensive heat in scripture is often used as a picture of God’s wrath, that most unfashionable, but no less true, theological concept. For example, Deuteronomy 29:23-25:

‘The whole land is brimstone, salt, and burning; it is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow there, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and His wrath.’ All nations would say, ‘Why has the Lord done so to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?’

Furthermore, the Apostle Peters describes the return of the Lord in 2:3:12:

…looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?

Hell itself is described as a place of fire, or a lake of burning sulphur. Yet for the Lord’s people, the following simple and beautiful promise is made:

They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat. Revelation 7:16.

Praise be!

Image by Venrike Artworks from Pixabay