If you live in the right areas of the world you have the opportunity to view the third ‘blood moon’ in the tetrad (four) series of lunar eclipses. The shadow of the Earth will cover the moon for just under five minutes. It is a rare and exciting event for sky watchers from NASA to those under my roof.
In the Christian calendar, today is the darkest day, but it is not because of an eclipse.
Today, Christians all over the world, participate in a memorial for the sacrificial death of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus, the sinless son of God, paying with his body and soul, for the sins of a humanity, who could not ever dream of making atonement for ourselves.
Today, I bow my head in prayer, and thank God that my own redemption was worth the death of His Son.
Today, is a day of thanks for the gift, but also acknowledgment of how dark was that day of scourging, torture, crucifixion, and death.
It could be said that, for Jesus, it was a total eclipse of his heart, as the sin of all humanity separated Him from His heavenly Father … a pain far worse than any torture man had done. This is the Passion of Jesus, poured out, as a light in a dark, hopeless, fearful world.
The quote, above, describes what was done on that day, when what Satan intended for evil, destruction and darkness, God turned into hope, light and life.
In the following video (at about 1:17), we see how, even in our physical world, darkness cannot eliminate light, through the description of tomorrow’s lunar eclipse:
“Imagine yourself standing on a dusty lunar plain, looking up at the sky.
Overhead hangs Earth, night side down.
Completely hiding the sun behind it.
The eclipse is underway.
You might expect Earth, seen in this way, to be utterly dark.
But it’s not.
The rim of the planet looks to be on fire.
As you scan your eye across Earth’s circumference, you’re seeing every sunrise, and every sunset in the world, all of them, all at once.
This incredible light beams into the heart of the Earth’s shadow, filling it with a coppery glow and transforming the moon into a great red orb, when viewed from Earth.”
On this day, as we remember the darkness of our sin, may we also see how that dark day has illuminated the light from it’s shadow.
“There will be no more night.
They will not need the light of a lamp
or the light of the sun,
for the Lord God will give them light.”
Revelation 22:5
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