We are just days away from a significant eclipse of the sun. I have watched over the past several months three distinct approaches to this oncoming event. The most widely held is the basic secular approach. For these folks the eclipse is of no more significance than a clock chiming twelve. The universe is a self-created, self-governing, great clockwork orange to them. It may look vibrant and alive, but inside is nothing but an ordinary machine, gears integrated with gears, orbits matching up with orbits, everything easily predictable and uniform. The darkness that will descend is “nothing to see here” to these folks.
The second approach is not too terribly different from the first. These folks, nice and reasonable evangelicals, differ from the first group in that they affirm that the universe is a great clockwork orange that God created and that is governed by God’s laws of nature. The universe may look vibrant and alive, but is nothing but an ordinary machine, gears integrated with gears, orbits matching up with orbits, everything easily predictable and uniform.
The third group are those who see great significance in this event, finding portents and messages in the darkness to come. These are the folks that offer up odd nuggets like the claim that the path of the eclipse will fall over twelve different towns called Ninevah, and that such means the end is nigh. Well, the claim itself is false which isn’t a strong endorsement as to its purported meaning. Others see in the event, tied to sundry local governments encouraging people to stock up on supplies a sign not of God’s judgment, but of a Black Swan event, a move of government to usurp what freedoms we have left.
Most of us, I suspect, see ourselves in the second group. We’re not so secularized that we deny God’s existence or His providence. We’re also not so sacralized that we affirm He is active. We have Bibles to read and study, and have no need to read the skies. Trouble is, the Bible we study shows that God has used signs in the sky in the past, and has promised to use them in the future. God stopped the setting of the sun that Joshua might fully defeat and enemy. God sent darkness over the land in Egypt, and again in Jerusalem.
I don’t know if anything catastrophic is coming. I do know that God’s governance of His universe is neither uniformitarian nor merely passive. I know also that we are a nation in darkness not just for a few hours on April 8, but daily, even when the sun is shining. I do know, whatever eschatology we believe the Bible teaches, that we are to look for, pray for, prepare for, His coming again in power. I know that a smug assurance that tomorrow will always be like today is the folly of the virgins bereft of oil. Lord give us eyes to see, and let us be light in the darkness.