Eclipse
A while back there was a total solar eclipse, and I got to see it. I confess that, in the beginning, I wasn’t really all that impressed. Everything looked exactly the same, except when I looked directly at the sun through special glasses. That was interesting and all, but then something started to happen. The shadows all started to get a little strange. Then even though it was almost noon, the world began to darken.
The air cooled. Locusts started to sing in the trees as if it was evening. Cloud banks to the north and the south were lit up bright as day, but where I was, daylight was waning. And all of the sudden, I did not need special glasses to look at the sun anymore. I looked up and the moon was visibly blocking almost all of the sun.
And then things moved to a whole new level.
For about a minute and 45 seconds I stood in what is called the totality of the eclipse. That means that if you could draw a straight line through 93 million miles of space, that line would go directly through the sun, through the moon, and through me.
As the moon perfectly blocked the sun for those precious seconds, I stood in the twilight staring at the noonday sun.
What I saw was the silhouette of the moon, with the sun raging at its fringes. It was like nothing I have ever seen before, and I would travel far to see it again.
But as I think back on that rare and magnificent moment, I am reminded of something that is common and tragic.
I am reminded that when it comes to God, we all live in the twilight. And rather than that twilight being rare and difficult to find, it is as common as breathing and seemingly impossible to escape.
Just like the moon comes between us and the Sun from time to time, there is something that looms like a giant brick wall between us and God all of the time. The Bible calls that thing sin, and one of the effects of sin in our lives is that it creates a wall of separation between us and God.
So throughout history, people have looked for ways to make that wall go away. People have created religions, tried to impress God by being good people, and in some cases rejected any belief in God at all. All as a way to escape the twilight, this ever-present grey veil that overshadows our whole lives.
And none of it works.
The thing we have learned—if we choose to learn anything at all—is that we can’t escape from the twilight because that looming wall of sin is not something that can be moved from our side.
And yet, maybe just maybe, we are not condemned to this darkness.
Once upon a time on this darkened earth there was a man named John—and God talked to him. He told him that He was about to send into the world the only One who could take away the darkness. So John went around telling everybody to pay attention because God was about to send somebody to take away the darkness. And then one day, the One finally came. And when John the prophet saw him, he pointed and he yelled out and said, “Behold! the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
John said that because he knew that sin was the thing that blocks all of us from the light of God. He said that because he knew that only God could remove that sin. And he said that because he knew that he was looking at the One that God had sent to set all people free from sin. He said that because he was looking at Jesus.
Who are you looking to today?
If you are tired of the murkiness of life, maybe it is time to look to Jesus to set you free.
