Darkness

“There was darkness over the whole land” (Luke23:44)

Today, millions of people will don their eclipse glasses, look up into the sky (no, not for Superman) but for a total solar eclipse.  It is the rare phenomenon of the moon completely obscuring the sun.  When it happens, midday will turn into midnight, as darkness covers the face of the earth.   It will best be visible in areas in Mexico, America, and Canada.  But one of the best locations to watch the eclipse happens to be right here, in the best location in the nation – northeast Ohio. 

There have been 15 total eclipse events in at least portions of the continental United States in the past 150 years.  But they have no comparison to the darkness God has brought over the earth.  The first time we are familiar with God plunging the earth into darkness occurred in Egypt as one of the ten plagues he used to deliver his people from their bondage in the land.  Exodus 10:22 tells us that “Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days.”

The second occasion of darkness we are most familiar with took place when Christ died on the cross.  Matthew 27:45 tells us, “Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon the land until the ninth hour.”  Imagine how unsettling that must have been as people watched their land plummeting into total darkness, while the One who had claimed to be the Messiah hung on the cruel cross of crucifixion.  And don’t forget that Christ’s death occurred during the celebration of Passover in Jerusalem.  A time when the people would recall the darkness spread over Egypt before the arrival of the angel of death. 

But there is a future occasion when the earth will be covered in darkness.  It will be the greatest of all darkness God has brought upon this planet.  It will not be the result of an eclipse or any other astronomical phenomenon.  It will be the result of the end of the earth, as it is now known.  For as “darkness was over the surface of the deep” when God began creating the earth, so it will be when God ends it.  John’s vision of that time goes like this, “The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind.  The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.” (Revelation 6:12-14)

The darkness over Egypt brought judgment.  The darkness at Christ’s crucifixion ushered in the dawn of salvation and redemption.  But the final darkness that destroys everything as we know it will bring – The End! 

So, as you gaze at the eclipse today, I encourage you to stop and ponder what God’s darkness has brought the world in the past – and what it will bring the world in the future.

                                                     Darlene