Signs and Portents

¹⁸See, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion... They will turn their faces upwards, ²²or they will look to the earth, but will see only distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be thrust into thick darkness.^*

                                                                            Isaiah 8

I was too late in searching out those odd glasses which millions of people across North America tomorrow to observe the solar eclipse. In the early afternoon I will be averting my gaze to preserve my sight but I have been pondering what all this means.

Through the millennia humans have associated solar and lunar eclipses with "signs and portents" of the gods, or God. Perhaps because of the apparent extinguishing of our star's powerful and all-encompassing light solar eclipses have been seen as signs of divine disfavour. Even in the 21st century some Christian congregations will be makin' hay while the sun don't shine, with eclipse events taking on an ominous tone. There are roughly a dozen biblical passages which use this heavenly imagery to speak of God's judgement of the wayward and unfaithful.

What came to mind for me was an aspect of the crucifixion story in three of the gospels where after Jesus' death on the cross the skies darkened. Astronomers have explored whether there was a solar eclipse which coincided with the crucifixion but the evidence seems to suggest that this was poetical rather than factual. There is a verse in the spiritual "Were you There?"which picks up on this theme, often sung on Good Friday which picks up on this theme:

Were you there when the sun refused to shine?
Were you there when the sun refused to shine?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when the sun refused to shine?

For me the eclipse is a reminder that in the midst of this strange time of political turmoil, not to mention faces constantly focused downward on the trivia of our phones, we live in a universe of grandeur and remarkable celestial events which transcend our pettiness. I figure that our Creator wants us to remember that "the heavens declare the glory of God" so it really is good for us to note this portentious day.

Will you be looking skyward or skulking about like me today? What do you think about the heavenly hoopla? Are you old enough to remember Carly Simon?

Well I hear you went up to Saratoga
And your horse, naturally, won
Then you flew your Learjet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun
Well, you're where you should be all the time
And when you're not, you're with some underworld spy
Or the wife of a close friend,
Wife of a close friend, and

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, you're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you?
Don't you?