What can we learn from the upcoming solar eclipse?

It’s the Super Bowl of the Skies! No ticket required. 

In a world of people addicted to screens, countless millions of us are stopping everything to see a spectacle in the skies. When a celestial switch is flipped and the lights go out.

The solar eclipse of 2024.

Millions are traveling to be in the path of the total blackout known as totality. Towns in the path of full eclipse are getting rich quick. Hotel rooms, normally $150 are sold out for $600-700 a night.

If we didn’t know better, many of us would likely freak out as the sun disappeared.  The ancient Mayans did.  They thought the sun had been eaten – and they had elaborate rituals to stay safe.

Our rituals will be simpler. Weird glasses and everyone looking reverently at the sky.

While from earthside the eclipse is a not-to-be-missed mega-event, its galactic explanation is remarkably simple. Something comes between Earth and the Sun, its source of light. The moon is that “something.” In totality, it gets totally dark.

While solar eclipses are relatively rare, we experience eclipse much more frequently than we realize. Not in the sky. But in ourselves.

We all know those times when life turns dark. When our heart is broken. A relationship is broken.  Our dream is broken.

Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint the reason for the darkness we feel in our soul.  But there is an unrelenting loneliness… an unexplainable sadness… an uneasy fear… an unsettling despair.  And it turns dark.

It’s easy to get lost in the dark. To make choices that only deepen the darkness. To let our thoughts go to perilous places. To believe lies about our worth … our life … our future.

While many factors can contribute to our emotional and spiritual darkness, much, if not most, of our darkness has a source beyond our circumstances.

Something has come between us and our source of light.

The source is revealed in the Bible as it explains the orbit for which we were created.  Speaking of our Creator, it says, “All things were created by Him and for Him” (Colossians 1:16). In just six words, God gives us the answer to life’s most elusive question — “Why am I here?”  Answer: I’m created by God and for God. Not for a religion about God, but for a relationship with God.

Then why the spiritual eclipse we live in so much of the time?  It must be that something has come between us and Him. Because He’s the ultimate source of all the things that light up our life — lasting love, an inspiring purpose, unshakable security, a peace stronger than our storms, a strength greater than our fears.

Thankfully, God loves us enough to tell us what’s come between us and Him. “Your sins have separated you from your God” (Isaiah 59:2). Sin —  me doing life my way instead of His way. Me saying, “God, you run the universe; I’ll do me.”

And the Sun stops shining. When it goes dark in my soul, I’ve let some sin come between me and my God. I can try everything to dispel the darkness, but nothing can bring back the Sun until the spiritual obstruction between us is forgiven and forsaken.

On Good Friday, I was thinking eclipse as I read again the account of Jesus’ awful death on the cross.  It says, “From noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came over all the land.” The reason for that eclipse is revealed in what Jesus cried out from the cross: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:45,46).

At that moment Jesus was carrying “our sins in His body on the cross” (I Peter 2:24).  All the garbage of my life — every selfish, hurtful, dirty and shameful thing — the Son of God was carrying in His soul. Paying my spiritual death penalty.

All the darkness of all our sins came between God the Father and God the Son. God was turning His back on His Son so He would never have to turn His back on us.

Why? The Bible answers, “He loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

I find great hope in Jesus’ promise that “whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

Without Him, the eclipse will last forever. With Him, the Light floods my soul. Sin is forgiven. Guilt is gone. Death has no fear. I am safe. I am never alone again.

The Sun has risen. Never to set again.