It’s not like the sun, moon and darkness are usually newsworthy in and of themselves. Most of us take for granted their presence in our lives. I guess that’s why all the hoopla over the recent solar eclipse was a little surprising to me.
Yeah, I know total solar eclipses hardly ever happen here and for many of us, this was probably our only chance to witness this particular alignment of the moon and sun. But let’s face it—experiencing new and rare things doesn’t really seem very new or rare in our quickly-and-ever-changing world.
I’m glad the eclipse boosted our local economy and the personal economies of some friends who rented out their homes to eclipse tourists for a hefty $400 a night, but honestly, I got kind of tired of all the hype.
The final straw for me was when I saw a TV news reporter demonstrating how to put eclipse glasses on a dog to protect its eyes. Joe and I considered ordering little glasses for our chickens and larger versions for our dog, donkey and horse. I am KIDDING, although it would have made a great photo.
I used to work in a TV newsroom and understand their obsession with milking every little news nugget to death, but oh, my word. Did they seriously think our animals would suddenly stare at the sun and burn out their retinas when the eclipse occurred?
I could relate to a friend’s Facebook post a couple of days before the event. It featured a picture of the popular movie character Madea loading a pistol, with these words superimposed over the photo: “Say ‘solar eclipse glasses’ one more time.”
Of course, when the big event arrived, I wanted to experience it. It seemed crazy not to since it only cost me a few bucks for the glasses and about an hour of my time. Plus, my husband is an astronomy buff and I didn’t want to throw a wet blanket on his enthusiasm with my hype-induced cynicism.
And I must confess the eclipse was pretty interesting and well, very cool. And maybe even awesome, to use a much-overused word. But for me, the awesomeness wasn’t so much about the rarity of this event, or the novelty of experiencing darkness during the day, or even the splendor of the corona bursting out from around the perimeter of the moon/sun circle.
No, it was awesome to me because it was such a strong argument for a design and a Designer of this universe. How else can astronomical events like eclipses be predicted and occur with such precision and regularity?
The likelihood of the universe functioning in such an orderly fashion without a grand design has been compared to throwing the tiny parts of a watch in a paper bag, shaking the bag and then reaching in to pull out a perfectly functioning timepiece. Which is to say, there’s no chance, which means it takes a lot more faith to believe this universe happened by random chance than it does to believe that God created it and keeps it going.
Dust for prints and you’ll find evidence of God’s presence all over this world and the cosmos. The eclipse was just one more fingerprint.
So as I stood on my deck and watched the moon pass over the sun at precisely the predicted time, in precisely the predicted manner, I prayed that skeptics would open their hearts “that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him.” (Acts 17:27a) Because as wondrous as this world can be, it’s nothing compared to what’s coming for those who follow the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom all things were created (Col. 1:16).
And that, my friends, is what’s truly worthy of hype and hoopla.