Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques calls Monday's solar eclipse 'a rare spectacle of nature' and for the Christian community, we include the eclipse as another way for our Creator to show his magnificence and mystery in the sky!
'The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the works of His hands,' declares David in the Psalms.
There has been an incredible amount of media coverage over the past month about the upcoming eclipse, including those in Christian circles. Some say this is a direct message from God Himself for North America to repent and turn back to Him. Some are focusing on the giant 'X' that forms across North America when the shadow path of this eclipse crosses the shadow path of the 2017 eclipse.
"I've had a few people mention its significance to me as well," shares Killarney Mennonite Church Pastor Danny Groening. "Some people are wondering if this could be in some ways prophetic, a sign of perhaps the end of days or an end times event. But the uniqueness of something that happens once or twice in someone's lifetime to us, of course, makes it seem extra significant and unusual.
"But I think when we look at the arc of history, specifically Biblical history, right from Genesis chapter one, we see that God ordained the sun, the moon and the stars," he continues. "He created them and then gave them a specific task of separating the day from the night, letting them serve as signs to mark a separate times and days and years.
"So, they're God's clock for His creation, and of course they have significance and we see that throughout the arc of the Biblical narrative."
Pastor Danny reminds us that in ancient times the stars held significant importance to read the stars and the constellations for navigation. The most well-known Biblical account of that was when the Magi followed the star to where the Messiah, King of the Jews, would be found. "So, we see God using signs in the heavens so there's precedence for it, we don't just want to dismiss it out of hand because clearly God does use these things and so it always makes it interesting when we see something like this."
Some have brought attention to the shadow path of the upcoming eclipse that crosses between two to seven towns named Ninevah between the US and Canada, reminding us of the story of Jonah and his call to go to the people of Ninevah and call them to repentance.
When asked if Monday's eclipse could be a sign from God to North Americans to come to Him in repentance, Pastor Danny reminds us that every day is a day for repentance.
"Jonah is one of the more famous prophets for all the wrong reasons in that he didn't want to preach repentance to his audience because they were his enemies. And we all know the big fish story. But he ends up preaching begrudgingly for the people to repent, that God's judgement was at hand and the people needed to turn from their sin and turn to God. The Gospel is that every day we can repent. Today is the day of God's mercy and we can turn back to Him.
"So, if in some way people take this eclipse as a sign to say yes, they should be repenting, I'd say absolutely. I believe that everything that God puts before us is to point us towards repentance. Ultimately, we need Him and we know Christ is coming back. We don't know how far away that is, whether that's next week or a hundred years from now, but it's drawing closer every day. It's natural for us to look at signs whether in the sky or in the world, particularly ones that are in scripture like Jesus warned of the birth pangs that would precede His coming, like wars, rumours of wars, earthquakes and famines, all of those sorts of things. We have them all around us.
"As believers, it should remind us that His coming is drawing closer, and hopefully for those who are not in faith it may be something that will cause them to look up and pay attention and consider the opportunity to turn to the Lord is still open today."
The coming eclipse on Monday afternoon has prompted much discussion across our continent about the dangers of looking directly at the eclipse during the moon's passing. Pastor Danny says that while we are not to look directly at the sun during this phenomenon in danger of damaging our eyes and thereby our quality of life, God wants us to look at His Son, Jesus, and restore our lives to see Him in all His glory.
"We see in different examples in the scriptures where the glory of God, the radiance of God, the brightness of God will instantly cause men to fall flat on their faces before Him. One needs to only think of the apostle Paul before he was saved, he was Saul the Pharisee and was on his way to Damascus to persecute the church. Jesus stops him on the road with a brilliant light, and the light is Himself. The light is the glory of His face shining just as it did at transfiguration, and it's powerful enough that it can blind someone physically.
"So, this reminds me to not look directly at the 'sun' but to look directly at the 'Son'," he adds. "John writes in Revelation that Jesus is shining like the sun in all its brilliance. The only thing that is going to allow us to come into His glory, His radiant presence without fear and with great joy is to put on Christ, to put on His righteousness. And that will give us not from ourselves but from Christ the worthiness to approach God and actually dwell there in His radiant light without being destroyed."