And the darkness did not overcome...

The anticipation of today's eclipse has had many of us rushing to drug stores for glasses, worrying about South Carolina traffic, traveling to stay with friends and family...

Perhaps you bought some of the Krispy Kreme eclipse donuts:

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Or maybe you've been listening to Total Eclipse of the heart all day long:

(or you've been waiting to hear as Ms. Tyler sings it during the eclipse!)

Maybe you've been frantically reading about eye damage or listening to news stories of how the eclipse affects people's moods or the environment.

As I've been hearing about the eclipse for the past few weeks, because I'm a nerdy pastor and it's what I do, I've been reflecting on scripture that records what we can assume are eclipse-like events.

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In Exodus, as Moses is appearing before the Pharaoh to free the Israelite people, God causes 10 plagues, the ninth of which was darkness.

And there was dense darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.

Exodus 10.22

The darkness interferes with the daily lives of the Egyptians: they can't see or move or do their work. The plague of darkness did not, however, affect the Israelites, who continue about their business. The plague shows the mighty power and clear authority of God in the world: even the sun and moon and stars listen to the Lord our God.

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Then in Joshua, as the army of the Israelites is conquering the land of Canaan, God makes the sun stand still.

The sun stopped in midheaven, and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded a human voice; for the Lord fought for Israel.

Joshua 10.14

It is debatable whether this is a true "eclipse" but the stillness of the sun in the sky is unique and interesting. Again, we witness a God who stands on behalf of God's people, and we are made aware of God's presence by the altering of the normal patterns of the sun.

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The prophets describe the "Day of the Lord" or the day of God's judgment, as a day when the sun is dark and the world is topsy turvy.

See, the day of the Lord comes,

cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,

 to make the earth a desolation,

and to destroy its sinners from it.

For the stars of the heavens and their constellations

will not give there light;

the sun will be dark in its rising,

 and the moon will not shed its light.

Isaiah 13.9-11

When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens,

and make their stars dark.

I will cover the sun with a cloud,

 and the moon will not give its light.

All the shining lights of the heavens

I will darken above you and put darkness in your land, says the Lord.

Ezekiel 32.7

The earth quakes before them,

the heavens tremble.

The sun and moon are darkened,

 and the stars withdraw their shining....

Truly the day of the Lord is great;

terrible indeed - who can endure it?

Joel 2.10-11b

On that day, says the Lord God,

I will make the sun go down at noon,

and darken the earth in broad daylight.

Amos 8.9

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The idea of darkness during the day is one of terror, judgment, and fear. 

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In the gospels, we also witness an eclipse at Jesus' death.

From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three o'clock in the afternoon. ... Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last.

Matthew 27.45;50

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. ... Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.

Mark 15.33;37

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land, until three in the afternoon, while the sun's light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Having said this, he breathed his last.

Luke 23.44-46

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There is a sense that the cosmic power of Jesus' death is so enormous that it overwhelms even the sun. I also like to imagine that the scene of Jesus on the cross was so tragic that God averted God's eyes and drew the shade over the shame and pain of God's son. 

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So, it should come as a surprise to us that over the centuries we have gone from an eclipse being a symbol of fear and pain and terror, a sign that the divine powers that be were enacting judgment on the land, to a marketing event. Instead of something to fear, an eclipse has become something that causes traffic jams, something to travel 100 miles to see, and something to have a sweet party about. With scientific study, we've learned that eclipses happen on a reliable basis; they are something that simply happens, a shift from the normal routine of the celestial bodies and, just as quickly, a shift back to the habitual orbits.

Of course, when I emerged from our church office to a chorus of cicadas and the automatic evening lights had come on in front of the sanctuary and all the air had a cloudy mysterious haze to it, I wasn't really thinking about science and orbits. It was downright spooky and a strange and almost a stumbling block to my brain and senses. Even this weird snake living next door to my friend, Mel, was thrown off his little groove as he stared at the sun {literally the only time I'm going to say anything cute about a snake}.

There's a reason we stepped out from work or we drove 100 miles; there's a reason we hunted down eclipse glasses and purchased Sun Drop. Somewhere in the midst of this eclipse, we all experience something ethereal, surreal, and divine. The God who made the darkness over Egypt centuries ago eclipsed the sun today. The God who ordered the heavenly bodies made sure that there would be moments like these that would remind us that God is in charge. Whether you're black or white, Democrat or Republican, Christian or not, all of us craned our necks and shielded our eyes as the world stood still in darkness this afternoon. When the darkness crept into our world, we did what God has always called us to do: we looked up.

I keep coming back to the gospel of John (who oddly does not record the eclipse at Jesus' death). John begins with these famous lines:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

John 1.1-5

Today's eclipse for me is a reminder that the darkness of the world does not last. I am comforted that even when the darkness seems to settle and turn the world topsy turvy, God, just like the sun sitting behind the moon, is still present, still active. The light and love of God is not something that can be contained by the dark and simple presence of the moon; no, the light is something that bursts forth, even when the shadows are unbearable and the world is in chaos. 

It seems appropriate to me that yesterday our youth led us in worship and we were able to experience such joy and light coming from the youth of our church, from the future of our church. It seems appropriate to me that we've kicked off another year of Sunday School. It seems right to me that people of literally all ages gathered yesterday for the ice cream social. These are the ways that the Kingdom of God was bursting through the darkness within the walls of our church. These are the ways that our church refuses to be blinded by darkness but constantly seeks the light.

The light of God shines in the darkness, and darkness did not, can not, and will never overcome it.

So Fresh and So Clean Clean

There was a point this summer when the mess in my office reached a totally unacceptable point. Not only was there the usual clutter: the stacks of papers, files, bibles, books, and post-its, but there were additional piles: old curriculum, donations of supplies, materials that hadn't been put away, receipts, first aid supplies, crafts, pictures. And then it got embarrassing: dirty dishes, empty water bottles, candy wrappers, forgotten lunches, and old candy. I had officially reached the status of Pig Sty.

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It was so bad, that bless his sweet sweet heart, Albert, our Sexton, took it upon himself while I was away to organize my mess in to piles, to discard some of the more embarrassing items of trash, and to give my office a fresh feeling of newness. I really cannot thank him enough.

When I came to him to thank him for this kindness, he said, "Well, I figured you'd just gotten to a place where you were overwhelmed and couldn't keep up with it." It was so true. In Youth Ministry, you're liable to have things like toilet brushes, crayons, and Bibles tucked into every nook and cranny, and the fast pace of the summer makes it nearly impossible to keep up. But I had not done a great job of self-care and became easily overwhelmed with the items overflowing my office. It had come to a point that when I looked around, I wasn't even sure where to start, or how to make it right again.

Maybe you know what I mean...

Maybe my office isn't all that far off from where a lot of us find ourselves. Maybe you also suffer from Messy-Desk-Syndrome, or maybe there is other mess and clutter in our lives.

Sometimes I wonder if I've made too many mistakes. Perhaps people will judge me solely on the errors I've made or the things I've dropped the ball on. Sometimes, I wonder if I've made a reputation that is so messy and so set in one way that it is too late to be changed.

Sometimes I am afraid. I'm afraid of violence and hatred I see on TV. I'm afraid of angry mobs and nuclear war. I am afraid of a world that is so different than the one I grew up in. I'm afraid of bullies, of people whose feelings have been hurt, of being wrong, and of accidentally hurting others. Sometimes, I'll admit, the fear I have in our ever-changing world feels like a mess I cannot begin to navigate. How can I make it through all this fear to the light on the other side?

Sometimes, when I was a teenager, I felt like people put me in a box. I was a band-geek, and an English nerd. I was a goody-two-shoes Christian. I was that girl who dated that weird guy who spread a bunch of rumors about her after they broke up. Sometimes I would wonder if anyone in my school would ever take the time to listen to me, to truly know me. Sometimes, my identity as a Middle or High School student felt like a mess I could not fix, a swamp of assumptions I could not escape.

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The feeling of drowning in mess is not that foreign to us or to our teenagers, or perhaps even to our elementary aged children.

Starting Fresh

Yesterday morning on the Today's Show I saw a segment about the fashion trends for Back To School, which highlighted that white tennis shoes, fresh crisp and clean were all the rage for this year's Back to School Fashion.

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The description and the pictures brought me back to a dewy morning standing at the bus stop with my new Converse All-Stars on the first day of Middle School. I wore my baggy jeans and baby-T shirt; my horrible haircut fixed as best I could behind a headband, my brand new red Jansport book bag on my back. I remember thinking that this new school was a fresh start: I could leave the past behind, make new friends, be a new person, and live new experiences. Even though that hope faded throughout the school year, there was a part of me that lived for that fresh new feeling of hope.

As Hoda Kotb described the crisp white tennis shoes, I thought both of the incredible blessing of a new school year and the harsh contrast it makes with the messy, scuffed up challenges of our everyday life. This week, our kids get a fresh start to make a new impression. They get to set a new trend for themselves in clothing; they redefine themselves (for better and sometimes worse) in terms of their personality; there are boundless opportunities for new friends, new classes, new schedules, and new lunch tables. The world is their oyster.


Our world doesn't give us a lot of light to guide us through the mess, and it is not a far leap to feel hopeless, especially at the age of 13. But our God does give us this hope. Our God does provide crisp white tennis shoes when the world around us is scuffed and gray. Our God does hear the cries of God's people; God does give us the light to see clearly through the fog. Our God does give us the real-life and metaphorical Alberts to come clean out our messy lives so we can start fresh.


This is the message we have heard from Jesus and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
-1 John 1.5-8

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Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
-Romans 5.1-5



So as we prepare for a fresh new school year, I pray that together we would take this as an opportunity to renew our hope in a bright future, to renew our faith that Christ is near us, and to renew our sense of commitment to that hope, knowing that we are beloved children of God walking in the light, even when the shadows cling so closely.


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