A Total Eclipse of the Heart

Photograph by Simon Popecki, 4/8/2024

Indescribable, in that there are no words that can describe what happened.

Awe-some in the full sense of the word, in that it elicited a fearful awe.

Adrenaline-inducing, because for those few minutes as things got more and more eerie, and then totally dark, my fight-or-flight response kicked in.

As my friends and I gathered in a random little park in Sidney, OH the atmosphere was boisterous. I looked around and had to laugh because it was the most wholesome thing I’ve seen in a long time. It looked like all of the Midwest was gathered around in a giant tailgate, except all of our chairs and our gazes were oriented in one direction—the sun.

The sun is a familiar thing to us. We take this giant yellow ball for granted, we really do. It brings warmth and life, and I know that after a cloudy day I am always so happy when the sun shines.

So when the air began to get cooler, and the colors all around us began to get more and more eerie (this is an effect of the eclipse, you can watch this video to learn more), I began to be unsettled, restless.

When those last little droplets of sunlight disappeared and darkness fell over the land, we all proceeded to cheer in unison as a crowd, I couldn’t stop jumping up and down out of excitement.

But as the minutes of darkness ticked by, and I stopped and stared at this odd, unreal, glowing orb with a white halo, I realized that I didn’t know this sun at all. This same sun that I’ve been so comfortable with all these years suddenly felt so unfamiliar to me, I was overcome with awe but in that awe, a ribbon of fear laced itself around me too. The light that came from that eclipse wasn’t the friendly yellow light we’re used to. It was a white light of pure energy and radiation, to really encounter it up close could mean the death of you.

I hate to say it, but if you were not in the path of totality on April 8th, 2024 then you have no frame of reference for what the “umbraphiles” experienced. Because there is nothing on this earth that I can compare the eclipse to except God himself.

As I tried to find words to describe the experience of the eclipse, it occurred to me that there is a moment in human existence that I can compare it to, though the totality pale in comparison.

How?

Just as we have this familiarity with the sun, so too do we have a familiarity with the Lord. For those of us who’ve grown up in the faith, we’ve interacted with Him, we’ve read about him, we know things about him, and we’ve even felt him on occasion.

But there comes a moment where the manifest presence of God will so fill a space, in all his glory and splendor, that this “Son” we’ve been so familiar with all our lives, suddenly does not feel so familiar anymore. Where you realize that there is so much more about Him that you don’t know, that He’s indescribable and majestic, and one Word out his mouth could burn you up in a second if you’re not careful.

It reminds me of how I feel when I get to the book of Revelation in my reading plan. I’m so used to “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” that when I encounter the Jesus of Revelation I get a taste of what the true “fear of God” is like.

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. 

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.

Rev 1:12–17, ESV

The writer of Hebrews says, “it is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God”. Woe to those who are not covered by the blood of the Lamb on that fateful day, what dread will come over them when the sun becomes black as sackcloth, the full moon becomes like blood, and the stars of the sky fall to the earth? (Rev. 6:12) There’s nowhere man can run that day, nowhere to hide, because every eye will be turned to the heavens and they will see.

But thanks be to God who gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ!

We went to Sidney because we were closest to the center of totality. Totality (AKA darkness, as if it were 9pm) lasts 3 minutes and 55 seconds for us, and then suddenly a bright light pierces out by the lower right hand side of the moon. And it gets brighter and brighter, and daylight comes and that quiet dread, that eerie unfamiliarity, passes and a great cheer rises up from all over the field as we celebrate the return of the sun in all of its glory.

“The fear of the Lord is the right understanding of who God is”.

I wrote that in an article last November, and it still rings true for me today. God has revealed many different facets of himself to us, and all of them are equally true. Gentle Jesus meek and mild is the same Jesus with eyes like a flame of fire, a voice like the roar of many waters. He is both familiar to us and also absolutely indescribable.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.

Rev 1:17–18, ESV

He is the same Jesus that looks at John and extends his hand of grace, and raises him back up to his feet. That same Jesus that looks at us and tells us to “fear not”, because he holds the powers of this cosmos in his hands.

Hallelujah.

Amen.

Photograph by Simon Popecki, 4/8/2024

This is the moment that the first rays of sunshine begin to peek through after totality, as the moon continues on its path.

Thank you to everyone who prayed for my big huge birthday miracle! I kid you not, I checked the cloud forecast on Wednesday only to see clouds covering that entire area of the eclipse. Then I reached out to my friends to ask them to pray on Instagram, and the very next day all of the clouds had shifted eastward leaving a pathway clear right along the path of totality. It was like a corridor of sunshine had opened up—enough for us to be able to witness the eclipse without any impediments. Glory to God!!

For those of you who missed it, I have been waiting for April 8th, 2024 for the last 15-18 years or so. I have known about the total solar eclipse coming on my 29th birthday since I was in middle school, and to get to witness this day was such a special moment for me.

Truly a childhood dream fulfilled, hallelujah.