Have you gotten your eclipse glasses yet?  I have not.  I’ll admit that I’m not super-moved by it—yet.  But the more I think about it, the more I realize I don’t know when I’ll be this close to seeing a full eclipse.  I’m not planning on driving out to see the totality, but I know people who are.  And the more I hear what it will truly look like—stars coming out!—the more curious I am.  There’s also a comet that should be visible, the “devil” or “dragon” comet (so called because it has green ‘horns’), which has only recently become visible in North America.
  
    Signs and Portents in the heavens and on the earth!  Some Christians think we are living in the “end times.”  I do not.  (We might be looking at the ending of A world, in which the “world order” of the last few decades is changing but not the end of the world.)  But I can see how the anxiety in our country around global and political change looks for some sort of confirmation outside of our selves that points to divine meaning underneath the worry and fear.  Biblically, all the “end-time” predictions are actually about hope—hope that God is involved in the doings of human history and has a plan for salvation that includes human history.  After all, that’s one of the BIG meanings of Easter, that God raised Jesus—a particular human being, in a particular time and place.  Easter is very concrete, even “flesh and blood” concrete; Christ had a body that could be touched (John 20:27), even if it was a “spiritual body” (I Corinthians 15:38-44).  Easter hope includes us, in the messiness of our real lives.  THAT is good news! 

    It’s that same good news that we witness to and share with others in those things that really matter the most.  I know people will be sharing their experiences of seeing the eclipse in ways that try to communicate the impact on them to those who didn’t see it.  The early witnesses to the resurrection did the same thing—and we do too in our own way—they shared the impact of that experience to others.  Even though we haven’t seen the Easter Jesus the way they did, we too can share the touch of the Living God in our life.  

Peace, Pr. Christian