BELOVED PEOPLE OF GOD,
It was my husband’s birthday on Monday, April 8 and so about a month ago, I wondered if he wanted to go on a road trip to see the total eclipse of the sun for his birthday and soon plans were underway. We left Sunday afternoon, stayed just south of St. Louis and drove on Monday to Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
The earth, the moon, and the sun all in alignment for a brief moment in time and what was familiar, and routine changed dramatically. Watching with special glasses allowed us to see what we couldn’t see on our own, as the moon moved between us and the sun. We would swap back and forth between gazing up and looking around as the earth, moon and sun moved and light changed to that weird kind of translucent green before a storm.
But when the moon was right in front of the sun, we could look at the sun and see the corona. We saw the sun in a new and very different way and it changed our familiar surroundings and our bearings; the temperature dropped, the sounds of crickets replaced the chirping birds, the blues of the horizon all the same no matter what direction we looked, dawn and dusk appearing simultaneously and two planets made their appearance as well.
There was that moment of awe at the power and magnificence of our sun and moon and planet united in this way and spilling over into our environment. God’s creativity in motion on a huge scale. And I got to see it but more than just see, I got to experience it. It was amazing and weird and strange. It was a holy moment.
Of course I am at a loss for words and pictures don’t do it justice but trying to capture what cannot be captured is a worthwhile endeavor no matter how clumsily I do it. It is what we, people of faith, try to do all the time when we share our faith in what God is up to among us. We keep at it struggling to find the words, the metaphors, the pictures to give shape to God’s mysterious presence and activity.
Experiencing the eclipse helps me understand Peter’s address to the people in Acts 3 when he says, “why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?” And Jesus’ consistent words of peace to his disciples as he shows himself risen from the dead. “Have you anything here to eat?” Jesus asks. Calling them into something they recognize like eating so that they can see and experience more of Jesus as they wrestle with their disbelief and belief, trying to trust the joy of the moment and the presence of Jesus.
They are our witnesses that have spoken to us over the years. They are like the special eyewear that protects our eyes while allowing us to see what we can’t see on our own. And we are witnesses to each other as we move with each other, and God’s word and the Holy Spirit works with and among us to help us see Jesus. We are witnesses of these things – God’s creativity in motion among us.
Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,
Pastor Connie Spitzack
