The blood-red moon

My wife and I set an alarm last night.  1:20 a.m.  It wasn't as painful as I thought it might be.  The minor sleep interruption proved well worth it.


Joel 2:30-31

After throwing on some clothing and stumbling into the front yard, we craned our necks straight up and beheld the moon near full-eclipse.  As we watched, the bright white along the right edge faded into dusty red.  The heavens spread out with breathtaking clarity, the stars twinkling in wonder at the moon's transformation.

I know that scientists knew this would happen.  That's why I didn't sleep through the thing; I believed their calculations.  The sun, moon, and stars seem to work with clockwork precision almost as though they were set in place to help us determine times and seasons.

Wait a minute.  They were.

And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night.  And let them be for signs and for seasons, for days and for years."

Genesis 1:14

Few would argue with the fact that our years and months have their definition in the cosmos (interesting to note, though, that the seven-day week didn't spring from the heavens but from the pages of Genesis 1).  As my neck began to cramp and the moon slipped into a darker shade of red, I reconsidered the second half of verse 14, "...let them be for signs..."

It seems that the universe God wickered runs with amazing precision, so much so that I was able to set my clock to behold the wonder in the heavens.  At the same time the One who set the celestial clock a-ticking indicated that happenings on high might portend other events, a warning light on your dashboard, if you will.

No, I'm not going to give you eleven reasons why Jesus will return in 2011, but consider this (full article here):

This (2010) was the year the Earth struck back.


Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts killed at least a quarter million people in 2010 — the deadliest year in more than a generation. More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined.


"It just seemed like it was back-to-back and it came in waves," said Craig Fugate, who heads the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. It handled a record number of disasters in 2010.

And consider this:

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there willl be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

Jesus Christ said that to his disciples as to the sign of the end of the age (Matthew 24:7-8).

Am I hiding 'neath my desk?  Nope.  Am I putting all my money in a mattress and heading for the hills?  Nope. I have IRA's and 401k's I hope to see mature one day.  I will say that we are one day nearer to Christ's return than we were yesterday, and the pages of Scripture paint a horrifying picture of what the days will be like before his return to set all things right.

When I see the moon turn into a deep red warning sign right over my head, it gives me pause.  God is calling all of humanity back to himself having provided them forgiveness for their rebellion and sin through his Son, Jesus Christ, the One who will set all things right.  The time is short.  Will it be today?  Dunno.  Tomorrow?  Dunno?  I plan my future on earth like I will be here for another forty years.  I try to live my days on earth like he'll return in fifteen minutes.  I can only do that because my eternity is secure, taken care of by Christ himself.  On that alone, I rest.

Don't ignore the light on the dashboard.

I will show wonders in the heavens

and on the earth,

blood and fire and billows of smoke.

The sun will be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood

before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.

Joel 2:30-31