etween June’s Strawberry Moon, and this spring’s visible and complete Solar Eclipse one has to wonder, what else is to come this year? Aurora Beaurealis, an occurrence and a destination, is on my bucket list, an exotic excursion that would have required extensive funding, outfitting, and preparation to travel to Norway or Iceland to see, were visible in Texas, Florida, and even in parts of my state of Maryland.

People in Texas don’t usually see the Northern Lights, and certainly, most of us don’t see an eclipse. Somebody has to say it? What’s going on?

I am not here contending that these signs in the sky create a new strain in the time continuum, or a branch in the prophetic timeframe. It may have been some time since you’ve revisited the biblical wonders foretold, that have clicked into the cipher of science. Several texts in the Bible point our gaze at the courses and phases in the observable heavens and the nexus to the coming of Christ.

Joel 2:30-32; “And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.” This one was later quoted by the Apostle Paul in Acts 2:19 and 20.

Revelation 6:12,13: “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.”

Talk about strawberry moons, and eclipses. These sound both terrifying and awesome, and I’m old enough to remember when the old preachers, and I only know this to be true in the Western world, both regaled and riveted their audiences with checkpoints in the countdown to Jesus’ appearing:

• Revelation 6:12, describing a prophetic moment between the opening of the sixth and seventh seal refenced the earth shaking. The Lisbon, Portugal earthquake of 1755—noted for its monumental destruction emerged as a persuasive fulfillment of the earth shaking then.
• Revelation 6:12, also foretold that the sun became “black,” and while we marveled at this spring’s solar eclipse, the dark day of May 19, 1780, experienced along the eastern U.S., mortified those who witnessed it.
• And, when the stars fell from heaven in a meteoric rain over the Atlantic Ocean in 1833, well, you can’t blame the folks for wanting to get their houses in order.

Here’s the thing; when Jesus walked the earth, folks were just as fascinated with the naturally occurring wonders in the sky. Hey, that’s how the wise men even found Jesus, by watching the anomaly, “his star,” at the occasion of Jesus’ birth (Matthew 2:1, 2). Yet, when the Jews wanted a sign from heaven, a further sign, more signs, more persuasive signs than just Him, these theological intelligentsia rubbed Jesus the wrong way.