The Day the Sky Went Dark at Noon

On April 8, 2024, thirteen million people gathered along a narrow path stretching from Texas to Maine to watch the total solar eclipse. In Dallas, in Indianapolis, in tiny towns across Vermont, strangers stood shoulder to shoulder and tilted their faces upward. Then it happened. The moon slid across the sun, and midday turned to dusk. The temperature dropped. Birds went silent. Stars appeared where they had no business appearing.

And grown adults — doctors, truck drivers, teenagers glued to their phones five minutes earlier — began to weep.

No one planned to cry. But standing beneath something that vast, that ungovernable, something no government or corporation or army could schedule, delay, or stop, people felt the only honest response rise unbidden from their chests: awe.

Psalm 97 describes a God who makes that eclipse look like a flashlight flicker. The Most High reigns, and mountains melt like candle wax before Him. Clouds and thick darkness surround His presence — not because He is hiding, but because no human eye could absorb the full weight of His glory. The heavens themselves proclaim His righteousness. Every distant shore, every watching eye, glimpses just the edge of His majesty.

Yet here is the miracle the psalmist wants us to grasp: the foundation beneath all that staggering power is not chaos. It is righteousness and justice. The God before whom the earth trembles is not unpredictable. He is faithful. And He invites even trembling creatures to rejoice.