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We had a total lunar eclipse last Wednesday, which I was able to watch between lab section and choir practice. Even at the beginning and end, when there was just a small slice of shadow on the moon, it was weird, because the shadow was on the wrong direction -- the moon might usually be that shape, but it was turned the wrong way. I could imagine how if you didn't know it's just shadows and light, you'd be pretty freaked out by the whole thing. Even fireworks are scary if you don't know they're only pointing up.
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Then, as the eclipse intensified, it got freakier as the moon became dark red. The part that doesn't come across in pictures is just how dark and just how red it is. It's a velvet-type red, halfway to black, that's dim and dusky. It's a deep color that tells of deep things, and it really is the color of blood, another deep thing. Sunsets may be the color of fire, but lunar eclipses are the color of blood.
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Which made two prophetic passages come to mind: Joel (quoted by Acts) and Revelation, both about the moon turning to blood before the day God comes to sets things right. This language must have been inspired by the lunar eclipse. Of course the transformation is not literal -- that's the point with prophetic language. But the image and the day it presages are still very real. Once in a while the moon does turn to blood to show us that God is still near.
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