When the Sun Looks like the Moon

The sun looked like the moon. 

They told me it was a dust storm from the Sahara, that this was why the atmosphere was hazy, this is why the sun was a pale orb in the morning sky.

I had been sending off my husband to work and the boys to baseball practice, so it was there in the carport facing east at 6:15 AM that I became confused and wondered if I was seeing the sunrise or the moon. 

I went inside and closed the windows and doors we usually keep open. Someone had forwarded me an advisory via Whatsapp from the Red Cross warning of the danger of the poor air quality.

The dust storm took two days to pass through. When I investigated how it is exactly that a sand storm from an African desert could end up in the Caribbean, I learned that the African Easterly Jet wind that generally blows west had been rather weak in early June, so when a succession of haboobs--yes, that’s what giant sand storms are called--developed in central and west Sahara, the dust accumulated on the West coast of Africa until that previously weak Jet suddenly picked up strength again. 

Voilá, the dust pile was carried across the ocean to us. 

For those 48 hours, the air seemed still, the heat more oppressive. Perhaps I imagined it. What I didn’t imagine was the eerie lighting, the poor visibility that melted the horizon. I suppose it was like smog, though I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced smog. 

I had never experienced a dust storm either. That is, not a literal dust storm. 

The change in the climate put me in a mood, made me pensive. I realized it’s because the earth was mimicking the spiritual state of my heart; perhaps even the spiritual state of the world. 

In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul talks about love. This chapter of his letter is famous for that very reason. We read it at weddings. You’ll find verses from it on rustic plaques at Hobby Lobby. However, 1 Corinthians 13 is not, at the center, talking about love. That is to say, Paul is not talking about love for love’s sake. His reason for talking about love (in my opinion), is that he wants to explain what will last for eternity. 

Right now “we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). 

Right now, we are in a dust storm. We can’t see clearly. We don't have the answers. We look at the sun and we don’t even know if it’s the sun. The sun contains 99% of all the mass in our solar system, and 1.3 million Earths could fit inside of her. It’s enormity should make it easy to identify. Yet sometimes, because of the dust storm, it looks like the moon of all things. The moon is even smaller than Earth.

It is frustrating to have such obscured vision. 

It is disheartening to live in dusty times. 

One might conjure up hope that there is resolution just past the horizon but where is the horizon, even?

The Word of God speaks into our tension: “Tranquila.” 

Or as we say in English, “Calm yourself.”

Paul says, you know what? Even if we knew all things and understood all mysteries it wouldn't matter because knowledge is going to pass away. 

This is not to say that knowledge isn’t good. In fact, even though the passage says that knowledge is going to pass away, that it isn't eternal, Paul explains that one day we will actually know fully, “as we have been fully known.” The importance of knowledge is given less weight, I believe, because it itself is not the answer to our dilemma of not being able to see. 

An example: 

It is knowledge, specifically higher mathematics that I can't get my mind around, that puts rockets into orbit. 

It is knowledge that could and will create a safe, functional vaccine against COVID-19. 

Therefore, knowledge is good.

However, it is not knowledge alone that will bring a person to choose the salvation from death that Christ offers. Even if I could prove the existence of God and the resurrection from the dead of the historical man Jesus, knowledge itself could not convince someone they need a Savior. Only love can do that. I have to fall in love with Jesus, with his sacrificial death on the cross, and believe that I need him, in addition to my cognitive understanding of Jesus. A person who knows Jesus but does not love him will go to hell. 

That is why, for as important as knowledge is, it is not important when compared to love. 

That is why, in the midst of our dust storms, we can relax. 

In a time when more than ever the world is screaming for answers to her problems, and we ourselves do not know what to do with our lives, we can relax. 

Because the one thing that matters most, that was good yesterday, that is good today, and that will be good for all tomorrows, that is the very point of being alive, is what we already have: love.

(And if you don't have it, it’s easy to get. Just ask me.)

So go love someone. 

In your daily crisis, love. 

Bonus points if you love someone who is unlovable, or someone who doesn’t agree with you, or someone who is hurting you.  

That--loving the people who don’t deserve it--is true love, and is the greatest love. 

It’s what Jesus did for us, it’s how he loves us: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

I know the sun looks like the moon. 

But love.