Unlike Christmas, which, being intended by the early Roman church to serve as a substitute for the Feast of Mithra, is always celebrated on December 25, the date of Easter moves around. That’s because, in order to maintain the necessary verisimilitude and congruence with the story found in the Gospels, Easter is supposed to occur on the first Sunday after Passover begins. The Jewish calendar, by which, of course, the dates of the Passover holiday are determined, while not being purely lunar, as is the Islamic, is nevertheless highly influenced by the moon, and thus, by necessity, so is the date of Easter. Since Passover begins on the first full moon after the vernal equinox, therefore, Easter must fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. There’s the dual influence of both the sun and the moon in the Jewish calendar, nicely demonstrated by the way, because the vernal equinox is, of course, a solar phenomenon.
Now, as it happened, this particular Passover was heralded by a total lunar eclipse. The earth, sun and moon all three play a role in those, as they do in the much less common solar eclipses, naturally. But while total lunar eclipses are by no means terribly rare, having four of them bunched up together can be rather uncommon. Couple that with the fact that each eclipse in this latest “tetrad” of total lunar eclipses, or “blood moons,” as some superstitious folks call them, occurs on a major Jewish holiday, and all the pieces are in place for a rousing game of Religious Hysteria – The End Times.
Eschatology is still alive and well despite the Apocalypse not having arrived in 2000, 2001 or with the end of the Mayan calendar on the winter solstice in 2012. I know this because it was amply demonstrated during Easter dinner after Mass today at my sister Rose’s place in Fairfax. All of Rose’s and Arthur’s children were there, including Hank Jr., who took Amtrak down from Brown. My brother Rob Roy, his wife Katje and their son Jason were there, too, as was Cerise, whom Rose treats like family even though Cerise and I have steadfastly ignored Rose’s constant hints over the years that we really should get married. While Rose, Katje and Cerise chatted in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on the impending feast, and Arthur and Hank Jr. supervised a massive Easter egg hunt for a thundering horde of children which even included several from the neighborhood who had been invited to participate, I took the opportunity to relax in the living room with some of the Macallan 18 I had brought for the occasion, much to Arthur’s delight. I was about two sips into a glass, enjoying the aromas of the ham, roast beef and lamb wafting through the house, and listening to the excited squeaks and squeals of about twenty kids of nearly every age hunting for Easter eggs, when my iPhone chimed. It was Henry “Hank” Palikowski, Rose’s husband, and, nearby him, I presumed, stood Shannon, Arthur’s wife, ready to grab the phone out of Hank’s hand at the drop of a hat and put her two cents in.
Hank: Hello, Tom?
Tom: Yes.
Hank: It’s me, Hank. Shannon’s here with me, and we’re calling from West Virginia.
Tom: I figured as much.
Hank: Well, damn, you don’t sound very happy to hear from us!
Tom: Hank, your wife and brother are struggling to keep a roof over their children’s heads here in Washington while you and Shannon traipse around West Virginia preparing for Armageddon.
Shannon: We’re not “traipsing around” anywhere, Tom! We’re engaged in serious survivalist activities!
Tom: Such as stocking up on guns and ammo…
Shannon: And food and water and medical supplies! Look, Tom, things are happening! Didn’t you see the moon last Tuesday night?
Tom: As a matter of fact, it was completely overcast here in DC last Tuesday night and nobody saw much of anything.
Shannon: Well, we saw it! And if you had seen it, you’d realize that something incredibly big is going to happen, Tom, and soon!
Tom: What – there’s a lunar eclipse and you’re convinced it means something more significant than the Earth occasionally casts a shadow on the moon?
Shannon: Haven’t you read Reverend John Hagee’s book, The Four Blood Moons, Tom? This was just the first one, but it means that something huge is going to happen, and soon – something that will change the course of history and the fate of humanity forever!
Tom: What, because some redneck Pentecostal televangelist says so?
Hank: Because the Bible says so, Tom! It’s right there in the second chapter, verse thirty-one, of the Book of Joel. It says “the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood.”
Tom: Okay, maybe you could say something happened to the moon, I guess, but I don’t recall seeing anything unusual about the sun on the first day of Passover. It certainly didn’t “turn into darkness,” that’s for sure.
Hank: Oh, come on, Tom! This is the Bible we’re talking about here! You can’t take everything literally!
Tom: Just the parts you want to?
Shannon: Mock God at your own risk, Tom Collins Martini! The first book of Genesis, Chapter Fourteen tells us, “Let there be light in the heavens and let them be for signals” and that’s exactly what the sky is – the Lord’s mighty billboard! And you better be willing to read what He puts up there! He has painted the heavens with blood, just as the Israelites painted their door lintels with it during the Passover, mister, and if you don’t get the message, you’re gonna be sorry!
Tom: And that message is what, specifically?
Shannon: How should I know? I figure it’s obvious that it’s going to be something pretty damned awful, because that Passover story involved the death of every first born male in Egypt, didn’t it?
Hank: And look at the facts, Tom – this Blood Moon occurred during Passover, the next one is going to occur during the Feast of Tabernacles in October. And then, in 2015, it all happens again, exactly like that – a Blood Moon on Passover and a Blood Moon on Tabernacles! Tell me that’s not an amazing coincidence!
Tom: I won’t do that.
Shannon: Why not?
Tom: Because it is a coincidence.
Hank: So you agree with us?
Tom: No.
Shannon: Then what are you saying?
Tom: I’m saying, it’s a coincidence because the way the Jewish calendar assigns dates to holidays is heavily influenced by the cycles of the moon. But there’s nothing amazing about it. That Old Testament stuff, you have to be pretty careful interpreting it, you know. There’s a lot of…
Shannon: Then look in the New Testament instead if you want! In the twenty fourth chapter of Luke, Jesus says that signs in the skies will mark the coming of the Son of Man. And the twentieth chapter of the Book of Acts says, “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood before that great and notable day of the Lord.” Listen, Tom, this has happened only three times in five hundred and thirty-two years! And look what happened every time – in 1492, the King of Spain exiled the Jews, but the same year, his own Admiral, Christopher Columbus, discovered the New World which gave the Jews a place to live. Then, after centuries, the four Blood Moons appeared again in 1948, the same year that the nation of Israel was founded. And again, in 1967, there were four Blood Moons and that was the year of the Yom Kippur war.
Shannon: You get it, Tom? Every time there are four Blood Moons, something very important involving the Jews happens!
Hank: And what if this time, it means they’re going to rebuild the Temple?
Shannon: Because if the Jews rebuild the Temple, then Bible prophesy says that’s when the Great Tribulations will begin.
Tom: Really? Where in the Bible does it say that?
Shannon: Oh… um… the Book of Revelations… probably.
Tom: Would one or both of you mind explaining a couple of things to me?
Shannon: Sure.
Hank: What?
Tom: First of all, how come the Evangelicals and Pentecostals and so forth always talk about the Jews as if Jewish people were some kind of actors in a big play that God is staging for the benefit of Christians like them?
Shannon: Well, uh… because that is what He is doing, obviously.
Tom: How come?
Hank: You don’t question God’s motives, Tom, you know that!
Tom: Well, then, all right – can either of you tell me what a couple of married, adult Catholics from the suburbs with college educations are doing, taking all these backwoods Protestant theological fairy tales seriously?
Shannon: They’re not fairy tales! Tom, suppose God is telling us something important is going to happen to the Jews when there’s a Blood Moon tetrad, ever think about that? Because if that’s true, then it’s obvious the End Times are coming, and soon! There are six more Blood Moon tetrads in this century, Tom. They’re coming in 2032, 2043, 2050, 2061, 2072 ad 2090! If every one of those years is as significant for the Jews as were 1492, 1948 and 1967, then there’s absolutely no question that means the Biblical Apocalypse is on the way!
Hank: You gotta get up here in West Virginia where it’s gonna be safe, Tom! You gotta talk to Rose and Arthur about this and convince them to join us and the rest of the survivalist community!
Shannon: You’re playing with dynamite here, Tom! You think Jesus is going to let the Antichrist sit in the White House for two full terms without doing something about it?
Tom: Obama? How does he fit into this?
Hank: He bragged that he has “a pen and a phone!”
Shannon: Thus implying he thinks he’s above God!
Tom: According to the folks you two hang out with, despite the billions of fossils strewn all over West Virginia to the contrary, the Lord Almighty created the entire world from nothing in six days. If He can do that, I’m sure He has His own Pen and his own Phone, or could create them if he so desired.
Shannon: No, no, that’s not what I meant! Obama uses his pen and his phone to make up executive orders and force them on the American people!
Hank: He’s like the Pharaoh, bragging about his worldly powers and stuff, see?
Shannon: Right! And just like the Pharaoh, the Book of Joel says that the Blood Moons are signs of the Divine Wrath He will bring against all countries of the world who seek to divide Israel!
Hank: And God doesn’t need any pen and phone, Tom! Like you said, He created the world in six days, and I say, he can destroy it in less time than that if He wants to!
Shannon: What do you want, Tom? An email from God, saying, “Dear Tom, get the hell out of Washington DC before my Son comes back and smites the Antichrist at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?”
Hank: Or maybe a tweet from the Holy Ghost, in less than one hundred and forty characters, telling you that the end of the world will begin in less than one hundred and forty days?
Shannon: Or maybe you’d prefer a registered, notarized and embossed RSVP invitation on Divine stationery from Mary Queen of Heaven inviting you to a reception tea to be held on the afternoon of the Rapture?
Tom: That would be nice. But didn’t Jesus tell everybody that the days of prophesy had ended with his advent and to expect no further messages writ large in sky or, for that matter, anywhere else in nature?
Hank: Huh? Where’s that?
Tom: In the twelfth chapter of the Book of Matthew, verses forty and forty one, which say, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” In other words, the Resurrection was the last sign from God. Take or leave it, and don’t go looking for further instructions, not in the heavens, nor from speaking with the dead, in the casting of yarrow stalks or within the entrails of a goat.
Shannon: Now look here, Tom, I don’t know what you’re trying imply, but not only are Hank and I not adulterous, we sure as hell aren’t wicked, either! Why, we wouldn’t be here digging bunkers, pouring concrete, shooting varmints and making jerky out of them, canning vegetables and freeze drying venison if we were wicked, now would we?
Tom: Nothing personal, just… food for thought. And speaking of food, I think I hear Rose calling everybody to the dining room.
Hank: It’s just like that movie, Noah! You’re down there in Washington, slaughtering the fatted calf, dancing around the altar of Mammon, and we’re up here in West Virginia, building a frigging ark!
Tom: Did the moon tell you that, too?
Shannon: Laugh while you can, ye of little faith!
Tom: Okay, I’ll tell everyone you said that, then.
Shannon: Don’t you dare!
Tom: Fine, then, how about I say you miss them all and will be home soon?
Hank: What? We can’t do that! Look, Tom, I told you, this is important stuff we’re doing here!
Shannon: Just forget it, Hank, he’s impossible! Don’t forget that you were warned, Tom, and happy Easter!
Tom: Happy Easter to you, too. And remember, the only message the moon has for any of us is that, in the cosmic scheme of things, we are completely insignificant.
Shannon: Just wait until the Antichrist gets you, Tom! Goodbye!
Tom: Ciao!