Bad Moon Rising: The April 15th Eclipse is the First of Four Blood Moons

April 15th see the first of a tetrad of total lunar eclipses. This one, according to NASA, will  last 1 hour 17 minutes and 48 seconds.

A tetrad is defined as a series of four total lunar eclipse each six lunar months, with no partial eclipses in between them.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth the sun and the moon are aligned in a way that allows the shadow of the earth to fall on the moons surface. The deflected sunlight causes the moon to darken often to a blood red colour, hence the name blood moons.

Some Christian groups see a run of four blood moons, the tetrad, as a biblical prophecy:

“The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.” Joel 2:31

The other three eclipses fall on October 8th 2014, April 4th 2015 and September 28th 2015. There is a general belief amongst religious groups that this tetrad is more important due to the fact that the two April eclipses fall on the Jewish feast of Passover and the other two fall on Tabernacles.

This has happened only eight times in 21 centuries…so did anything of world shattering significance happen on any of the other dates?

1. 162-163 C.E. (Common Era)
2. 795-796 C.E.
3. 842-843 C.E.
4. 860-861 C.E.
5. 1493-1494 C.E.
6. 1949-1950 C.E.
7. 1967-1968 C.E.
8. 2014-2015 C.E.

Well no, it didn’t. Of course something happened during all these years. Something, somewhere happens every year. In 162 the Antonine baths at Carthage were finished, and a smallpox epidemic killed millions in China, but generally I can find nothing of religious significance.

In 1967 there was the Six Day War and that’s it. Those that mention the formation of the State of Israel are a year out, that happened in 1948 not 1949. Many have linked other ‘happenings’ but history concurs that the dates don’t fit. I think if God were sending signs that Jesus Christ was about to return to earth he wouldn’t be a year or two out on all the dates.

Scripture mentions the sun, moon and stars often, some feel these references are indicating that the heavens may provide signs of the second coming of Christ. Most of them however mention the stars no longer shining as well as the light from the sun and moon vanishing, which seems to indicate that the tetrad alone is not one of those signs.

In addition Matthew 24:36 tells us that only God himself knows the timing of the second coming:

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my father only.

So, bearing in mind that this tetrad will only give a glimpse of the September 2015 eclipse to Israel, literally the last few minutes before dawn breaks I have my doubts that these signs actually mean anything of great significance.