The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out
John 1:5 (The Message)
On Wednesday 12th August 2026, the UK experienced a partial eclipse with up to 96% of the sun obscured by the moon just before sunset.
I had organised to view this cosmic spectacle with my adult children and some family friends on the hill in Greenwich Park. However, I failed to think about how to view the sun, until the news reports that ‘eclipse glasses’ were sold out hit the headlines.
Not to worry! The BRF Messy Church team had been ‘dwelling in the word’ on the Bible passage John 1 from September’s session in Get Messy! vol. 4, which is all about God’s mission to our wildly wonderful world. In The Message version, Jesus is described as the ‘Life-Light’, bringing hope and redemption into a broken world where people have messed up their relationship with God, each other and creation. One of the activities in the session is all about how to observe the sun safely by constructing a pin-hole sun viewer from a cardboard box, foil and greaseproof paper. Here was my answer!
I quickly located some suitable cardboard boxes and spent my lunch break happily constructing two sun-viewers. I went outside to point the end of the box with pin-pricked foil at the sun and sure enough, a small disc projected onto the greaseproof paper at the other side. I must admit, I was slightly underwhelmed after all my effort but knowing that it is NEVER safe to look directly at the sun, as this may damage your vision, this was going to be my best eclipse-viewing option. Thinking there may be others in a similar position, I made a short reel about my sun-viewer, which the team put out on Facebook.
Eclipse day arrived and around 6.45pm our two families joined a stream of people walking towards the hill top, armed with our pin-hole sun viewers, a colander and white paper plates. We could see from our sun-viewers that the moon was already sliding across the face of the sun. We entered the park and joined a large jovial crowd, some with deckchairs, others with picnics, the majority of whom were bedecked with eclipse glasses, all eager to marvel at this rare phenomenon.
We found our spot and started to show the children in our group how the sun that had previously been a disc, was now projecting as a half-crescent on the sun viewer. Whipping out the colander, the sun streamed through the holes, to produce a beautiful pattern of crescent shapes onto the white paper plate. Our low-tech options soon attracted the attention of those gathered around us, one of whom shouted, ‘Oi mate, does that really work?’ We invited them over to view for themselves and for the next 30 minutes we had friendly strangers wandering over to look at our sun viewers, in return for a look through their eclipse glasses. There was such a community of curiosity and generosity, which felt rare post 2020 pandemic, reminding me of the London 2012 Olympics, when strangers started to talk to each other on the underground.
I wonder…did you experience something similar?
The air of anticipation continued, as just after 7pm we noticed that the temperature had dropped on what had been an incredibly hot 35C day. There was an ethereal quality to the light, which felt like a Summer’s evening, and yet the sun was still too high in the sky for sunset. At 7.12pm the eclipse reached its peak in London, with the moon covering 91% of the sun, projecting as a thin crescent on our sun viewer. A ripple of quiet applause went around, although no-one was really sure if that had been the optimal moment. Whilst some in our group were expecting to be amazed by the darkness and disruption to our usual diurnal rhythm, I was amazed by the light. I marvelled that with only 9% of its strength on display, the sun was still very bright and how just a small amount of light can make a massive difference.
I wonder…what were you expecting?
I remembered the phrase that the BRF Messy Church team had picked out from John 1:5 (MSG) earlier in the week, ‘the Life-Light blazed out of the darkness’ and in that moment could grasp the energy and enormity of what the gospel writer was trying the convey, as the verse continues, ‘the darkness couldn’t put it out.’ There is such hope in this message, particularly when our newsfeeds tell us that there is ever decreasing happiness and increasing darkness all around. It reminded me of July’s Messy Church session from Get Messy! vol. 3, in which my local Messy Church explored how Jesus says ‘You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world’ to shine with generosity, prompting people to be curious and open up with God (paraphrase of Matt 5:14-16 MSG). We are to be a gift and light to the world – how awesome is that!
Despite the extraordinary 104K views on Facebook of the ‘gift’ of my sun-viewer reel, most of the time I don’t feel like a gift or light to the world but am acutely aware of my flaws and inadequacies. The amazing thing is that God is not expecting us to do this on our own. God sends the Holy Spirit to partner with us in everything. The question is not if you have enough light, but will you put it on a ‘lampstand’?
I wonder…what stops us?
The solution is not about trying harder, but receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, to become a gift for others. It’s about receiving the light to be the light – receiving the ‘Life-Light that blazes out of the darkness.’
Take a moment to pause and pray. Ask God to show you how your Messy Church can reflect the ‘Life-Light’ of Jesus and bring out the ‘God-colours’ in the world in the season ahead.
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Aike Kennett-Brown
BRF Ministries Messy Church Ministry Lead
Curious about making a pin-hole sun viewer? Check out September’s session of Get Messy Vol 4!
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