Total eclipse: The lantern of the king
When you sit down at the table of royalty, remember there is no higher calling than service
“What causes an eclipse to occur?”
That was the question posed by the sages over 1500 years ago. Considering their familiarity with astronomical phenomena, it’s likely that the sages understood the moon’s passing before the sun perfectly well. If so, their question was not about the motion of heavenly spheres but rather the theological significance of the sun’s lost light.
In that context, we can better evaluate what the sages meant when they answered their own question with the following parable:
A king invited his servants to a feast and placed a lantern before them to illuminate the banquet hall. Subsequently, the king grew angry at his servants’ misbehavior and commanded one servant to remove the lantern from the table.
It was 9:00 am on April 8 when my wife and I set out from St. Louis for a two-hour drive to see the total eclipse of the sun. The drive took 4-and-a-half hours, and highway gridlock forced us to hastily revise our itinerary. We gave up on Burfordville, opting for an alternate route that brought us to an ideal viewing ground outside of Fredericktown with half an hour to spare.
It takes the better part of an hour from when the moon begins eclipsing the sun before the lack of sunlight becomes noticeable. Even when the sun receded into a crescent through our filtered glasses, we didn’t notice our surroundings getting any darker.
What does it tell us that losing 80% of our sunlight doesn’t seem to make a difference in how well we see? That’s a question worth pondering.
But in those final moments before the sun disappears behind the moon, the texture of the landscape begins to change, similar to but different from twilight. Colors become muted, and the sounds of night fill in the quiet of darkness.
And then there’s totality. The corona erupts like a spectral halo from behind the black disc of the invisible moon. Absolute darkness is broken only by the light of false dawn hovering at the edge of the horizon.
No photography or video can do it justice. Like the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, and (I imagine) the aurora borealis, it has to be experienced. If you missed it this time, book your trip now for southern Spain in August 2026 so you don’t miss the next one.
But what message does the solar eclipse communicate to us, and how is it expressed through the allegory of the king’s lantern?
In the same way that good parents and teachers remain alert for reasons to reward their children and students respectively, enlightened leaders look for opportunities to honor and reward their people. Nothing energizes and motivates more than the sincere demonstration that diligence and commitment to excellence are appreciated. Nothing earns loyalty and respect more than the unclouded perception that leadership values the rank and file as partners and collaborators.
That being said, expressions of recognition are not the real rewards of service. Neither is the paycheck. The true reward of a job well done is the satisfaction it brings, the joy of achieving excellence, and the fulfillment that comes from being a positive contributor to something greater than oneself.
Gestures of appreciation are perks, concessions to our lesser angels that demand visceral and superficial gratification to keep the id and the ego in check. On the one hand, they are necessary, as is a paycheck. We need to feel our efforts recognized by others, even when we recognize the value of our own efforts ourselves, just as we need an honest wage for an honest day’s labor. But on the other hand, we too easily confuse the real and enduring rewards of good work with the transient baubles that delight our baser selves and distract us from our higher purpose.
Why does the king in the parable become angry with his servants? Because they have lost themselves in their revelry and forgotten the service it comes to reward. Realizing that his gift is undermining the very purpose for which it was given, the king orders his servant to remove the lantern, as if to say:
“Clearly, you have lost your sense of self amidst too much celebration. Here is a job that will force you to return to your senses. Although you cannot appreciate my reward without forgetting the reason it was given, I still won’t deprive you of it. But I will conceal it beneath a layer of darkness that will make it more challenging for you to benefit from it. By doing so, perhaps you will recover your focus and remember why I gave it to you in the first place.”
In a world filled with bright shiny playthings, a few moments of darkness reminds us that we have to look with more discernment to discover real value, that we have to protect ourselves against temporal distractions, and that we need to constantly remind ourselves to appreciate the real gifts that we so often disregard even when they are right before our eyes.