In Bible days, comets were thought to be omens of impending doom, but today, no one thinks much about it. There are too many streetlights that obscure our view of the night sky. But a green comet? That sounds almost biblical … maybe even apocalyptic! In Revelation 6:8, it is said that the fourth horseman rides a pale green horse!
The Lulin comet made its closest approach to Earth on February 4, 2009 (a good 38 million miles away); has a magnitude brightness of 4 or 5; and was seen over Jerusalem. "It takes a pair of binoculars to see it," said Gary Stearman, who has been following its progress. Gary observed it in March from his back yard in Oklahoma City.
The Lulin comet was first spotted in July 2007 by Quanzhi Ye, a 19-year-old student of meteorology at China's Sun Yat-sen University as he bent over the photo of a star field taken a few nights earlier by Taiwanese astronomer Chi Sheng Lin on "sky patrol" at Taiwan's Lulin Observatory. This is the first time this comet has visited our solar system.
Named, Comet Lulin, it casts a green glow that comes from the gases that make up its Jupiter-sized atmosphere. Jets spewing from the comet's nucleus contain cyanogen (CN) and diatomic carbon (C2). Both substances glow green when illuminated by sunlight in the near-vacuum of space.
As of November 2008 there were a reported 3,572 known comets, but the number is growing as more are identified. It is estimated that there could be as many as a trillion comets in or near our solar system. The term "comet" comes through the Latin cometes from the Greek word kome, meaning "hair of the head." Aristotle first used the derivation kometes to depict comets as "stars with hair."
Spring of A.D. 70
In his list of unusual events that appeared in the spring of A.D. 70, Flavius Josephus reported a star/comet that looked like a sword hanging over Jerusalem for about a year. He said, "Like men infatuated, without either eyes to see, or minds to consider, they did not regard the denunciations that God made to them. Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year" (Josephus, Wars of the Jews, book VI, chapter V). The Jewish historian then continued listing a series of strange events in the spring of A.D. 70:
On Nisan 8, a week before Passover, "at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which light lasted for half an hour" (Ibid).
During that same Passover festival, "a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple" (Ibid).
On Passover night (Nisan 14), "the eastern gate of the inner [court of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about [midnight] the sixth hour of the night" (Ibid).
Five weeks later, on Iyar 21, at sunset, "chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor [i.e. UFOs] were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding cities" (Ibid).
And finally, two weeks after that, at midnight on Pentecost, "as the priests were going by night into the inner court of the temple, as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, ‘Let us remove hence'" (Ibid).
Spring of A.D. 2009
We cannot tell you that such things will happen again this spring, but a green comet is currently hanging above the earth as it travels through our solar system. The year A.D. 70 was the first year of a Sabbatical cycle and so is this year, 2009. Since there is no temple in Jerusalem and no red heifer available, we don't know what miracles might or might not take place. But we can see unusual events occurring these days. For example: during the January Israeli "Operation Cast Lead" action against the Hamas in Gaza, a woman claiming to be the biblical Rachael warned Israeli troops against going into three houses saying that they were booby-trapped. The soldiers heeded her warning, and later found out that she was correct -- the houses had been wired with explosives. One soldier said, "When we drove to our second and third house to check it, there she was again! She could not have made it from one house to another as quickly as we did. Yet, there she was … warning us again." Before the war, Israel's head rabbi had gone to Rachael's tomb in Bethlehem and prayed for her to protect the troops. When he heard the strange story, he said, "Did she mention my name?"
Not to change the subject, but there are several really weird things happening on the home front. Our president apologized to the Arab world for our cruel treatment of Moslems. He bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia. He ignored Iran's uranium enrichment program and announced plans to create a dialogue with that corrupt regime. He will meet with Israel's new Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on May 3rd, to push his agenda of creating a Palestinian state within the borders of Israel's heartland. He is giving $900 million to the Hamas-controlled Gaza area to help them rebuild after Israel bombed some buildings in January. Good grief!
The new U. S. administration has already given away more money than any previous presidency in history -- and they had the audacity to blame the Republicans for spending too much! Then, without precedent, President Obama fired the CEO of General Motors, something that no U. S. government has ever done in the history of our nation. This is raw socialism, at best, and I can't imagine anything worse. I shudder to think what might happen over the next four years.
Also this spring, two volcanoes, one in Chile and another in Alaska have blown their tops. As of this writing two earthquakes above 5.0 have destroyed communities, one in central Italy and the other in Indonesia. In April, tornadoes wreaked havoc across Arkansas and Tennessee; wind storms and raging fires swept across Oklahoma; and April snow storms pelted the northwestern and north-central states.
A Green Comet
According to the DVD Eye of the Phoenix (See ad page 24), there is an ancient legend that the archangel Michael was having a battle with Satan, near the dog-star Sirius. Michael took a swing and knocked a gem out of Lucifer's crown. It was called, "the stone of light," a green glowing stone, that came tumbling down to Earth and broke into three pieces. One piece became the pillow used by Jacob at Bethel, the night he dreamed of a ladder stretched from earth to heaven. That stone was retrieved and stored in Solomon's Temple, until Jeremiah took it to Scotland during the Babylonian captivity. In Scotland, it was stored in the castle of Scone. Thus, it became known as the "stone of Scone." Another piece of the rock was fashioned into a cup and was used by Jesus at the Last Supper. This became known as the "Holy Grail." It is said that the third piece of the rock was encased in silver and placed at one corner of the black cubed building, known as the Kaabah, in Mecca.
Well, it is a silly story, but the part about it being a green glowing rock seems rather spooky, since the Lulin comet sits above the earth with an eerie green appearance about it. The only connection the fourth horse of the Apocalypse and the Holy Grail have with the comet is their green color -- that may mean nothing -- or it could be a "sign in the heavens."
We can only wait and see if other signs happen this summer. In A.D. 70, Israel lost their war with the Roman army. Jerusalem's walls were breached in June and the Temple was burned in August. Will Israel go to war soon? All we can do is speculate on possibilities. We will have to wait and see. Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh" (Luke 21:28). At least we know from a reading of Luke 21 that there are some things to look for. And that's all that we can do ... Watch and Pray!