The East From The West- Separation, Division

Psalm 103:11-12

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

    so great is his love for those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,

    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

I was just thinking about the sunrise Easter service today. I looked for the moon as I have been as of late, and sure enough it was just above the horizon to the west, setting (I said hello and gave a wave lol). I also remarked at the time that, because Easter is intertwined with the timing of Passover, which is based off of the Jewish lunar calendar, this effect of the sun and moon being visible nearly in full at sunrise on Easter would be a consistent sight year after year.  This year, as I have been paying attention to the moon more, I realized that Easter occuring just after the full moon means that the moon would set later and later in the morning, further after sunrise, with each day passed since the full moon. This mean that, consistently on this holiday, both heavenly bodies would be seen at once at/just after sunrise. 

As I was considering this I remembered this verse "as far as the east is from the west." Especially now seeing this verse is side by side with "as high as the heavens are above the earth." this feels like a direct reference to the crucifixion and Easter as well as, as of this morning for me, to the sun and the moon. It could be that "accomplishing" something as unlikely/difficult as the death of The Son of God (this is likely not an obvious difficulty in Jesus' case, due to his graciousness/humbleness, but given his position, power, and intertwined nature with reality, this was likely extremely difficult to do at all) requires a kind of heavenly alignment. If Jesus was put onto the cross at a particular time soon after sunrise, and/or arose from the tomb, on a day with somewhere between a 99-92% waning gibbous moon (at a specific angle, but one I do not have the patience to calculate right now), both the sun and the moon would be at the same angle above their respective horizons. Additionally, if the crucifixion occurred at the full moon specifically, then at the beginning of the day of crucifixion both the sun and moon would be on the east and west horizons respectively.

So this got me thinking: what if this verse was a specific reference to the distance between the moon and sun during this timeframe? In this case, due to the proximity with the vernal equinox, the sun is just about 1 AU away, or 149.6 million (M) km from the earth. The distance from the earth to the moon (at least as of today, but moon phase and distance are not synchronized on the same way, it would seem) adds about an additional 404.4 thousand kilometers (about .0025 AU) to this distance, because the sun and moon are on opposite sides of the planet.

Now I imagine that the scientific community could team up with the religious community to determine the exact date of these events in relation to today's date by today's calendar, and then determine exact distance each heavenly body was from the earth on the first Easter (or good Friday). As there would likely be an angle involved for each heavenly body and the horizon, and another angle involved for each heavenly body in relation to fire due east/west, I imagine trigonometry could then be used to determine the distance that the "east," or sun, is from the "west," or moon, on that day. This figure would vary slightly depending on if one were looking for this distance at sunrise on crucifixion day (start of first day in question), noon (start of darkness in Matthew, Mark, and Luke), 3pm (end of darkness in Matthew, Mark, and Luke), or at sunrise or sunset of 3rd day (the morning or evening of the day when Jesus rises from the tomb).  I can imagine there is a deep (and to my knowledge up until now hidden/obfuscated) significance of a kind to any or all of these distance values.

So, I could see the stance that this would be the distance from the east to the west, as referenced in Psalm 103: the distance between the sun and moon during this particular 3 day weekend, specifically these referenced in the gospels, the first of their kind. From a broader perspective though, imagining an upcoming -from my point of view- moment when the universe is seen to bloom (found to be bloomed? Timing is difficult to pin down on The Starry Night), if this east to west reference might primarily be referencing the sun and moon, it could be a way of demarcating the boundaries of God "removing transgressions." It is difficult for me to imagine God not forgiving one that asks, regardless of their location in space, but it could be that we find in the arrangement of the next age- which I imagine being full of sentient species- that God will specifically remove one's transgressions while they are within the boundaries of their own territory, these boundaries perhaps being defined as their species' "home planet" (moon's orbit, west, for earth, as the template), and/or "home solar system" (sun's orbit, east, for earth, as the template). It could be that "forgiveness" takes on a different form when outside these boundaries, removing the individual and their influence in that place in the process of forgiveness, rather than strictly removing the transgression but allowing that individual's story to proceed in that same area/province/what have you. I can also see this concept directly threading into the rules governing one's own pocket of eep, and possibly The Way of Righteousness (apparently where Wisdom can presently be found- Proverbs 8:20), but that different rules might apply for an individual transgressing within someone else's pocket of eep (exile of individual and either exile or reconciliation of influence from that pocket). My mind ignites today at the possibilities and calculations surrounding this new insight into Easter and the crucifixion as they relate to the east and the west.

Proverbs 8:20-23 (Wisdom's Call/Voice)

"I walk in the way of righteousness,

    along the paths of justice,

bestowing a rich inheritance on those who love me

    and making their treasuries full.

"The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works,

    before his deeds of old;

I was formed long ages ago,

    at the very beginning, when the world came to be."