We pick up the story with Jesus’ troubles at their peak. His blood loss is incredible. He is weak with hunger, dehydrated, His bones are out of joint (see Ps. 22), and the pain is astronomical. He is slowly asphyxiating, and just when things didn’t seem like they can get much worse, darkness falls on the face of the earth: “Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land.” (Matt 27:45 NKJV)
Since the people of the day calculated the hour from dawn (roughly 6 am), the third hour would be 9 am, the 6th hour would be around noon, and the 9th hour would be at 3 in the afternoon. So basically, at midday, when the sun is usually at its peak, darkness fell over the face of the earth and lasted for three hours!
There are many who would try to explain this phenomenon through natural causes: Dust storm, heavy cloud cover, etc. However the gospels do not support this. In fact, the original Greek states that literally, the sun failed. It was supernatural. It was caused by the immediate power of God.
So why would darkness fall over the land in the middle of the day?
The gospels do not tell us why, they simply record that it happened. If you look in the rest of the Bible however, you will see that darkness is often used to signify God’s judgment against sin. Consider the following text: “Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and He will destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine.” (Isaiah 13:9-10).
Other examples include quotes from Jeremiah, Amos, Ezekiel and Joel, and darkness was one of the plagues against Egypt. Even Jesus used this term in describing the destruction of Jerusalem: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” (Matt 24:29-30 NKJV)*
The point is, darkness is used in the Bible, both literally and figuratively, to represent God’s judgment against sin. When the lights went out that fateful day in Jerusalem, it was because our sinless, precious Lord was carrying every last sin that had ever been and ever would be committed, on His body! God’s judgment had been passed! God is light, the direct opposite of sin. Darkness and light cannot coexist. If you have light, you do not have darkness, and vice-versa! When all of our sins hung on Jesus’ innocent shoulders, it drew a shield of darkness so thick that God’s light couldn’t penetrate it!
Am I taking this a bit too far?
Remember Jesus’ words from the cross? “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ That is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?'” (Matt 27:46 NKJV) Friends, Jesus cried out these words because God could not penetrate the sin He bore!
Jesus, who had never been out of contact with God, now found Himself completely separated from His source of strength, His source of love, His very being. Imagine the hopelessness. Imagine the fear and the desperateness. Imagine the anxiety and the pain!
I would like to propose that this separation from God, this darkness that fell on the face of the Earth, was perhaps the worst thing that Jesus suffered.
Tomorrow is Easter. The time of year to celebrate Jesus’ death and resurrection. Before we go to church to sing about His resurrection, let’s take a moment, to contemplate the suffering that Jesus bore. The suffering that we, ourselves, should have borne!
Remember, He did it out of love. He did it to re-establish the line of communication broken in Eden. He did it to re-open the door to a relationship with God, the door that was closed that fateful day at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Don’t take it for granted, friends! If Jesus gave that much for us, can’t we afford to spend time with Him? To bask in His presence? To let His Spirit work in our hearts to mold and make us into the vessels we were intended to be? To return to others that love that He so selflessly and painfully gave to us?
Don’t just go through another Easter this year, friends! Spent time in His presence! Contemplate what He suffered for each of you! I guarantee you will come away forever changed, for you will have fallen deeper and deeper in love with Him!
In His love,
Lyn
Lyn Chaffart, Speech-Language Pathologist, mother of two teens, Author and Moderator for The Nugget, a tri-weekly internet newsletter, and Scriptural Nuggets, a website devoted to Christian devotionals and inspirational poems, www.scripturalnuggets.org, with Answers2Prayer Ministries, www.Answers2Prayer.org.
(To access the entire “The Sufferings of Jesus: A Lenten Series” mini-series, please click here.)