March 24, 2005 Matthew 27:45
From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.
Tonight’s service is called a service of darkness. It is a somber reminder of what happened to Jesus. As the service progresses, the lights eventually are dimmed until it becomes almost completely dark. This darkness is supposed to symbolize the three hours of darkness that occurred at the death of Jesus Christ. As Jesus was arrested, he said to the chief priests, “this is your hour—when darkness reigns.” (Luke 22:53) The darkness that Jesus experienced was not just symbolic. It did not occur in the comfortable confines of a church, with the simple flick of a switch while seated on a padded cushion. The darkness that Jesus experienced was more than just a glorified light show. It’s a lot deeper than that. It involved nails, anger, torture, wood, whips, and hatred. Tonight we will look at -
The Ultimate Service of Darkness
Shortly after God created the heavens and the earth, He made the light. Then chapter 1, verse 4 of Genesis states, God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. Moses especially mentions the goodness of the light. Therefore, God distinguished it from the darkness - made it to be separate. Light and darkness are supposed to be two separate things. Three days later, God created the sun. In our world, the sun was then designated as the force of nature that would cause this separation of light and darkness to take place. Even at night, the sun would still have influence on the darkness, causing it’s light to shine through the reflection of the moon. Light is the presence of what IS, whereas darkness is simply the result of what IS NOT.
When Jesus entered the world, a different kind of Light was physically and more importantly spiritually introduced into our creation. The evangelist John especially makes mention of this aspect of Jesus. In John 1:9 he writes, “The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.” Then, in John 8:12 Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” This was all predicted in Isaiah 60:2-3. It says, “See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” This darkness is not speaking about a physical darkness, but a spiritual one. In a world that had been corrupted in the darkness of sin after the Fall of Adam and Eve, Jesus entered it without sin. He proclaimed a way to salvation different than submitting to the law of the Pharisees or even the Old Testament law. He proclaimed in no uncertain terms, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” (Jn 11:25-26) Wherever Jesus walked and whatever Jesus said seemed to bring light into people’s lives - give them hope - help them see a different God - a God of mercy and forgiveness, hope and heaven. The way in which He carried Himeslf stood out from the behavior of all other men. His very essence was Light - not darkness.
In 2 Corinthians 6:14 Paul asked, “what fellowship can light have with darkness?” With this question, Paul was clearly saying that people enlightened with Jesus Christ are not meant to be one with the darkness. Yet tonight we see that this Son of God - the author of Life - the source of Light - would in the last hours of His humility have to spend it in darkness. Yet for three hours darkness covered the earth. Jesus was surrounded by and covered in this abnormal darkness.
What is the significance of this? Let’s find out. Consider other instances in Scriptures where a deep darkness fell on people.
✞ In Genesis 15:12-16 God had a message of darkness for Abram. Moses writes, “As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
✞ In setting the Israelites free, “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness will spread over Egypt—darkness that can be felt.” So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days.” (Exodus 10:21-22)
✞ Again, thick darkness came into play in Exodus 20:21 in the giving of the Ten Commandments. The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.
In the context of these texts, darkness is connected with judgment and power of God. This is also followed through in the New Testament. Take for instance Jude 6 which says, the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. God’s judgment on people is darkness - a sign of his anger over sin - a withdrawal of His visible love.
Therefore, we might conclude that darkness is representative of wherever God is not. This is not the case however. It might seem strange, but even though Jesus calls Himself the Light of the world, God also reveals Himself through darkness. Psalm 97 says, “The LORD reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice. Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.” (Ps 97:1-2) This vision of God reminds us that although God at His very core is Light, He is also willing to withdraw His light, to present a much more dark view of Himself, to those who do not want His Light, who want to shake their fist at the Light and tell it to go away. This is only a result of the Fall - that God - the Light of the world - would present Himself in darkness. God is also present in darkness, but only in a darker way - a destructive and angry and powerful way.
Therefore, when Jesus experienced this darkness, what was God telling the world - telling us? It seems clear according to Scripture, does it not? God was bringing His judgment down on Jesus. If the darkness weren’t enough to make this obvious, the words of Jesus made it clear. At the end of the three hours Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46) For the first time on the cross Jesus didn’t refer to God as His Father, but instead as His God. What did God do? He had FORSAKEN Jesus - taken His Light away from the Light of the World. The darkness of God’s judgment overcame and engulfed the Light. God withdrew His presence from Jesus - and sent Jesus to what we would basically call “hell”. What is hell but a complete withdrawal of God’s presence? One of the worst punishments in prison camps is to put a prisoner in solitary confinement - with no one to talk to and hardly any light. Jesus’ punishment was worse. The Father that He had always talked to withdrew from Jesus. His disciples had fled. There was no light entering in Jesus’ cell. He was left completely alone. He too cried out. But nobody answered. The Father left him there - not only to die a criminal’s death - but to also die a sinner’s eternal death. The darkness that came over the land for three hours - it visibly tells us what was going on - judgment was taking place.
You can’t imagine how terrifying it would be - to be under such a judgment. In the parable of the Talents Jesus said of the worthless unbelieving and lazy servant, “throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 25:30) Imagine the moment you died, all of the sudden having everything turn black - having noone to turn to - no one to cry to. About a month ago my oldest daughter was sick and vomiting. She sat on her bed and cried and cried and cried. I tried to console her, but I couldn’t make her feel better. After a while, the very sound of her moans and groans were almost making me sick. I couldn’t stand to hear the crying any more. I had to leave her room for a time. When I went back in, I couldn’t help but be reminded of what God said hell would be like. Imagine spending an eternity not only in a dark and dreary place, where all you can hear are millions of people crying and weeping and mourning. You too would be mourning, and the worst part is that no one would be there to console you. That’s what hell is like.
Today we come together to see Jesus go through the worst kind of darkness. This was the ultimate service of darkness. I call it a “service” because that’s what it was. It was a miraculous and impossible service. The Triune God - three in one - who from eternity had spent life with one another - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - experienced a BREAK in that relationship. Think about that. When a husband and wife are married for many years, it often happens that when one dies, the other dies shortly thereafter. Why? Because the two, who are one flesh, are split in two, which breaks the heart of the spouse. Imagine then, having lived an eternity with each other, in complete and total harmony - no fights - no squabbles - complete agreement and joy. Then, One withdraws from the other - in anger and wrath. What a change of events! God forsook God! The One who was known as Light and love, was engulfed in Darkness and wrath. This was no accident. Jesus knew it was coming, and he sweat drops of blood over it. This was a SERVICE of darkness - because it was a service to us. God’s Word says that this darkness came over ALL the land. Therefore, with this darkness, God was declaring to us that this darkness that Jesus was experiencing, was actually covering the WHOLE EARTH. This is not just some bizarre interpretation of the darkness. For God’s Word also says in 2 Corinthians 5:19, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.. Jesus went there by God’s set purpose - to offset the wrath of God over the world - the Righteous for the Unrighteous - Light for Darkness.
So we come here this evening. We lower the lights. The Scriptures take us back two thousand years. We see darkness come over the land. We hear Jesus cry out to the Father. We hear Him give up His spirit. We see the Light of the World - the One who brought our world to Life - experience death and darkness. We do our best to engulf ourselves in the darkness - to let our minds drift back and by the eyes of faith see and feel what Jesus went through that dark and lowly night. In reality, there’s no way we could comprehend it all. Yet we try. Why? We want to feel sorrow over this. It’s more than that though. At the end of this service we will hear from Psalm 88. In it the Psalmist writes, “You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend.” (Ps 88:18) As we look at this darkness, in a sense we could call it our closest friend. This sad and tragic event is what assures us that when we die, we will not experience the darkness of hell. As we see this darkness descend on Jesus, we are assured that “it is finished.” There is no hell left for us, because Jesus took it on His shoulders. So in a strange way we embrace this darkness. We enjoy it, because as we sit here in the dark, we know that by faith in Christ - we will not have to experience it when we die. As Psalm 112:4 says, “Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.”
The Terri Schiavo saga over the past few weeks has brought about some very strange arguments in favor of death. It seems rather macabre for people to argue why they think she should die. It’s really kind of scary to me. For instance, one person reasoned, “she was a vain woman. She wouldn’t want to be on TV looking this way. I know she’d rather be dead.” Let’s take it to it’s logical conclusion then - we should put her to death for having bad hair? Is that any reason to die? What concerns me is that we need to be careful that our cheers for death are not for selfish reasons. Just because she may not have use of some of her body parts, or even if she can’t speak, is that a reason to say, “let’s put her to death”? The point I’m making is that if you’re going to say someone should die, you better have a better reason than many have given. You’d better have a clearly God given reason.
This is, of course, a lead in to the conclusion of this sermon. It might seem macabre for us to relive the death of Christ and try and re-experience that darkness. Is this a right thing to do? We need to be careful in this. We’re not here to eat popcorn and say, “yea! Jesus died!” We better have a good reason - a God given reason - for doing this. If we’re reliving Jesus’ death because we hate Jesus or because we like seeing people die - then we shouldn’t be here. But that’s not why we’re here. It’s not because we love to see Jesus die and go through the darkness of hell. It saddens us to see Light be overwhelmed with Darkness. We come here to experience this because we love to see WHY Jesus died. He experienced darkness as a service to us - so that we would never have to face such an eternal death. This is the ultimate display of God’s love - His willingness to die for us. In this way, through faith, it is God pleasing for us to review His death and darkness, even calling it our closest friend. Amen.
