Our sermon text for this evening’s meditation is taken from the 27th chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew, the 45th verse. We read: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.”
It goes without saying that the season of Lent is about the cross of Calvary. It is about our Savior’s innocent suffering and death for the sins of the world. It is about the blood that was shed for you and for me. It is about the heavenly Father’s offer of forgiveness of sins and salvation from sin, death and hell. It is about God’s call to repentance, to turn from our sins, to turn to the Savior, Jesus Christ, in saving faith.
But as we turn to the Gospel accounts of our Savior’s death on Calvary’s cross, we find other things that can rightly draw our attention. There is, for example, the darkness from the sixth hour to the ninth hour – or by our way of telling time, from noon to 3 o’clock in the afternoon on that first Good Friday. At the moment of our Savior’s death, a huge curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. There was an earthquake, splitting of rocks, graves being opened, and some of God’s people being raised to life.
This evening, I would like to direct your attention to the miraculous darkness.
Let’s start by looking at what preceded the darkness. Jesus had been nailed to the cross about 9 o’clock in the morning. From 9 o’clock to noon there was a lot of activity there on that ugly rock outside the city walls of Jerusalem, the rock known as Golgotha. Jesus had prayed that the heavenly Father would forgive those who had crucified Him. Jesus had heard the cry of the thief for mercy and had assured the thief that on that very day he would be with Him in paradise. Jesus had placed His mother, Mary, into the care of His disciple John. The soldiers had divided His garments and cast lots for His robe. The chief priests and others were busy criticizing Pilate’s inscription that said that Jesus was the King of the Jews. Bystanders were busy screaming insults at Jesus.
And then noon arrived. As St. Matthew writes: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness until the ninth hour.” St. Luke’s account puts it this way: “It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed.” This was an unusual, an incredible event – something that had never happened before in the lives of the people who were there on that day and, indeed, in the entire history of the world. You can only imagine how this darkness brought all activity to a screeching halt. How it made people stop and wonder just was happening, what was going on. You can almost feel the eerie silence that fell over the crowd and over the world. This was not normal. This was something to cause fear. Right there, in the middle of the day, it was as dark as the middle of a moonless, starless night.
Then Jesus cried out: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” And again: “It is finished.” And again: “Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit.” Then as quickly as the darkness came at noon, just as quickly did the light appear at 3 o’clock that afternoon. It was finished. The darkness was finished, too.
This miracle is recorded in the annals of both Christian and heathen writings, for early heathen opponents of Christianity acknowledged it. Tertullian, a second-century Church Father, boldly wrote the following words to his adversaries:
“At the moment of Christ’s death, the light departed from the sun, and the land was darkened at noonday, which wonder is related in your own annals and is preserved in your own archives to this day.” (See “Apologeticum,” book 1, chapter 21)
The best the heathen could do to explain this darkness was to speak of an eclipse. The early Christians did not explain it. They did not even try to explain it. They simply proclaimed it.
This miraculous darkness on that terrible day proclaims a message, a message focusing on the identity of Jesus. During His life, Jesus repeatedly said that he was the Son of God. Deity was ascribed to Him while His opponents asked Him to “show them a sign from heaven.” Well, they got their sign. Even the Roman centurion and those with him proclaimed and confessed, “Truly this was the Son of God.”
Another message proclaimed by this darkness was God’s judgment directed toward the spiritual darkness that had led up to Jesus’ crucifixion. Read the Passion narratives in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and you will find a combination of jealousy, unbelief, error, hypocrisy, sham and hatred. It was as if God through this miraculous darkness was, so to speak, “rubbing their noses in it.”
But this judgment was not only directed toward those who were directly responsible. This judgment was directed toward the whole world. Think of it: One half of the earth was in the darkness of night. The other half was covered by this miraculous darkness. God was speaking a word of judgment against the spiritual darkness of this world – against this world’s sin, unbelief, error, hypocrisy, sham and hatred.
Jesus said before that first Good Friday, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from this earth, will draw all people to Myself.”
The darkness was also a word of judgment spoken against God’s own Son, Jesus Christ, as He hung on the cross. For He willingly assumed unto Himself the sins of the world. He was hanging there in our place. Then Jesus cried out, “It is finished.” And He died. God’s judgment upon the sins of the world had been carried out.
At 3 o’clock, the sun began to shine again. Like Easter, the light, as well as the Resurrection, indicates that the price for sin, which had been paid by the Father’s Son, Jesus Christ, on Calvary’s cross, had been accepted in full. What follows is a message of forgiveness, salvation, hope, peace, joy and light.
Today is Ash Wednesday. We stand on the brink of a season designed to prepare us to remember and receive again the great work God did for our salvation. As we prepare, let us rejoice at what God has done in and through Jesus, the Savior long foretold, who leads the believer out of spiritual darkness into God’s eternal, truly miraculous light.
This sermon has been freely adapted from a series entitled “The Miracles of Lent,” published by Concordia Publishing House.
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