Hope in the darkness
It’s almost 7:00 AM, and it’s still dark outside my window. I know that’s normal for this time of year, but I miss the summer days when it’s already full daylight, and the birds have been singing for hours. I’m grateful I no longer live farther north, where the days are even shorter. Oh, well, in just over two months, the days will start getting longer by a small margin.
Yesterday, I wrote about the crucifixion, particularly the hyssop branch used to offer Jesus a drink as He thirsted. As I read the various accounts of the crucifixion in the gospels, I was struck by the period of darkness that preceded Jesus’ death.
And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Luke 23:44 ESV
It’s just one short sentence in Luke, but the event is also included in Matthew and Mark. Why a period of darkness in the Scripture? In the Old Testament, darkness was associated with the Lord’s judgment.
“And on that day,” declares the Lord God, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.” Amos 8:9-10 ESV
The plague of darkness was the final plague on Egypt before the Passover.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.” So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the people of Israel had light where they lived. Exodus 10:21-23 ESV
Darkness is also a sign of the coming day of the Lord.
Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations.Joel 2:1-2 ESV
The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. Joel 2:31 ESV
If times seem dark or you’re going through a period of personal darkness, don’t despair. God didn’t abandon His people then, and He won’t abandon you now. His timing is perfect.
Hold fast, my friends. The Light is nearby.
Be blessed.
SUMMARY
Throughout Scripture, darkness signaled the Lord’s judgment. God didn’t abandon His people then, and He won’t abandon you in your darkness now.
TAKEAWAY
Luke gives the darkness at the cross a single sentence, but Matthew and Mark record it as well.
In the Old Testament, darkness marked the Lord’s judgment, from the final plague on Egypt before the Passover to the prophets’ warnings about the day of the Lord.
If you’re going through a period of personal darkness, don’t despair. God didn’t abandon His people then, and He won’t abandon you now.