Darkness at Noon

Good Friday


Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.
Matthew 27:45

The list of early adherents who later renounced Communism in the 20th Century is long. Some were disillusioned by the Ukrainian famine, others by the Nazi-Soviet Pact, still others by the hard fact (empirically demonstrated) that reality never measured up to theory. Many traced their awakening in memoirs: George Orwell, Whitaker Chambers, and Joy Davidman among others. One of the most prolific and profound of that number was Arthur Koestler, the Hungarian Jew who wrote 'The God that Failed.' His fictional account of the Moscow show trials was called 'Darkness at Noon’. Those trials were an exercise in judicial murder. Koestler's novel was an imaginary account of an historical tragedy.
Centuries earlier Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote historical accounts of a spiritual tragedy.
THE spiritual tragedy.
They too recorded a judicial murder.
They wrote of a day which really did know darkness at noon.
Christianity finds the fulcrum of its persuasive power in the real-time events of Crucifixion and Resurrection in Palestine at Passover in the First Century.
It is essential to the claims that the critical episodes unfolded in plain view. They were public spectacles. Jesus fed five thousand and appeared to five hundred. The fire fell on Jerusalem at Pentecost when the place was thronged with pilgrims. If you play at deception better to make the lie obscure and difficult of disputation.
But it wasn't deception.
That being the case, why, we may well ask, was the critical moment shrouded in darkness?
Scripture does not tell us outright but we may guess.
The first reason is DECORUM.
The Crucifixion was not simply the execution of the man Jesus. It was also the killing of our Maker. The crime was an attempt to uncreate the Creator. Imagine a book trying to annihilate its author. I know it's absurd. Absurd, but also monstrous. Unnatural, but also a travesty.
I submit that there is something beyond metaphor when Isaiah writes of the trees clapping their hands. Jesus speaks of the stones crying out and Paul informs us that creation groans. Poetic license merely? I think not. Enormous hints are being given.
Jesus would have remembered an original condition. And Paul was writing of a present reality.
Why was it dark?
It was dark because you don't wear bright colors to a wake.
CREATION WAS IN MOURNING.
It was only right for the sun to hide its face.

The second reason is DISCRETION.
One of the first foreshadowings of the dread day was the journey of Abraham and Isaac to Moriah. When they drew close the stricken father ordered those who accompanied them to stay behind. This was to be a family matter-something between father and son. The Covenant which brought our Redemption was ratified in Eternity Past before there were human witnesses. That plan was worked out at the Cross where the witnesses were uncomprehending. In the words of Jesus they simply did not know what they were doing.
Even with the sixty-six canonical books, even with two thousand years of the Holy Spirit's gracious disclosure to students of Scripture and their attendant theological reflection, there is much still beyond us. We stammer at the borders of human utterance. We bump up against the limits to human understanding. The astronomer strains to the capacity of the best telescope He concedes a nether darkness toward which the first stars flee. He can't see past them as they recede. We appreciate his position. We too would see more. God the Son has died. Tis mystery all, the Immortal dies. Human salvation has been secured by the cruelest of human sins Died He for me who caused His pain for me who Him to death pursued.
This is a transaction between God and God. Who can explore His strange design? In vain the first born seraph tries to sound the depths of love divine. Amazing love how can it be? That Thou my God hast died for me.

It was dark that day between twelve and three.

The third reason is DECREE. It was required that the Passover Lamb be slain at twilight. (Exodus 12:3-6)
They hung Him high in the morning.
So God sent twilight to the middle of the day.
God's purpose could not be frustrated.
God's Law would not be broken.
Not in this Man's Life.
Not by this Man's Death.
He died in darkness that we might live in Light.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah
...for this Jesus.