Moment of Meditation: Three Hours of Darkness (Mark 15:33)

riginal Broadcast: Lent 2009

Monthly Theme: The Passion according to St. Mark

And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
(Mark 15:33)

Three Hours of Darkness

For three hours the horrible wrath of God was seen in the pitch darkness that overtook the earth. During the middle of the day, at high noon, instead of being the brightest part of that day, everything went black. No light could be found anywhere in the land of Judah.

It was the time of forsaking. It was the time of God the Father turning His back on His Son. It was the time of great sorrow and agony. All God's wrath was coming full-force at Jesus as He hung upon the Cross. The punishment for all the sins of the world was being meted out during those three hours. Your sins were atoned for during this time of darkness.

On Good Friday, our focus is generally on what happened after the three hours of darkness. Jesus' seven words from the Cross are after the time of darkness. But it's in the darkness, in the forsaken realm without light, that we find the light of our salvation shining through. Jesus suffered once for all your sins so that He might draw you "out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9). Amen.