The doctrine of the cross is to those who perish foolishness. We do know that in our Lord was no sin , and yet he himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree. Just as it was so, that the sun was eclipsed when it was impossible that it should be eclipsed, so Jesus has performed on our behalf; in the agonies of his death, things which, in the ordinary judgment of men, must be thought as utterly impossible.
Concerning this miracle, I have also further to remark that this darkening of the sun surpassed all ordinary and natural eclipses. It lasted longer than an ordinary eclipse, and it came in a different manner. According to Luke the darkness all over the land came first, and the sun was darkened afterwards: the darkness did not begin with the sun, but mastered the sun.
It was unique and supernatural. Now, among all griefs no grief is comparable to the grief of Jesus : of all woes none can parallel the woes of our great Substitute.
Just as strongest light casts the darkest shadow, so has the surprising love of Jesus cost him a death such as does not fall to the common lot of men. And now, when I come to think of it, this darkness appears to have been most natural and fitting.
The darkness seems a natural part of that great transaction. Read the story through and you are not at all startled with the darkness; after once familiarizing your mind with the thought that this is the Son of God, and that he stretches his hands to the cruel death of the cross, you do not wonder about the tearing of the veil of the temple; you are not astonished at the earthquake or at the rising of certain of the dead.
It drops into its place, it seems as if it could not have been otherwise. That sacrifice! Well may the conscious heaven grow dim, And blacken the beholding sun. For a moment think again. Has it not appeared as if the death which that darkness shrouded was also a natural part of the great whole? We have grown at last to feel as if the death of the Christ of God were an integral part of human history. Introduce the Fall, and see Paradise Lost, and you cannot make the poem complete until you have introduced that greater Man who redeemed us, and by his death gave us our Paradise Regained.
It is an exceptional characteristic of all true miracles, that though your wonder never ceases they never appear to be unnatural: they are marvellous, but never monstrous.
The miracles of Christ dovetail into the general run of human history: we cannot see how the Lord could be on earth and Lazarus not be raised from the dead when the grief of Martha and Mary had taken its toll. We cannot see how the disciples could have been tempest-tossed on the Lake of Galilee and the Christ not walk on the water to deliver them.
Wonders of power are expected parts of the narrative where Jesus is. Everything fits into its place with the surrounding facts. A Roman Catholic miracle is always monstrous and devoid of harmony with all associated with it. What if St. I do not care whether it did or did not; it does not alter history a bit, nor even colour it; it is tacked on to the record, and is not part of it.
But the miracles of Jesus , this of the darkness among them, are essential to human history; and this is especially so in the case of his death and this great darkness which shrouded it. All things in human history converge to the cross, which seems not to be an afterthought nor an expedient, but the fit and foreordained channel through which love should run to guilty men.
I cannot say more from lack of voice, though I had many more things to say. Sit down, and let the thick darkness cover you until you cannot even see the cross, and only know that out of reach of mortal eye your Lord accomplished the redemption of his people. He accomplished in silence a miracle of patience and of love, by which light has come to those who sit in darkness and in the valley of the shadow of death. The Christ is hanging on that tree. I see the dreadful cross. I can see the thieves on either side.
I look around, and I sorrowfully notice that motley group of citizens from Jerusalem, and Scribes, and priests, and strangers from different countries, mingled with Roman soldiers. They turn their eyes on him, and for the most part gaze with cruel scorn upon the Holy One who is in the centre.
In truth it is an awful sight. Note those dogs of the common kind and those bulls of Bashan of more notable rank, who all unite to dishonour the meek and lowly One. The pain which it involved was immeasurable; I will not torture you by describing it. I know dear hearts that cannot read about it without tears, and without lying awake for nights afterwards.
But there was more than anguish upon Calvary: ridicule and contempt embittered all. Those jests, those cruel gibes, those mockeries, those thrustings out of the tongue, what shall we say of these? Let us thank God that in the midst of the crime there came down a darkness which rendered it impossible for them to go further with it.
Jesus must die; for his pains there must be no alleviation, and from death there must be for him no deliverance; but the scoffers must be silenced. Most effectively their mouths were closed by the dense darkness which shut them in. What I see in that veil is, first of all, that it was a concealment for those guilty enemies.
Did you ever think of that? I will not see this infamy! Descend, oh veil! It furnishes for guilty men a shelter from the all-seeing eye, so that justice need not see and strike. When God lifts up his Son, and makes him visible, he hides the sin of men. It must have grieved the heart of the eternal God to see such wanton cruelty of men towards him who went about doing good, and healing all manner of diseases.
It was horrible to see the teachers of the people rejecting him with scorn, the seed of Israel, who ought to have accepted him as their Messiah, casting him out as a thing despised and abhorred.
I therefore feel gratitude to God for ordering that darkness cover all the land, and end that shameful scene. I would say to any guilty ones here: Thank God that the Lord Jesus has made it possible for your sins to be hidden more completely than by thick darkness.
Thank God that in Christ he does not see you with that stern eye of justice which would involve your destruction. This longsuffering is meant to bring you to repentance. Will you not come? But, further, that darkness was a sacred concealment for the blessed Person of our divine Lord.
So to speak, the angels found for their King a pavilion of thick clouds, where his Majesty might be sheltered in its hour of misery. It was too much for wicked eyes to gaze so rudely on that immaculate Person. Had not his enemies stripped him naked, and cast lots upon his vesture? Therefore it was fitting that the holy manhood should at length find suitable concealment.
It was not fitting that brutal eyes should see the lines made upon that blessed form by the engraving tool of sorrow. It was not fitting that revellers should see the contortions of that sacred body, indwelt with Deity, while he was being broken beneath the iron rod of divine wrath on our behalf.
It was fitting that God should cover him, so that no one should see all he did and all he bore when he was made sin for us. I bless God devoutly for hiding my Lord away like this: so he was screened from eyes which were not fit to see the sun much less to look upon the Sun of Righteousness.
This darkness also warns us, even us who are most reverent. This darkness tells us all that the Passion is a great mystery, into which we cannot pry. I try to explain it as substitution, and I feel that where the language of Scripture is explicit, I may and must be explicit too. But yet I feel that the idea of substitution does not cover the entire matter, and that no human conception can completely grasp the entirety of the dread mystery.
It was accomplished in darkness, because the full, far-reaching meaning and result cannot be beheld by the finite mind. Tell me the death of the Lord Jesus was a grand example of self-sacrifice — I can see that and much more. Tell me it was a wondrous obedience to the will of God — I can see that and much more. Tell me it was the bearing of what ought to have been borne by myriads of sinners of the human race, as the chastisement for their sin — I can see that , and found my best hope on it.
But do not tell me that this is all that is in the cross. God only knows the love of God: Christ only knows all that he accomplished when he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. There are common mysteries of nature into which it would be irreverent to pry; but this is a divine mystery, before which we take off our shoes from our feet, for the place called Calvary is holy ground. God veiled the cross in darkness, and in darkness much of its deeper meaning lies; not because God would not reveal it, but because we do not have capacity enough to discern it all.
Much has been written about the three hours of darkness Matthew , much of which is not warranted by any careful spiritual attention to the story itself. Many years ago, it was argued that the darkness was that of the sun's eclipse. But that is entirely impossible, for Passover was always held at full moon, when there could be no eclipse of the sun. They bake it in a hot oven until it is totally dry. But these physical sufferings were not the greatest pain. Jesus felt that God had left him alone.
That was when Jesus felt the greatest pain. Jesus gave one great final cry. His work was complete. Luke And Jesus cried out with a loud voice. Jesus died much sooner than he should have done. Two criminals were with him. They were still alive when he died. They wanted to take away the bodies before the Sabbath [their holy day] began. It would begin at 6. Then the criminals could not continue to push up on their legs to breathe.
When they could not breathe, they died. The time from the beginning to end of a partial eclipse can run about three hours, but the darkness of a total solar eclipse only lasts a few minutes, according to the Vatican astronomer.
But scholars have zeroed in on April 3, A. And that presents a problem with the lunar eclipse theory: While there was a total lunar eclipse that night, it likely was not visible from Jerusalem, where the Gospels record Jesus was crucified outside the city walls. So maybe that theory is not right. It also could have been a miraculous sign.
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