The Day the Sky Went Dark

(Mark 15:33-39 / Matthew 27:45-54)

It was the middle of the day. The sun should have been high and bright.

Instead, the sky went dark. A heavy dark came down, a dark that arrived too early and stayed too long. For three whole hours the land lay under it.

Jesus had been on the cross for hours now, with the thief he had promised paradise hanging beside him. And in that terrible dark, he cried out with a loud voice, from somewhere deep inside him:

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Forsaken. That is one of the loneliest words there is. It means left all alone, left when you needed someone most.

Have you ever felt that way, as if everyone had turned from you and no one was coming? Jesus felt it. The Son who had never once been apart from his Father, not for a single breath since before the world began. He had always been near, always loved, always home. And now, in the dark, he felt the door close.

All the broken things were on him. Every cruel word, every lie, every turning-away that you and I have ever done. He gathered it all into himself, and he carried it down into that lonely dark, so that you would never have to be left alone.

Long before, on that fearful night in Egypt, God's people had been shown a picture of this. They would bring a lamb, a spotless little lamb who had done nothing wrong, given in the place of the people who had. And every lamb whispered the same promise: one day the real Lamb will come, and he will carry it for good.

This was that day. And this was that Lamb.

Then Jesus cried out one more time, and gave up his breath.

And right at that moment, something tore.

In the temple, the great house of God, there hung an enormous curtain, thick and tall. It guarded the holiest room of all, the room where God's nearness lived. The curtain meant: stay back. You cannot come in yet.

That curtain ripped. It ripped from the very top, higher than any hand could reach, all the way down to the floor, as if two great hands had taken hold of it and torn it wide. The way that had been shut for so long stood open. The door God had longed to fling wide was flung wide at last.

The ground shook. The rocks split. And a soldier standing there, a tough man who had seen many terrible things, looked up at Jesus and said, soft and sure, "Truly, this man was the Son of God."

In the darkest hour, when it looked like everything was lost, God was doing his greatest rescuing right there on that hill.

The Lamb had carried it all. And the door stood open, wide, wide open, with your name on the other side.