Healing Rays of Righteousness

During my life and pastoral ministry experiences I have learned and come to greatly appreciate the truths learned from the dark events of Holy Week. One of these awesome truths is that God is present in the dark places of our journey just as much as He is in the places of light. Granted, that is most often very difficult to believe and even more difficult to experience.

However, when we give serious thought to God’s presence in the deep darkness which overwhelmed Jesus hanging in painful agony on the cross, we are left speechless, and hopefully also encouraged.

This coming Sunday, Easter morning, many Christians will joyfully sing of Christ’s glorious resurrection as though the cross and crucifixion was nothing more than a temporary inconvenience for Jesus; something like a trip to the dentist, painful but endurable, if over quickly and the consequence makes the painful suffering worthwhile.

In their story of Good Friday, both Mark and Luke record that “At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.” (Mk. 15:33). Jesus had hung on the cross for three hours before noon, then darkness came over the whole land. For three more hours, Jesus suffered in the dense darkness that blocked out the mid-day sun.

We can rightly know that this darkness was more than just a fact of the day’s appearance. It was also an accurate description of what Jesus was experiencing. This darkness encompassed and overwhelmed His whole being – body, soul, and spirit.

The physical torture of crucifixion, with its excruciating pain, was designed by the governing authorities to send waves of darkness and fear coursing through the victim’s body. But for Jesus there was also the darkness of being ridiculed, abandoned, and rejected by His own people, including His dear friends and disciples.

There was also the deep darkness of taking on and carrying the fullness of the world’s sin. This darkness of sin separated Him from His heavenly Father, who “is light: and in (whom) is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5).

Think of it. The heavens went dark and silent, covering the whole world in darkness, and He could not see nor hear His Father. Most certainly, Jesus felt utterly alone. Who could fully understand and empathize with Him and His suffering? Nobody. We hear Christ verbalize His agony when He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But even when Jesus felt most forsaken by God, He affirmed His relationship by crying out “My God, my God.”

We say Jesus was alone, betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, and deserted by His friends and disciples. But was Jesus abandoned by God and alone? I think not. It is true, God could not stand between Jesus and sin’s darkness, holding off the pain and protecting him from death, the judgement of sin.

So where was God on that terrible dark Friday? He was there, watching and suffering with His Son as he made the ultimate sacrifice of his life for the sins of the world. He was there waiting and when Jesus loudly cried “Finished” and died, burst forth with earth-shaking light that completely tore the Temple curtain that separated man from Himself, and caused a centurion to testify, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (Mk. 15:38-39).

Truly, the good news of Good Friday is that the God of light is also God in the darkness. God is in the darkness of His people’s pain and suffering. No, God does not stand between us and pain, holding it off, bringing us only good news, but God does stand, sit, even hangs with us on our cross of painful, frightening darkness. Yes, this comforting, encouraging truth is most often seen in the rear-view mirror of living.

For those of us who choose not to make a quick leap from the wondrous revealing light of Palm Sunday to the glorious resurrection light of Easter, the discovery that God is very much present in the awful suffering darkness of Holy Week is most encouraging.

Yes, when we feel most alone, God is with us in the darkness. As the psalmist declares in Psalm 139 – “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? …if I make my bed in depths, you are there. …even the darkness will not be dark to you;” Amen!

“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – April 8, 2020
http://www.geigler13.wordpress.com
Ray M. Geigley