The Darkness of Good Friday (2020)

Introduction: the darkness of Good Friday

The contrast between light and darkness is a major theme in the Bible. Light frequently indicates things that are good, righteous, vibrant, holy, just, and good. Darkness refers to the very opposite—wickedness, evil, suffering, and death. Light is associated with life, especially a life of blessing and prosperity; darkness is associated with suffering, death, and decay.

Good Friday is the Friday before Easter on which the anniversary of the Crucifixion is kept. On Good Friday we remember the day when darkness covered the land, and when darkness seemed to triumph. And yet, even as we commemorate Good Friday, we do so in anticipation of Easter Sunday—knowing that the Lord Jesus, rose victoriously from death, delivered us from darkness, and brought us into His marvellous light.

Donald Mills, “Light and Darkness,” ed. Douglas Mangum et al., Lexham Theological Wordbook, Lexham Bible Reference Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

F. L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 693.

But we would do well to spend time today—on Good Friday—reflecting on the theme of darkness. And I want us to do this by reflecting on two passages: and . If you have a Bible, can I ask you to please turn to these passages and follow with me as I read.

Mark 15 NIV

Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, made their plans. So they bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate. “Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate. “You have said so,” Jesus replied. The chief priests accused him of many things. So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.” But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed. Now it was the custom at the festival to release a prisoner whom the people requested. A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did. “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, knowing it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead. “What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them. “Crucify him!” they shouted. “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!” Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. The written notice of the charge against him read: the king of the jews. They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!” In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.” Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said. With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there. It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.

Psalm 88 NIV

A song. A psalm of the Sons of Korah. For the director of music. According to mahalath leannoth. A maskil of Heman the Ezrahite. Lord, you are the God who saves me; day and night I cry out to you. May my prayer come before you; turn your ear to my cry. I am overwhelmed with troubles and my life draws near to death. I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like one without strength. I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care. You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily on me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. You have taken from me my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them. I am confined and cannot escape; my eyes are dim with grief. I call to you, Lord, every day; I spread out my hands to you. Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do their spirits rise up and praise you? Is your love declared in the grave, your faithfulness in Destruction? Are your wonders known in the place of darkness, or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion? But I cry to you for help, Lord; in the morning my prayer comes before you. Why, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me? From my youth I have suffered and been close to death; I have borne your terrors and am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me. All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me. You have taken from me friend and neighbor— darkness is my closest friend.

Psalm 88

The Pain of Darkness

In and , we see the pain of experiencing darkness. We see this in at least three ways: social isolation, psychological anguish, and physical threat.

Social isolation

Verse 8, 18 (read). We saw this being played out in as well—Jesus gets deserted by his friends, abandoned by the justice system, questioned by cynics, condemned by religious authorities, crucified by soldiers and mocked by criminals and bystanders. In a very real sense, Jesus was alone. Surrounded by those hostile to him, rejected by his companions, Jesus experienced profound isolation.

Psychological anguish

Verse 3a (read), 9a (read), 13 (“I cry to you”), verse 15 (“I…am in despair”)

Heman explains how he feels, and he tells us that his experience of life is that it is without light. His life is like a living death: his description is permeated with images of death and darkness—of social isolation, psychological anguish, and spiritual forsakenness.

The picture I envisaged from meditating on this description was of a ship in a brutal storm. As the waves continually beat against the ship, it becomes overwhelmed, and it slowly but inexorably goes down—down to the darkest depths of the ocean. Heman is saying, this is what is happening to me—I am drowning. His soul is sinking; his life is without light.

Tragically, the situation gets worse. In addition to social isolation and psychological anguish, this believer faces physical threat.

Physical threat

Verse 3b (“my life draws near to death”), verse 5 (read), verse 15a (read). In fact, the threat of impending death is so real to this believer that they pray in verses 10-12 (read).

Because of our tendency to avoid dealing with pain, it is important for us to reflect on Heman’s description. We have to come to grips with the intensity of his pain and darkness, and we have to realise that this darkness was also experienced by the Lord Jesus. And, as painful as it is, it’s important for us to do this for at least two reasons.

Apply: the Bible is honest

Apply: the Bible is honest

The Bible is nothing if it is not honest; honest about how painful and messy and scary life can really be. If you’re watching this as someone who is still exploring Christianity, I want to ask you to reflect on this. The Bible doesn't promise that if you just trust God then all your problems will go away. The Bible never says that if you just have enough faith then you wont have any problems. Because here we have a genuine believer experiencing the pain of darkness. And, furthermore, we know that this pain and darkness was ultimately fulfilled in the life experience of Jesus.

Apply: re-calibrate your expectations

So if this was the experience of a faithful believer way back when, and if this was the experience of the Lord Jesus, then you can be sure that—at some time or another—this may well be your experience. In fact, Jesus told us that in this world, we would have trouble. And the apostle Paul reminded his Christian brothers and sisters that it was through many trials that they would enter the kingdom of God.

So another thing that Good Friday teaches us is to re-calibrate our expectations. This was the way of the Master, and it may well be the way of the servant.

The Problem of Darkness

The problem of darkness is the essence of the problem that humanity has with God. And that problem is that God is, somehow, a God of both wrath and love.

Firstly, notice God’s wrath (read verses 6-7).

But secondly, notice God’s love (read verses 1, 11: He is the God who saves me, the God who loves me, and the God who is faithful to me). And so Heman doesn't position himself towards God as a philosopher but as a friend. I know this God, I speak to Him, I’ve believed his promises and cry to Him day after day.

And the darkness reveals this problem: does God love me? Or is He punishing me? Will He be faithful to me? Or will He forsake me?

Did you notice, in our reading of , that Jesus cries out? He actually quotes another psalm—psalm 22—in which the believer cries out in desperation. Perhaps we see this cry for explanation, and this cry of desperation, most clearly in (read).

Bible teacher Christopher Ash says that there are two ways of asking theological questions: we either ask armchair questions, or we ask wheelchair questions. We ask armchair questions when we are removed from suffering; armchair questions can be asked in a superficial (and even an insensitive) manner. But wheelchair questions are asked by those who are suffering. These questions grapple with God in the darkness. You’re personally invested in wheelchair questions. And if you’ve ever known deep sorrow, anguish, spiritual confusion, or pain, then you don’t ask armchair questions, you ask wheelchair questions. Heman asks staggeringly honest wheelchair questions.

Apply: what questions have you had to ask God in the darkness?

The Paradox of Darkness

As you know, a paradox is something that is seemingly contradictory and yet is true. A paradox is often employed to get hearers to think at a deeper and more critical level, and we see this playing out in the theme of darkness on Good Friday.

Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Paradox,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1615.

On that first Good Friday, we see Jesus choosing to go into the darkness—and not just the darkness of social isolation and psychological anguish, but, as points out—the darkness of God’s wrath.

The darkness we read of in should be understood as a sign of God’s judgement. You see, what was taking place was not simply the death of an innocent man or a righteous prophet. It was far, far more—it was Jesus going into the darkness of God’s wrath for us.

Thabiti Anyabile, writing about this moment on Good Friday, says, “on that dark mid-day on Golgotha, when the sun refused to shine, the unimaginable and indescribable happened. The beautiful, shining, loving face of the Father withdrew into the dark, frowning, punishing face of wrath. He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us (). The Son of God himself “bore our sins in His body on the tree” (). He became accursed for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree” (). On that dark Friday afternoon, the Father turned His face away and… in the terror and agony of it all, Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

John Calvin writes, “[T]his [experience of being forsaken] was Christ’s chief conflict, and harder than all the other tortures…. For not only did he offer his body as the price of our reconciliation with God, but in his soul also he endured the punishments due to us. … Nothing is more dreadful than to feel that God, whose wrath is worse than all deaths, is the Judge. … [H]e maintained a struggle with the sorrows of death, as if an offended God had thrown him into a whirlpool of afflictions.”

In Jerusalem, on that first Good Friday, we get a picture of what God’s judgement in the darkness that covered the land. And we see that Jesus took the ultimate darkness of God’s wrath on our behalf. And because Jesus went into the deepest darkness for us, God, the Father, has brought us into His light—He has made forgiveness possible, and He has given us access to His love, and light and life.

And we now know that He will always be with us in whatever darkness we face.

On this Good Friday, as we reflect on that First Good Friday, can I encourage you to re-read and ? To read it and re-read until you are convinced that He went into the darkness for you. Because when you know that He did that, when you know he went into the ultimate darkness for you, then you’ll know that he will always be there for you—in whatever darkness you face.

Let’s pray.