When Darkness Falls

Read: Luke 23:44-49

When all the crowd that came to see the crucifixion saw what had happened, they went home in deep sorrow.

Luke 23:48

THE STORY OF JESUS the Messiah did not end on that Passover Friday so many years ago, but virtually all observers assumed it had. They did not have centuries’ worth of Easter celebrations to give them hope. They were not anticipating a resurrection on the third day. They watched in stunned helplessness as Roman soldiers brutally manhandled the body of an innocent man. They witnessed his moment of death and saw a soldier confirm it with the point of a spear. They saw the darkness and felt the earth shake, and some expressed awe and remorse. But no one, as far as the Gospels tell us, sensed any lack of finality. Jesus was dead, and their hopes died with him.

There are moments in life when all we see are pain and disappointment, with no answers in sight. We are encouraged to hope in God’s goodness anyway, but he knows how difficult hope can be. He understands our pain and the thoughts we entertain in the midst of it. In the Incarnation, he experienced all the discomforts and sufferings we can experience. Jesus hungered, thirsted, wept, gasped for air, shouted in pain, bled, and died. He was a man of sorrows, fully acquainted with grief, just like many of us. God incarnate entered into the suffering that fallen humanity had brought upon itself, and at the most excruciating moments on the cross, he felt thoroughly, desperately forsaken.

What do you do in those disorienting seasons of life when your pain speaks louder than your hope? Where else do you go when you’ve turned to the highest authority in the universe and heard only silence? Where do you find consolation when the Consoler’s body is lying in a tomb? This is where grief does its deepest work. He always wants to deliver us from despair, but sometimes he lets grief linger. It connects us with his heart as a grief-stricken Father or betrayed Bridegroom. It reveals something of his nature—and sends us in search of joy.

Joy really does come in the morning (Psalm 30:5)—not always in the morning of our choosing, but it does eventually come. Friday is not the end of the story. Hope is never lost, no matter how far gone it seems. There is a balm for pain and disappointment, and healing is on its way.

PRAYER

Lord, my heart has wounds that remain unhealed, and you are my only hope. I have made judgments about your goodness between the Fridays and Sundays of my life, and I repent. Forgive me, heal me, restore my hope in your name. Amen.

REFLECTION

Try to imagine how you would have felt as someone who had invested all your hopes in Jesus and then watched him die. What questions would you have for God? What do you think it would take to allow you to hope again?

Further reading: Psalm 22:1-8

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

“WERE YOU THERE,” AFRICAN AMERICAN SPIRITUAL