April 3, 2026

“Darkness”

45% of children, as many as 10% of adults, say they are afraid of the dark. Whether or not you are afraid of the dark, maybe you have found yourself uncomfortable in the dark. Maybe you’re at home or work and the lights go out and you don’t know how or when they will come back on. The more you sit there, the more uncomfortable you become. In any darkness we may have felt, none of us can imagine how uncomfortable it was in the darkness of that first Good Friday.

Jesus was nailed to the cross at 9 in the morning and hung there til 3. Matt 27:45 tells us darkness covered the land from noon until 3. Why the darkness? Some have tried to explain that it must’ve been a solar eclipse, we know that was not the case because this happened during Passover, and that takes place in the spring time. In the spring, there is not a solar eclipse because there is a full moon. And there is no eclipse during a full moon only a new moon. And no eclipse would last three hours.

In OT we know what the darkness means. God directed Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt again and again because of the captivity there. Pharaoh resisted and because he kept doing that God issued plagues. And the ninth plague was a plague of darkness. Many times in OT we see darkness is a sign of God’s judgment against humanities’ sin, rebellion and disobedience and that was displayed by Egypt and Pharaoh.

The Persians were the ones who invented crucifixion, the Romans perfected it. It was the most excruciating way to die. (In fact “excruciating” comes from the word “crucifixion.”) Many times what happened before a person was nailed to the cross was they were shackled between two posts or to one post. There was a soldier on both sides, in this case Jesus. In the hand of each soldier was something called a flagrom. A flagrom consisted of an instrument that had a weapon with straps on it and in the other handle. Attached to the end of the leather straps were glass or bone or metal. And both soldiers would go back and forth flogging, in this case Jesus, with the flagrom. Jews said that not more than 39x, but the Romans didn’t care, so back and forth they went.

The word “fillet” comes from the word “flagrom,” because once the flogging was done that’s what the skin of the victim looked like. It looked as if it’s been filleted. There were many who were headed for crucifixion but didn’t even make it as a result of that flogging. With such severe dehydration and blood loss, is it any wonder that He wasn’t able to carry the cross and when He was placed on that cross those open wounds on His back would’ve rubbed up against that old rugged cross that He was attached to. Of course, the crown of thorns and the nails and there He hung in the darkness.

Darkness is a sign of God’s judgment against man’s sin. Even as Jesus hung there in the darkness, He cried out to His heavenly Father but the response was silence. God didn’t take Him off or spare Him of this pain. Darkness and suffering are signs of God’s judgment against man and all of it was being thrust upon Jesus, who alone experienced the punishment for every sin, every act of disobedience, rebellion, thought, word or action in your life and mine, or anyone who has ever lived. Jesus took the punishment Himself, so that you would never be punished.

We ask ourselves, What kept Jesus on the cross? Why did He do it? How could He possibly go through it? Easy for us to say, those nails kept Him on the cross. You know what kept Him on the cross….it was His love for you. Not cliche. What kept Jesus, the Savior of the world on the cross was His love for you.

Sure it’s Good Friday, and in 36 hours we will have Easter Sunday. But there is no way to comprehend or wrap our minds around the resurrection of Jesus until we sit uncomfortably in the darkness.