‘I (God) will make the sun to go down at noon, and I will DARKEN the earth in broad daylight’, Amos chapter 8 verse 9.
Amos was not speaking prophetically about the death of Jesus, but his words are an amazingly accurate picture of the events when Christ died.
Darkness is often linked with judgment in the Bible:
• The coming days of tribulation on the earth are described in the Bible as ‘a day of DARKNESS and gloominess, a day of clouds and THICK DARKNESS’, Joel chapter 2 verse 2.
• Jude tells us about ‘the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He (God) has reserved in everlasting chains under DARKNESS for the judgment of the great day’, Jude verse 8.
• God commanded Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be DARKNESS over the land of Egypt, DARKNESS which may even be felt . . . there was THICK DARKNESS in all the land of Egypt three days’, Exodus chapter 10 verse 21.
• When Jesus was crucified, ‘from the sixth hour (noon) until the ninth hour there was DARKNESS over all the land’, Matthew chapter 27 verse 45.
• Calvary was the darkest place there has ever been on earth – darkness descended for three hours – even nature itself ‘groaned and travailed’.
• One commentator wrote, ‘Our Lord’s cross was not placed on an ornate and attractive altar, between two gold or silver candlesticks, but on a noisy thoroughfare, between two thieves’. We must never be tempted to glamourise Calvary – it is where we find salvation and peace with God, but we must never forget what it cost Christ.
• The darkest hour of all at Calvary was when He (Jesus) was forsaken by God. It has been said, ‘In the daylight He (Christ) suffered at the hands of men: in the darkness He suffered at the hands of God’. A heavier hand than that of Roman soldiers, fell on Him in the darkness of Calvary, when He bore God’s judgement for our sin.
A poet wrote, ‘How greatly Jesus must have loved me to bear my sin in His body on the tree?’ – and in the darkness too. Yes, Jesus loves me; never doubt that will you for Calvary proved that for all of us. But do we love Him? Keep reading the Scriptures. We can send you a Bible if you wish. We will pray for you. Come back again for another Message of Hope.