The Story: The Hour of Darkness

Jesus said it in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:23):

If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

I still remember when I heard what I believe to be one of the most hauntingly eerie and evocative poems about darkness called the "Late Lament," a poem by Graeme Edge:

Breathe deep the gathering gloom
Watch lights fade from every room
Bedsitter people look back and lament
Another day's useless energy spent.Impassioned lovers wrestle as one,
Lonely man cries for love and has none.
New mother picks up and suckles her son,
Senior citizens wish they were young.Cold hearted orb that rules the night,
Removes the colors from our sight.
Red is grey and yellow white,
But we decide which is right.
And which is an illusion?

Night.
Darkness.
Evil reigns.

There is something foreboding, primal, and eerie about darkness. We instinctively fear it. We wonder what lurks in the deepest shadows. The hair on the back of our neck raises as our sense of dread and danger heightens.

Even the Bible mentions this as our primordial foe in the first few verses of Genesis (Genesis 1:1-2):

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep...

Jesus readily used these — night and darkness — as images, as metaphors, for evil and the powers of hell (John 9:4):

As long as it is day, [Jesus said] we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work:

Night.
Darkness.
Evil reigns.

Jesus saw this dark day coming. He knew the battle with hell, the war for our souls, would soon take place... in darkness... in the place of evil. And that he would face it alone (John 12:31; John 12:35; John 12:46):

Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. ... Then Jesus told them, "You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. Whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going. ... I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.

Night.
Darkness.
Evil reigns.

In the Passover Supper, on the eve of his own death, Jesus uses the reminder of God's deliverance through the Exodus, to warn his closest friends of the power of impending darkness that would swallow them and make them afraid and lead them to turn away (Matthew 26:31; Matthew 26:34; John 13:30):

Then Jesus told them, "This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: " 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.' ... "Truly I tell you," Jesus answered, "this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times."As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was... night.

Night.
Darkness.
Evil reigns.

It was in the cover of darkness that they come and arrest Jesus (Luke 22:53).

"Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns."

Yes, night has come. Darkness reigns. Everything good and holy and right seems just illusion in the twilight of hells rule over the hearts of men. Alone and on his own, God's Son is betrayed, arrested, abandoned, beaten, mocked, scourged, and crucified. His body will be pierced and battered, and will die. So it must begin. They arrest him... in darkness... at night.

Night.
Darkness.
Evil reigns.

Listen to that. Feel that. Let it soak in.

Darkness reigns.

Now feel it with Jesus, alone, naked, exposed, battered, pierced for our sins, on the Cross (Matthew 27:45-46):

From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" (which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?").

Night.
Darkness.
Evil reigns.

Hope seems lost. Life seems futile.

Evil holds the world in its grip. And Jesus, whose body is dead, is still alive and alone, unarmed with the angels of light, and descends into the hadean world, the world of the dead, with nothing but his identity as the perfect sacrifice, there to defeat the powers of hell and their grip on death (1 Peter 3:18-22):

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

Night.
Darkness.
Evil reigns.

But we decide... you and me … we decide which is right and which is illusion.

For darkness' reigns only in the demented delusions of satan and the minions of hell. Even in his moment of greatest power, the murder of the Son of God, his very act brings our deliverance because of Jesus' voluntary sacrifice. As satan's encapsulating darkness envelopes the Son of God, the Son marches into darkness' lair, hell's hold on death, and defeats it (Colossians 2:15):

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

We may still find ourselves in...

Night.

Darkness.

Evil reigns.

but we are trusting that Jesus is at work defeating hell and we return to the strange and intriguing passage that speaks to us of great promise and how we can receive it!

We remember Jesus has been here, he knows the world of darkness and death...

And he has faced it, entered it, descended to its darkest places, and conquered it...

For YOU and me!