Monday 14th April
Mark 15:33
“At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.” (NIVUK)
Mark’s gospel is so straightforward that we miss the theological richness contained therein. A straightforward reading of the narrative simply states that an unnatural darkness fell at midday. There is no explanation, no proposed cause or reason. The reader is simply informed that darkness fell early that day.
For his readers though, the darkness that came over Jerusalem that day was not just unnatural, it was supernatural. Like the plague that afflicted Egypt it signified judgment. Those on whom it fell were cursed. None more so than Jesus. For the day of Yahweh had arrived, long delayed, but presaging judgment on those who oppressed others and mocked Yahweh Himself.
Amos, a prophet speaking nearly 800 years before these events, wrote of the arrival of that day and the reasons for it. Heartless religion and oppression of the poor. He wrote of the darkness that would follow, the judgment they deserve…
“The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: ‘I will never forget anything they have done.
8 ‘Will not the land tremble for this,
and all who live in it mourn?
The whole land will rise like the Nile;
it will be stirred up and then sink
like the river of Egypt.
9 ‘In that day,’ declares the Sovereign Lord,
‘I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your religious festivals into mourning
and all your singing into weeping.
I will make all of you wear sackcloth
and shave your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.” (Amos 8:7-10) (NIVUK)
The poignancy of the final verse demands we ask what is ‘Good’ about ‘Good Friday’?
