Journey to the Cross -- Jesus' Darkness

Flashlights and light bulbs should be a’plenty at our house!  Mr. Bill buys light bulbs every trip to Wal-mart, and I’m sure we could have paid our mortgage off for what we’ve spent on flashlights!  Nonetheless, when the power goes there’s a maddening scurry to find a flashlight. 

 

Jesus’ final week was eventful and prospered God’s kingdom: using parables, Jesus spoke about faith and prayer, Christian fruitfulness, the kingdom of Heaven, submitting to civil authority, spiritual hypocrisy, perilous and glorious times; and, He performed countless miracles of healing.  What possibly could have so quickly turned popular opinion against One so noble? “And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot, belonging to the number of the twelve. And he went away and discussed with the chief priests and officers how he might betray Him to them. They were glad and agreed to give him money. So he consented, and began seeking a good opportunity to betray Him to them apart from the crowd.” (Luke 22:3-6)  My dating curfew was 11:00, right up until the day I married Mr. Bill; it was my parents’ general opinion nothing much good happened after that time of night.  Well, the same thing can be said of darkness.  It’s interesting the words Luke uses: Judas “went away” – far enough from Jesus and the other disciples to do Satan’s work. Matthew Henry writes of this passage, “It is hard to say whether more mischief is done to Christ’s kingdom, by the power of its open enemies, or by the treachery of its pretended friends; but without the latter, its enemies could not do so much evil as they do.” Now, the plot to betray and arrest Jesus was set into motion, and even as He shared a last intimate meal with the men closest to Him, Jesus knew “the hand of the one betraying” was present. What a somber walk it must have been from Jerusalem to Gethsemane to pray.  There in the darkness of the garden, Jesus struggled with redemption’s price set before Him.  What more would the darkness bring: friends who would not stay awake to pray with Him and the “one called Judas, one of the twelve” to betray Him. It was a dark time in the life of Christ: betrayal by friends, a lonely walk back up Zion’s hill, the mockery of a trial, beatings and cursings, a cold dark pit.  The darkness continues as Christ is sentenced to die just hours before the Jewish Sabbath. The darkest hour was yet to come when Jesus would know complete separation from The Father, the weight of our sin upon Him.  In the darkest moments of our Savior’s life, God did His greatest work and Satan was crushed, death abolished, and darkness ended.  Say it with -- Oh, what a Savior!