Episode Details

Text: Mark 15:33-47

Location and Date: Remsen Bible Fellowship, 07/06/2025

Title: The Darkest Day

Mark 15:33-47, And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 35 And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.” 36 And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” 37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”

40 There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 41 When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.

42 And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. 45 And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. 46 And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.

Introduction

When you hear the phrase, “The Darkest Day”, what comes to mind? I don’t mean in world history—we’ll turn there very shortly. But for this moment, I want that question to be intensely personal. When you think of your darkest day, what comes to mind?

As you consider that day, I wonder if you asked then—or maybe you still ask now—“my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” You wouldn’t be the first to ask such a question. Three thousand years ago King David wrote those very words (Psalm 22:1), and as we just read, Jesus quotes them from the cross. David, and the other psalmists, asked a lot of questions along those lines.

Psalm 13:1a, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?”

Psalm 79:5, “How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever?”

Psalm 89:46, “How long, O LORD? Will you hide yourself forever?”

Psalm 13:1b, “How long will you hide your face from me?”

The psalmists knew about dark days. And they knew how to bring those days of darkness to the Lord. They did not do the normal Christian thing of putting a stiff upper lip on and pretending like every day feels “#blessed.” When everything felt dark, when God seemed distant, they simply asked: where are you, God?

Darkness Absorbed

The sort of honesty is striking coming from the psalmists. But it is, in my view, almost mind-boggling when it’s coming from the lips of Jesus himself. Verse 33 tells us that darkness enveloped the whole land for three hours—the sixth to ninth hours, that is, noon until 3pm.

Darkness in the Old Testament was largely associated with God’s judgement—think of the ninth plague in Egypt. Darkness enveloped the whole land. And this immediately precedes the final judgement—the death of the firstborn son.

Or consider Amos 8:9, ‘“And on that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.