The Light of Life faces our Deep Darkness

MATTHEW 27

Deep Darkness

Tomorrow we enter the deep mystery of the incarnation, the birth of Jesus. At the same time, we consider the deep mystery of the darkness, the extinguishing of the light. This penultimate blog has been written for Christmas Eve. And we will later this evening hear the nine lessons of the traditional carol service; whose climax is the first chapter of the Gospel of John.

What came into existence was Life,
    and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
    the darkness couldn’t put it out.

The darkness did put it out, though. That is what Chapter 27 is all about. There is darkness all around. Judas realises he has betrayed innocence, and darkness descends upon him, a heaviness fills his soul and he takes his own life. Darkness descends upon Pilate, who, despite the warnings of his wife, ignores her night-time dream to ‘not get mixed up in judging this noble man’. He bows to mob rule and releases man with a dark heart, a convicted murderer, and sends Jesus to the cross. Yet more darkness shrouds Jesus as he is mocked and bullied and reviled by soldiers. These soldiers may well have been the sons of those, whose brute-minded kind had 30 years before ordered the slaughter of the innocents. And then, finally, for three hours, deep darkness broods over the whole world, we are told, as Jesus hangs on the cross and the Life-Light goes out.

The deepest darkness must have been reserved for Jesus as he experienced (and bore witness) the turmoil of utter abandonment. Mark and Matthew are alone in telling us of this dreadful groan from the depths of his being as he echoed the first lines of Psalm 22. This was the darkness of separation, total division between the Father and the Son. And ultimately this is what our sin is, it is what separates us: from God and from each other. Yet, in this upside down kingdom of the Great Reversal, it was by entering into that deep darkness of the abandonment, that we believe humanity finds liberation and light. 

In Matthew's account, the depth of the darkness and the division is echoed in the very earth itself. His the only account which tells us of the earth-splitting response of creation itself as Jesus breathed his last - there was an earthquake. 

However, even as the temple curtain is torn in two, the darkness of Jesus’ death is accompanied by a prefiguring of his resurrection – again, only Matthew tells us that tombs were opened and believers resurrected at this moment. And as fear gripped everyone present, out of the darkness comes the voice of the Captain of the Guard, the representative of the dark powers of Rome and Jerusalem, who announces boldly – ‘this has to be the Son of God’.

So, even in the deepest darkness of the crucifixion and death of Jesus there are hints that this is not a full stop, but merely a coma; the candle has not gone out, it has simply, momentarily, lost its spark. And the powers of darkness – the high priests and Pharisees – as the sun goes down, are worried, that the Son may indeed rise. They remembered his prophesy that he would rise after three days, and so set a guard on the tomb.

As we wait for Christmas Day and the birth of the Saviour, we are left waiting by the tomb of Jesus. Today we sing:

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume,

Breathes of life of gathering gloom,

Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,

Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.

But later on tomorrow we will add:

Glorious now behold Him arise,

King and God and Sacrifice,

Alleluia, Alleluia,

Earth to Heaven replies.

And tomorrow, Christmas Day, will be his dancing day.