April 18, 2025 -- Luke 23:44-46 -- Darkness now Light

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun's light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.  Luke 23:44-46 ESV
 
Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, one striking illustration used in the Bible is that of light and darkness. The descent into sin, Adam and Eve’s fall into sin at the Garden of Eden, means that they and all their descendants walk in darkness. Paul states it clearly: “at one time you were darkness” (Ephesians 5:8). There is only one time in my life when I experienced true, inky darkness that can be felt, and that was when I went to the Potash Mine. That was many years ago, when my family and I lived in Saskatoon. While the string of bulbs was illuminated, there were lots of shades and it felt eerie, I must confess I was unprepared for the depths of the darkness that you experience when you are deep in the earth, and there is no light whatsoever. We were sons and daughters of disobedience. We were darkness. If you do not understand this, then the work of Jesus is incomprehensible for us this Good Friday.
 
Darkness covered the whole land where Jesus was crucified. It was the darkness of the Egyptian plague. It was the darkness of sin. It was darkness that was clear evidence of how soiled and foul the human heart, mind and soul are. It was a darkness that lasted from noon until 3pm. The brightest part of the day, when the sun is at full height and shadows are almost gone, darkness prevailed. Do you understand it was the darkness of Jesus, Who knew no sin, becoming sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God.
 
The contrast in you, from the old life to the new is as dramatic as being in a dark mine shaft with no source of light, to standing in the brilliance of the noon-day sun. There is no half and half. In Christ we are standing in light that increasing from the dawning of it to the full splendor of noon day. That is the distinction between justification, when God declares you not guilty because of the work of Christ, and sanctification, the need for the on-going cleansing from patterns of sin. The true believer can not cloak himself in utter darkness. Sin will have already, because of the radiance of Jesus, become hateful darkness. Surely Christians can backslide, but even then, it is with the awareness one is going toward darkness, though one is light. A non-Christian finds this confusing and difficult to comprehend. I can understand the world, God, and myself. I don’t need an interpreter. Having become so accustomed to the darkness, such a man moves like an eyeless newt living in cave darkness, where other senses have become heightened to compensate for the blindness. When Christ the true light appears, all that is false will be obvious. Forever.
 
Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ, be honest. Even as those who are justified, who have been declared innocent in Christ, it is still tempting to create idols. It is tempting to cut God down to a more manageable size. We are afraid of the suffering and the chiseling work of the Spirit which is absolutely necessary to break down our idols and destroy our old concepts of what we think God is like. What we think He will or will not tolerate. However, we often are afraid to go to the Word itself and let it shine, penetrating to our every soul, so that whatever is unclean, whatever is unworthy, whatever is impure will be revealed, cut out, and cast away from us. Good Friday worship services invite the believer to bask in the light of Christ, to have the puny idols of our lives exposed. We do not desire a form of Jesus, or a kind-of-Christ—we long for Him pure and rising with healing in His wings. The Lord to Whom all the nations will come and through Whom all live in the light of life.
 
Why is this so difficult? It is my great privilege to officiate at weddings. It is incredibly common for a groom, who sees his bride for the first time to stare briefly and then turn away. We are so fragile, so used to humdrum and ordinary, that when we glimpse the extraordinary, we are amazed and can’t contain our joy. Jesus is our bridegroom. He is illumination beyond whatever we have ever experienced before. Our small glimpses and beholding Him squintingly are all we can manage in this life. Worship reorients our senses. Gathering in the presence of His great life-and-light giving splendour make us almost panicky at how much we need to change and be transformed. The glory of God revealed at Good Friday, is that the work is well underway. God Who has appointed men and women for life in Christ, will prepare each one for every stage of growth in holiness. It begins, like it began for the centurion at the cross, with the simple confession, “Surely this man was innocent”. For us, surely Jesus Christ is the light of life. Amen.
    
 O Lord God, Who inhabitest eternity,
The heavens declare thy glory, The earth thy riches, The universe is thy temple;
Thy presence fills immensity, Yet thou hast of thy pleasure created life,
and communicated happiness;
Thou hast made me what I am, and given me what I have;
In thee I live and move and have my being;
Thy providence has set the bounds of my habitation, and wisely administers all my affairs.
I thank thee for thy riches to me in Jesus, for the unclouded revelation of him in thy Word,
where I behold his Person, character, grace, glory, humiliation,
sufferings, death, and resurrection;
Give me to feel a need of his continual saviourhood, and cry with Job, ‘I am vile’,
with Peter, ‘I perish’, with the publican, ‘Be merciful to me, a sinner’.
Subdue in me the love of sin,
Let me know the need of renovation as well as of forgiveness,
in order to serve and enjoy thee for ever. I come to thee in the all-prevailing name of Jesus,
with nothing of my own to plead, no works, no worthiness, no promises.
I am often straying, often knowingly opposing thy authority, often abusing thy goodness;
Much of my guilt arises from my religious privileges, my low estimation of them,
my failure to use them to my advantage,
But I am not careless of thy favour or regardless of thy glory;
Impress me deeply with a sense of thine omnipresence, that thou art about my path,
my ways, my lying down, my end. Amen.
Valley of Vision: “GOD THE SOURCE OF ALL GOOD”
 
https://youtu.be/tWeXVnRm6R8?si=FGHaxT9recj-w3Tn Light of the World
 

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