The Beautiful Upset: WK6 - MON
THE DARKNESS THAT COVERS EVERYTHING
Mark 15:33-34 (NLT) "At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o'clock. Then at three o'clock Jesus called out with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?' which means 'My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?'"
Darkness at noon is wrong in a way that makes your skin crawl. The sun should be at its brightest, shadows should be short and sharp, the world should be flooded with light. But instead, for three hours, the sky goes dark while Jesus hangs between heaven and earth.
This isn't poetic language or metaphor. Mark is telling us the cosmos itself reacted to what was happening on that hill. Creation was witnessing its Creator die, and the lights went out.
I remember sitting with a woman in Seattle whose husband had died suddenly. We were in her living room at two in the afternoon, one of those rare spring days when the sun finally breaks through after months of the gray pallor of winter and drizzle that doesn't end. The kind of day that feels precious in the Pacific Northwest precisely because it's so rare. Birds singing outside, light streaming through the windows, the world suddenly bright and alive. And she looked at me and said, "Why is it still bright outside? Doesn't the world know what just happened?" She wanted the weather to match the grief, wanted the sky to acknowledge the rupture in her life. And for three hours on a Friday afternoon two thousand years ago, that's exactly what happened.
The darkness at noon tells us that what's happening on the cross isn't just a human tragedy or political execution. This is cosmic. This is the moment when all the brokenness of the world, every act of violence and betrayal, every wound and every sin, gets placed on one man's shoulders. And the weight of it drives Him into a darkness so complete that even the sun refuses to watch.
But then Jesus cries out, and the words He chooses matter. "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" These aren't words of despair invented in the moment, they're the opening line of Psalm 22, a prayer every faithful Jew would have known by heart. It's a psalm that begins in anguish but ends in vindication and praise. Jesus is praying Scripture in His darkest hour, clinging to the words His people have prayed for generations when they felt forsaken.
And here's the scandal of it all: Jesus knows what it feels like to be abandoned by God. The One who has existed in perfect communion with the Father from before time began experiences separation. The One who told His disciples He and the Father are one feels the crushing weight of distance. Not because God actually abandoned Him, but because Jesus took on Himself every human experience of God-forsakenness, every moment when we've cried out and heard only silence, every prayer that seemed to bounce off the ceiling.
This is the beautiful upset at its most brutal: the King who saves us by experiencing the very abandonment we deserve. The God who rescues us by entering into the worst thing we could ever feel.
1. Where have you felt abandoned by God?
2. How does it change things to know Jesus felt that abandonment too?
3. What might it mean that Jesus prays Scripture in His darkest moment?
Mark 15:33-34 (NLT) "At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o'clock. Then at three o'clock Jesus called out with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?' which means 'My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?'"
Darkness at noon is wrong in a way that makes your skin crawl. The sun should be at its brightest, shadows should be short and sharp, the world should be flooded with light. But instead, for three hours, the sky goes dark while Jesus hangs between heaven and earth.
This isn't poetic language or metaphor. Mark is telling us the cosmos itself reacted to what was happening on that hill. Creation was witnessing its Creator die, and the lights went out.
I remember sitting with a woman in Seattle whose husband had died suddenly. We were in her living room at two in the afternoon, one of those rare spring days when the sun finally breaks through after months of the gray pallor of winter and drizzle that doesn't end. The kind of day that feels precious in the Pacific Northwest precisely because it's so rare. Birds singing outside, light streaming through the windows, the world suddenly bright and alive. And she looked at me and said, "Why is it still bright outside? Doesn't the world know what just happened?" She wanted the weather to match the grief, wanted the sky to acknowledge the rupture in her life. And for three hours on a Friday afternoon two thousand years ago, that's exactly what happened.
The darkness at noon tells us that what's happening on the cross isn't just a human tragedy or political execution. This is cosmic. This is the moment when all the brokenness of the world, every act of violence and betrayal, every wound and every sin, gets placed on one man's shoulders. And the weight of it drives Him into a darkness so complete that even the sun refuses to watch.
But then Jesus cries out, and the words He chooses matter. "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" These aren't words of despair invented in the moment, they're the opening line of Psalm 22, a prayer every faithful Jew would have known by heart. It's a psalm that begins in anguish but ends in vindication and praise. Jesus is praying Scripture in His darkest hour, clinging to the words His people have prayed for generations when they felt forsaken.
And here's the scandal of it all: Jesus knows what it feels like to be abandoned by God. The One who has existed in perfect communion with the Father from before time began experiences separation. The One who told His disciples He and the Father are one feels the crushing weight of distance. Not because God actually abandoned Him, but because Jesus took on Himself every human experience of God-forsakenness, every moment when we've cried out and heard only silence, every prayer that seemed to bounce off the ceiling.
This is the beautiful upset at its most brutal: the King who saves us by experiencing the very abandonment we deserve. The God who rescues us by entering into the worst thing we could ever feel.
1. Where have you felt abandoned by God?
2. How does it change things to know Jesus felt that abandonment too?
3. What might it mean that Jesus prays Scripture in His darkest moment?
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