Six to Nine

Matt. 27:45

S

o were the hours of supernatural darkness (Matt. 27:45).  All of creation must have groaned as the timepiece of eternity struck six bells and prophecy was becoming history.  It was as if a crape curtain draped the scene of sorrow and at noon when the sun was at its peek it refused to shine.  I can only imagine that the wind held its breath and the waves that once obeyed His voice must have collapsed lifeless and in shame into a sheet of glass on Galilee as the Creator of the Universe hung on the cross. 

 What took place behind the scenes of five mortal senses is harder to imagine, for there in the darkness One who knew no sin, became sin for us.  The Psalmist wrote long before “ Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup” Ps. 11:6.  What awful dregs filled that “cup” that day, only God Himself can tell.  Yet, this is the cup he prayed about in the garden “if it be possible let this cup pass from me. Yet not my will, but thine be done.” 

 In those three long hours, somewhere between time and eternity a transaction was made, a price was paid, a promise was kept.  No gall, no vinegar, no myrrh was more bitter than what was in that cup that day.  The Eleventh Psalm ends by saying “For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.”  He who is too pure to look upon iniquity turned his face away from Christ that day in the blackest moment causing life’s saddest lamentation “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” 

 Then when the last grain of sand ran out of the ninth hour, and Jesus announced that it was finished, and commended his Spirit unto the Father, the only sound the angels  must have heard was the rending of the Temple veil from top to bottom, which made a way for me to enter.