You Were There (12/28/12)
This is a scene designed to draw the reader in. How could one not imagine having been at the scene? For now, let me focus on that more widely visible event of the sun being darkened for several hours. Bear in mind that the understanding of cosmic events of this nature was far less developed then than it is now, and would be particularly mysterious to the average citizen. Some may have held a degree of understanding as to the mechanics of the universe, but it was certainly not common knowledge. The sun going dark, even were this a normal eclipse, would be a thing to note well.
In our day, an event such as a total eclipse is something that many would travel great lengths to observe. After all, it is something that only a tiny fraction of the planet will experience at all. It is a rarity, a novelty. For this older civilization, it was far more. It was a sign, and make no mistake about it! Even had this been a normal eclipse, it would be viewed as a sign, and this was no normal eclipse. Now, a footnote to the NET indicates that it could not be a normal eclipse given the full moon. The moon could hardly be opposite the sun and before the sun at the same time. I’ll grant that. However, more telling by far is the duration. A quick glance at the NASA website suggests a duration of totality measured in minutes. What we have here is hours. So, then: even if we were standing there with experience of such things, having seen an eclipse before, one thing would be painfully obvious to us: This is not what we experienced before!
Standing around the cross that day, I would be amidst a people far more attuned to the spiritual forces that abound. They may have misunderstood the nature of those spirits, assuming gods where there is but One. But, they understood that the forces of nature were not so random as all that, nor were they mere mechanical actions with no controlling intelligence. Even a perfectly normal and natural eclipse would be viewed with concern for its meaning. This one? I repeat: Nobody before nor anybody since ever experienced an eclipse of such duration. That ought to suffice to make clear that this was not an eclipse. This was a message delivered in no uncertain terms.
For the Jews in particular, there was this massive body of prophecy concerning the Day of the Lord. It would be, we might recall, a day of deep darkness. And behold! Here is darkness at midday! Now, then, there you and I stand in the midst of the crowd on that hill, raised in the traditions of Israel, sons of faithful mothers and regulars at synagogue. What do you suppose our first thought will be upon seeing this phenomenon? It isn’t going to be curiosity or delight. The timing, the coincidence of the heavens darkening just as the Son is crucified, this together with the full knowledge of what was being said about Him; God was sending a message, and there wasn’t the least chance that we missed it. Well, then, even were we His staunchest disciple, this must cause grave concern. If ever there was a moment to repent, or a moment in which to fear that the time for repentance had passed us by, this was it. There is either relief at knowing ourselves ready, or there is panic at knowing the opposite. And, frankly, even for the Apostles, the first knowledge was not yet available. That leaves one reaction.
Now, imagine yourself, panicked and distraught at this sign of God’s judgment, going back into to Jerusalem and learning that the veil of the temple had been mysteriously rent top to bottom in that same moment. Do you suppose thoughts of the Ichabod, of Ezekiel’s visions of the abandoned temple might be coming to mind in pretty short order? What else could it mean if the door to God’s holy abode there in the midst of the table were burst open, but that He had left the building? Thoughts of entrance being made available to one and all would not even come to mind. The only possibility was the worst. I cannot imagine that any other reaction existed, even for the Apostles, but this assumption that God had finally, once for all, abandoned His people to their fate. Nor can I imagine any more terrible feeling.
New Thoughts (12/29/12)
As I have this week off, I have been taking the opportunity to monitor an online course introducing certain concepts of proper Biblical interpretation, exegesis and hermeneutics. Certain of the points brought up in the portions I have listened to thus far come up even in this brief statement about the darkness that fell. First, there is that matter of ‘all the land’. All is easily understood, particularly given Luke’s use of an alternate term indicating ‘the whole’. All means all. Got it. But, the land?
Geen, the term used in all three accounts bears any number of potential meanings. Some of them we can discount pretty swiftly. For example, we are not contrasting land and sea, so it’s not land in that regard. But, there is also a sense to the term of indicating the entire world by way of contrast with the heavens. Some translations have opted for this understanding. The whole world was darkened for three hours. Well, there’s several problems with such an understanding, aren’t there? First, a good half of the world would have been dark anyway, such that it wouldn’t make much sense to speak of it as something unusual. Second, (and here we are, I think, at the first rule of hermeneutics), it would seem improbable that it meant such a thing to either Luke or his readers. If my memory of ancient history serves on this occasion, the nature or extent of the world was not terribly well understood. Even if he had meant such a grand scope, it would have been smaller in his conception than our present day knowledge of the globe we call the earth.
A third argument arises against understanding it on so grand a scale, and that is that any such marvelous imposition of darkness at midday would assuredly have been noticed and noted in every region that observed it. Think about those magi who had come at His birth. They came because of a star appearing. Is it to be believed that they would not also take particular note of even a typical eclipse, let alone one so unnaturally prolonged? Likewise, the Greeks had their astronomers, and the Egyptians, too. Would there not be mention of this somewhere?
But, geen need not have so global a meaning. The same term may speak only of a particular country. It may speak solely of a particular territory or region. This might seem to minimize the power of that image of a darkened sun, but it need not do so. The only reason it feels minimized is because of our understanding, or our suppositions, as to its significance. God is announcing His judgment. Surely, this ought be, like His Son’s eventual return, something visible to all the earth! But, let it be supposed that the phenomenon was observable in a more restricted area, maybe even just here around Jerusalem. The fact that the situation endured for three hours is already sufficiently astounding. An eclipse that happened to be timed for events is one thing. We can appreciate God’s knowledge of His celestial timetables, and how He maneuvered everybody into action to achieve this coincidence. But, a normal eclipse doesn’t linger like this. It would explain the relatively narrow range of observation, yes, but not the length.
This moves us into another issue for interpretation, which is that different manuscripts indicate a different term being used by Luke to describe what happened. In many, the term is that very word from which we get our own eclipse, eklipontos. Other manuscripts have a term with less baggage, skotizo. There arises certain debate as to which is original. One theory purports that some scribe down the line, thinking to protect Luke’s reputation, changed from eclipse to obscure, cover. But, it is noted, the eclipse term need not refer to the actual, scientific understanding of such an event. It can have the sense of simply failing, ceasing, even dying. The NASB appears to have followed this purported scribe, and settles for, ‘the sun being obscured’. But, then one must ask obscured by what? What object, large as the moon, suddenly settled into place and then remained in some sort of geosynchronous orbit so as to keep its shadow stuck over Jerusalem? But, if we take it that the sun simply stopped, failed, ceased, while we have certainly eliminated any scientific explanation currently available, we have also removed that search for an interfering object. And, from our perspective, a God Who can calm the seas with a word, Who can produce food on demand, Who can restore life to the dead, Who has, in times past, caused the sun to halt in its course to allow His people time to achieve victory, this temporary failure of the sun is no great shakes to accomplish.
Let it stand, then, that the sun, at least as seen from Jerusalem and surrounding areas, failed. How? It is not told us, nor are we likely to discover it, except by confessing God is in control even of such things as this. As well ask how Lazarus had been restored, how all those paltry loaves of barley bread fed so many and still resulted in such extensive leftovers. As well ask how the lepers were being cured, how the centurion’s daughter was made alive. The answer must resolve to one of two: either the whole thing is fabricated nonsense or God supersedes nature. Many prefer the nonsense answer, but that answer is itself nonsense. It would take a conspiracy beyond the imaginations of the most paranoid to have pulled off such a thing. There are far too many specifics, entirely too many witnesses, named and otherwise, for such an account to have been fabricated. That leaves one answer: God is how.
Having established this, at least to my own satisfaction, we might move on to the question of why. I think we must understand that this is firmly connected to the Crucifixion taking place there at Golgatha. I think we must also understand the clearly taught significance of this Crucifixion. All of history had been building to this point, and here it was. From that earliest of times when Adam and Eve had been escorted to the door of Eden and requested not to come back, there had been an issue of sin in creation, in mankind particularly. But, even from that point, even before that point, the plan of God had been established. There would be reconciliation for those upon whom He would have mercy. The Son was promised there at Eden’s gate, and the Son was now come. Indeed, the Son was now willingly giving Himself up to be sacrificed, an Innocent offered on behalf of the sins of the many. Here was the culmination of the entire ritual of Israel’s worship. This is what all those sacrifices were pointing to: The One and final sacrifice.
That sacrifice, though, marked a point of finality. Jesus had opened His ministry with the proclamation that this was now, today, the acceptable year of the Lord’s choosing (Lk 4:18-21). “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” He had said. Today, on Golgatha, the day of the Lord was come. This is not to say it was the final fulfillment of every prophecy made about the day of the Lord. Much of that would seem to await His return. But, the certainty of that day was established beyond doubt. Listen: At the very start of Scripture, with the story of creation, it is written that the sun and the moon are given for signs (Ge 1:14). Yes, they mark the passage of time, the changing of seasons. But, that is only the mundane part of their purpose. Those signs are occasionally of greater significance. Like that star which the magi had followed, the sign signified something singular. The sign, I should note, was meant to be understood.
Here, too, the sign is meant to be understood. In fact, it was a sign of which many a prophet had already spoken. I will choose but two. “It will be in that day that I shall make the sun go down at noon, making the earth dark in broad daylight” (Am 8:9). “That day is a day of wrath,” (Zeph 1:15a). Having worked through Amos last spring and summer, there is no doubt but that he is thinking of the same day Zephaniah makes explicit. God is rightfully angry, and His righteous anger is towards His own. Judgment begins in the house of God, the family of God, amongst those He has chosen, before ever it can reasonably apply to anybody else.
Listen! Forget the Romans on the hill. They were sufficiently superstitious that this would shake them as little else could. But, consider the Jews. Noonday, and the earth is made dark. Even the most callous of those scribes and priests hanging about must recognize the picture from their scrolls. “That day is a day of wrath.” And now, by the evidence of their own eyes, that day was become this day. The darkened sun was an unmistakable message, and it was being delivered in no uncertain terms. You have crucified God. This is the day of judgment. His sacrifice is accepted. But, they avail not for your sins. His sacrifice will indeed apply to the many, to all who have or will in the future believe. But, for you, the time for repentance, the time for believing is past. You think you have judged Him, but you are yourselves judged, and like so many before you, you have been found wanting.
Here under the darkened sun, the sinfulness of man was fully exposed. Here, in the fact that the darkness was dispelled after a few hours, the mercy of God was also fully exposed. He did not have to forgive anybody. He did not have to send His Son. He did not have to subject Himself to this agony, to His own wrath. But, He would, as His Name says, have mercy on whom He would have mercy. This day of great darkness would be the doom of some. But, this day of great darkness would be light eternal to the many who God calls to Himself.
Let me make one final point on this. It is too easy for us to look around at those surrounding Jesus and find any number of people to blame for His death. Over the centuries the Church has expended more than enough energy seeking out the villains. It was the evil Romans! It was the vile Jews! It was both. It was an absolute travesty of justice on all parts. While there is a grain of truth to each and every one of those views, they all manage to miss the point. It was God. God instigated the event, not man. This is not to suggest in any way that any man, let alone mankind more generally, was let off the hook. No! It is precisely because we are all on the hook that God found it needful to act. But, it is He Who controlled the whole event. Not just the sun and its odd behavior, not just the temple veil suddenly splitting; He grew the tree Jesus hung upon. He fashioned the ore that went into the nails that held Him there. He appointed the emperor who appointed Pilate, who had corrupted the office of high priest and made it a political assignment. He had set Caiaphas and his father-in-law in place for just such a time as this. He sent His Son. We did not call Him down here. He was sent. He commanded His Son to accept the final mission on the cross. He ever was, ever shall be, and certainly is in this very moment, in control. And He knows what He is doing. That is assurance beyond measure.
