WWUTT 2516 The Sun's Light Failed (Luke 23:44-45)

There are no contradictions in the Gospels, although there are many who have tried to say that there's inconsistencies, especially when it comes to what's recorded about the death of Jesus.

But we know these are historical facts when we understand the text. This is

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Luke, we come back to chapter 23, which we'll finish this week, reading of the death of Jesus and the burial of Jesus' body.

I'm gonna start by reading verses 44 to 56. Hear the word of the Lord. It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun's light failed.

And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 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.

Now, when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, certainly this man was innocent.

And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.

And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.

Now, there was a man named Joseph from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their decision and action, and he was looking for the kingdom of God.

This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid.

It was the day of preparation and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid.

Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath, they rested according to the commandment.

So today we'll be studying just the section regarding the death of Jesus, verses 44 to 49.

And here in this section, we have yet another saying from Jesus on the cross that's unique only to Luke's gospel.

Pretty much everything that Jesus says from the cross, according to Luke, is unique only to Luke.

It's not recorded in Matthew, Mark, and John. Now, John records some things that Jesus said from the cross also that are not recorded in the other three gospels.

I think especially of when he gave his mother, Mary, to the care of John. That's recorded only in the gospel of John.

But Luke has some of the most famous sayings that we have. In John's gospel, we have, it is finished.

That may be the most famous thing that Jesus said from the cross. Tetelestai in Greek, meaning it is completed, it is done.

And it is recorded in John that that's the last word of Jesus, and then he dies. Well, in Luke, Jesus says, "'Father, into your hands

I commit my spirit.'" And Luke records that as being the last word of Jesus.

So which is it, that word or the one that John recorded? Well, the answer is both. They were both final words of Jesus.

There's not anything in the gospel that says, this was the last word that he said, and then he never said another word after it.

And then both gospels make that claim and therefore contradict one another. There's no contradictions in the gospels at all.

Of course, you expect me to say that. But even with regards to the crucifixion of Jesus, there is no question in how these events took place.

All four gospels record that Jesus was denied by Peter three times.

He appeared before Pontius Pilate. He was beaten. Barabbas was set free in exchange.

Jesus was crucified at a place called the Skull, also known as Golgotha. He was hung between two criminals.

The Romans gambled over his garments to see who would be able to have them.

And then Jesus died and was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. All of those details are recorded in all four gospels.

Now, the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, though those three gospels may differ on the words that Jesus said from the cross.

You just have a different eyewitness recording a different thing that Jesus said. Doesn't mean that there's any contradiction there.

They are all just recording something different of what Jesus said in the six hours that he was hanging on the cross.

But all three gospels record darkness. I mean, I'm talking the synoptic gospels,

Matthew, Mark, and Luke. All three of them record darkness coming over the land from the sixth hour to the ninth hour.

All of them record that the temple curtain was torn. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they all say that.

Matthew includes that there was an earthquake with the tearing of the temple curtain. Mark and Luke don't include that detail, but nonetheless, they're all unanimous on in that time of darkness, in those three hours of darkness, that was when the curtain that separated the most holy place from the rest of the temple, that curtain was torn as Jesus died during the time that there was darkness over the land.

All three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, also record that there was a centurion there.

Now, they may differ in what the centurion said. In Mark, it says, truly this man was the son of God.

In Luke, we're reading here that he said, certainly this man was innocent. But again, that doesn't mean there's a contradiction.

The centurion most likely said both things, but Luke records that this man was innocent.

Matthew and Mark record that he said, surely this was the son of God. People are awed by what they see here.

It wasn't just a bunch of angry people who were mocking him, although that certainly, the most of the time that Jesus was hanging there on the cross, at least even before the darkness comes upon the land.

But Luke records here that after Jesus died, there were people that went home, even grieving and beating their breasts, were even led to believe that some of those people who had mocked him were now those who were grieving over the death of Jesus.

They saw something different in the second three hours of his death versus those first three hours.

Those first three hours, they were mocking him. Those second three hours, well, darkness came over the land. It was kind of a scary thing.

Maybe there is something about this man that we were just mocking him for, and now we're recognizing that that may have been a fatal mistake.

And so we come back to verse 44, where Luke says, it was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

Again, that's recorded in all three gospels. Now, not all three gospels say when

Jesus was crucified, but Mark tells us, Mark 15, 25, it was the third hour when they crucified him.

That means it was about nine o 'clock in the morning when he was first nailed to the cross. This is how we develop this timeline of Jesus hanging on the cross for six hours.

So from the third hour to the ninth hour, that's from nine o 'clock in the morning until noon.

And then from noon until three o 'clock, there was darkness over the land. Now, why is nine o 'clock called the third hour?

You probably know this. It has to do with how much daylight there was. So it's not like everybody was wearing watches.

No one was carrying around sundials even, so they could know exactly the position of the sun in the sky and therefore know exactly what hour it was, but they would calculate the time based on daylight.

Wasn't by their watches, it was by when the sun rose to when the sun set. And when the sun rose, that was the first hour.

When the sun was directly overhead, that was the sixth hour. So you had from the first to the third hour,

Jesus is at trial. From the third hour is when he is nailed to the cross.

The third hour to the sixth hour are those first three hours. Through that morning,

Jesus is hanging on the cross, experiencing the mockery and everything else that's going on around him as he is dying.

But then from noon to the third hour is when darkness comes over the land.

Darkness represents lament. As we read in Amos 8, nine through 10.

And on that day declares the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation.

I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head. I will make it like the morning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.

And that's certainly what Luke has in mind here, that prophecy in Amos 8, when he writes the way that he does about the death of Jesus here in Luke 23.

We know that darkness also represented divine judgment. Exodus 10, when we read about the plague of darkness that comes over the land of Egypt, God's judgment that comes upon the people who had been persecuting

Israel. Here at the cross, there is darkness once again, and this is a literal darkness.

The sun is darkened and doesn't give its light, but it's also figurative in the sense that we know that during these hours,

Jesus was bearing the wrath of God that was being poured out upon the sun for the sins of his people.

Listen again to Amos, the prophet, chapter five, verses 18 and 20. Woe to you who desire the day of the

Lord. Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light.

Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light and gloom with no brightness in it?

And we read also in Zephaniah 1 .15, a day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.

The wrath of God being poured out upon his son as he died on the cross for our sins.

So the darkness is even signifying what

Christ was accomplishing there as he died. God's judgment upon humanity is coming upon his son with the perfect son of God dying as our substitute.

The darkness wasn't caused by a solar eclipse. As many people will say,

I've even seen a couple of movies and TV shows where that's what happens while Jesus is hanging on the cross.

Like it'll show the sun up in the sky and the moon kind of passes in front. Then there's darkness over the land and people are amazed by this.

It was not a clip. It was not a solar eclipse. It was not the moon passing in front of the sun, which a solar eclipse doesn't last for three hours anyway.

This was something that was truly miraculous that was taking place.

And the people would have recognized that. Just darkness, if there was just an eclipse of the sun, then why would people be in mourning after all of that?

Why would a centurion have looked at this and said, surely this was the son of God? It was in those first three hours, they didn't see anything spectacular.

They mocked Jesus while he was hanging on the cross. But in those next three hours, something took place that they simply could not deny.

And the way that Luke records them walking away and beating their breasts, he doesn't say it was a few people.

He said it was everybody. All the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle when they saw what had taken place returned home beating their breasts.

So we're led to understand even those Jewish priests, the rulers of the synagogue, the

Pharisees and the scribes, even them and the Romans and the guards, those who had mocked

Jesus and had gambled over his garments. Even they, when they left that place were mourning over what they had witnessed.

So this happens from the sixth hour till the ninth hour, this darkness over the land while the sun's light failed.

The sun's light failed. I have no idea what this would have looked like. I don't know what the plague in Egypt would have looked like either, except we know that it's recorded for us.

You couldn't even see your hand in front of your face. So it was an intense darkness that had come upon the land.

This is not that kind of pitch blackness because they could certainly see

Jesus still hanging on the cross, but it was still alarming enough to them that they feared in the midst of those hours.

I don't know if you had the chance to take in those solar eclipses that came across the United States in the last few years.

When was that last one now? It was last year, wasn't it? Yeah, a year and a half ago. I got to see both of them.

The first one, I was still living in Kansas at the time, and so drove up to the north central part of Kansas and we watched the full eclipse.

Marysville, Kansas actually was where we went and watched the full eclipse. And then when the second one came through, the total eclipse was over Lindale where we were living.

Now we had moved by that point. We went to Arizona, but our house in Texas had not yet sold. So we had an excuse to go back.

And we went when the solar eclipse, the total eclipse was coming over Lindale. And so we were there with friends and watched it there as well.

I don't know if you had the chance to experience that. If you got to see the eclipse when it was like 97 % complete.

I saw a few people comment about that on social media. Well, where I lived, it was 97%.

So it's like, why did I need to go where it was total? What was the difference? Oh, there's a huge difference. I mean, you're talking the difference between like a little bit of shade versus darkness.

It feels like nightfall comes over the land when the sun goes out like that.

Just about near nightfall. So it's eerie whenever the sun goes out, when the moon finally comes across the sun and covers it entirely.

It's very eerie. Even though you know this is a natural phenomenon that you're witnessing.

This isn't something supernatural that's taking place. It's a natural phenomenon. But even when the sun just suddenly darkens like that, there's an eerie feeling to it.

When we were in Marysville, Kansas, it was completely clear, not a cloud in the sky. So we saw the black disc of the sun with the

Corona effect around it. When we were in Lindale, it was a little bit more cloudy. So you could still see the moon covering the sun.

But at one point, the clouds completely obscured even the eclipse that was taking place.

So you got the feel of the darkness of the eclipse without even being able to see it in the sky. That was a pretty unique experience too.

You can still see everything. It's like, you know, after sunset or something like that, about that level of darkness.

But it's still got a very, very eerie feeling to it. And that's a natural phenomenon. So imagine what this was like when something supernatural takes place in this way.

The sun failed, the sun's light failed. And what this would have been in the minds of the people who were there to witness all of this, the one that they had just been mocking.

And now they realize he's the reason why this darkness has come upon the land in this way.

Now, Luke doesn't say something explicitly like the wrath of God was being poured out on the sun as he was dying there on the cross.

But understanding what Jesus accomplished is noted in the next line.

So verse 45, the sun's light failed. And then the second half of the verse, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

So God would not be separated from his people any longer and be in a most holy place that was guarded by this huge curtain.

It was massively thick. It was the width or the thickness of a hand breadth.

So the curtain was as thick as your hand. And it was, I can't remember how many feet tall.

Wasn't it like 60 feet tall? So a hand breadth in width and then a 60 foot tall curtain.

And this curtain tore, again, by the supernatural hand of God.

You have these two supernatural statements in this one verse, the sun's light failed and the curtain of the temple was torn in two, symbolizing that God would no longer be separate from his people, but through Jesus Christ, he would dwell with his people.

My friends, you and I right now, God dwelling with us. If you have faith in Jesus, if you are a follower of Christ, then

God is with you. And so that curtain in the temple was torn that we would know

God would not remain separate from his people any longer. Now this was symbolic. God was not actually dwelling in the most holy place.

Remember when the temple was reconstructed in the second temple period, you don't have what happened when

Solomon first built the temple. When Solomon built the temple and he consecrated it and prayed, there was that prayer of dedication that he gave to the

Lord. The Lord came down in fire and filled that place. And his presence was in the temple, that temple that Solomon built.

But the second temple, there was never anything like that, where God comes down and shows himself dwelling in the temple with his people.

There were people that certainly believed that, they still regarded the most holy place with sacredness, but God still tore the curtain symbolically to show that he would not be separate from his people any longer.

It wouldn't be the sort of a thing where a high priest goes into the most holy place just once a year on your behalf and sacrifices for you.

Now it was gonna be that God would always be with his people. We are the temple of the

Holy Spirit. God dwells within us. And this was even shown through Luke's account with the curtain of the temple being torn to show that our access to God is now through Jesus Christ.

All that needed to be accomplished by his death was accomplished. And so then in verse 46,

Jesus called out with a loud voice and said, father into your hands, I commit my spirit.

And having said this, he breathed his last and then he died. Now we're gonna come back to that tomorrow.

We're gonna consider those words from Jesus into your hands, I commit my spirit.

But my friends for the portion that we have read, we know that the judgment of God is upon every person because of their sin.

But the wrath of God has been satisfied by the death of Jesus Christ. And if you believe in Jesus, you know that Jesus died for you.

And the wrath of God that was on you because of your sin against God, Christ has paid for with his death on the cross.

The millions and millions, if not billions of people that Jesus atone for with his perfect sacrifice.

And then by faith in Jesus Christ, there is still a temple of God and it's you.

God dwelling within you that we would be holy and blameless before him in love.

And so walk in the righteousness of Christ that you've been given by faith in him.

The Holy Spirit that dwells within you, walk in such a way that you demonstrate that the

Holy Spirit is there. You don't do good works to invite the Holy Spirit in.

If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, he's already there. And so your life will be a testimony to the fact that you are a temple of God.

And the Holy Spirit compels you to live in such a way that is obedient to God who gave so much for you that you would not perish, but have everlasting life through faith in Jesus.

Heavenly Father, as I often close this program, we thank you for what we've read.

And I pray that these words would continue to resonate with us. We've heard many times about the death of Jesus Christ.

It's a nationwide holiday in the Western world when we think of Easter and Jesus eating the last supper with his disciples and going to the cross and dying and then rising again from the dead that we celebrate on Resurrection Sunday.

But these are things that we should be thinking of continually. Our sin was what put

Jesus on that cross. You gave your son so that we would not have to perish, but you would be glorified in showing mercy upon us poor sinners and taking care of that penalty that we could not pay by paying it through your son.

And so Lord, as we meditate on this today, I pray that it fills us with joy and compels us to live lives of righteousness that we've been given by faith in Jesus Christ.

And a day will come when we will be called home and we will dwell with you forever in the eternal kingdom, access that we've been given through Christ who went ahead of us.

It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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