Good Friday 2025:

It came to me that we should think about the dark-ness. It was not a work of nature. It would have reminded the Jews of the 3 days of darkness that fell upon Egypt before the first Passover, leading to their Exodus through the Red Sea, and to God’s making what came to be called the Old Covenant with them.

The darkness was a work of God, a physical blocking out of light, expressing a spiritual reality. Hard to grasp. Think of it like this.

Have you ever been so upset by somebody that you felt rejected, hurt, unloved. An upset that ruined your day, spoilt your sleep, which despite your efforts you could not heal - your relationship could never be again what it was before. Your well-being fell into darkness.

Or perhaps you were the one who did that to another.

Your hurting actions brought darkness into their life.

The Bible calls these actions sin. The bad ways we treat each other brings darkness into our lives. The darkness represents all the sin of the world, even our sin. God is love and light and life, but sin undoes God’s love; it's darkness shuts out God’s light; it separates us from God the source of life. Instead of life, sin ropes us into death.

Yet God made us to be His people; to live with us in love and joy and peace. And we, as His people, want to stop living in hate and sorrow and conflict and enjoy the life He made us for. Yet we cant stop doing things that hurt others and separate us from God.

We are the cause of our own troubles. And we cant get out of that. However because God loves us, when the time was ready God in Christ became one with us, as a human being, to get us out of the mess we had made for ourselves. Hence Jesus healed people, and taught people about His Father’s love, and raised people from the dead.

But that only helped the people who met Him there and then. Something had to be done for everyone, for God wants everyone to be saved. That is why Jesus freely died on the cross.

On the cross God in Christ Jesus chooses to take upon Himself the sins of the world.

On the cross Christ Jesus surrenders Himself to the wages of sin and dies for us.

On the cross Christ Jesus suffers the ultimate darkness of separation from His Father, hence He cries “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”

As He gave Himself to death on the cross, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The curtain represented the general separation of God and Man.

No man could stand upon or above the curtain and tear it in two. Only Good could.

And only God did. It is a action sign of God’s ending our separation from Him. By His death, Christ Jesus who is God and Man made one, opens the way for every man to come home to God. He took our sin to free us from the power of sin, and our death to give us eternal life. You might call the tearing of the curtain the first-light of Easter. Amen