Mid-day Darkness!

Rev. George R. Dillahunty
Freedom Fellowship (COG)
685 Grant Avenue
Virginia Beach, Virginia 23452-3047

March 17, 2009

Text: Luke 23:44-45 (King James Version)

"And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. (v. 45) And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the Temple was rent in the midst."

Topic: Mid-day Darkness!

One of the six (6) miracles of Calvary was the "Mid-day Darkness" - when the sun stopped shining between the sixth (noon) hour and the ninth hour (3 o’clock in the afternoon). It was the beginning of the Divine procession of signs that heralded the death of Jesus, the Christ - the only-begotten Son of Almighty God! It was followed by five (5) other miracles: (1) The supernatural tearing of the veil in the Temple; (2) The earthquake and the splitting of the rocks; (3) the opening of the graves; (4) the empty tomb; and, (5) the resurrection of many Saints who had died! Some of these miracles occurred in the heavens - others occurred under the earth! They became a unique set of miracles which attached themselves irrevocably to the Eternal Act of Redemption by Jesus, the Christ!

By the time the darkness had descended upon the land, Jesus, the Christ, had been hanging on that "Old Rugged Cross" for three (3) hours - from nine o’clock in the morning until twelve noon! This darkness was of a very special kind - it covered "all the earth!" It is impossible to tell whether this extraordinary darkness covered half of the earth as darkness would normally do in the absence of the sun! However, if this phenomenon was limited only to Judea it would be even more amazing for it would be an example of the kind of concentrated darkness that Almighty God sent upon Egypt for three (3) days! In that instance, only Goshen, where the Israelites lived, had light (Exodus 10:21-22 KJV)! In any event, we do know with certainty that darkness extended over the whole of Judea!

This was a supernatural darkness - it was not the kind of darkness that preceded the earthquake that occurred at Naples in 79 A.D. when Mount Vesuvius erupted! That was a natural phenomenon - a volcanic eruption - in which smoke and ashes blotted out the sun’s iight from the earth below! This darkness extended far beyond the mount of Cavalry where the earthquake originated which was to follow it!

It is tempting to believe that an eclipse of the sun coincidentally occurred at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus, the Christ! The difficulty with that premise is the fact that this darkness lasted unabated for a period of three (3) hours! This removes any possibility of a solar eclipse since the longest eclipse of the sun lasts only a few minutes! Additionally, this darkness occurred during the Festival of the Passover, which is always celebrated during the time of the full moon, when an eclipse of the sun is impossible!

Yet, in some inexplicable way, the sun was darkened - not a normal event - in some supernatural way, the light simply failed - nor was the darkness caused by the natural rotation of the earth shielding the rays of the sun from half of the planet - a phenomenon that causes night! No. my brothers and sisters, it was dark at noontime - when the sun was at its zenith! It was a supernatural phenomenon because darkness recoils at the first rays of sunlight - yet, here the reverse occurred!The darkness