Listen to these songs:

Son of Suffering – Hillsong

How Deep the Father’s Love for Us

Read ISAIAH 53 below:

¹Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

²He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

³He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

⁴Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by stricken by him, and afflicted.

⁵But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

⁶We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

⁷He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

⁸By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.

⁹He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

¹¹After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

¹²Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Watch this video.

In the beginning, the earth was dark, chaotic, and empty. Into that darkness, the Lord cried out, “Let there be light”. (Light the Candle) In the Latin it is Fiat Lux, a command to bring light into being, but in the Hebrew there is something more gentle about it. Light is being invited into existence, as a creative partner that will join God in bringing about that which is good, beautiful, and true. The science bears it out. We need light. Plants grow, immune systems strengthen, spirits lift, and sleep deepens in the glow of sunlight provided at creation. But this is only science catching up to what Yahweh had told His people thousands of years ago. He saw the light, and that it was good, when there was evening and morning on the first day. Trace the goodness to its source and we find the Lord of the universe spilling out love into the creation of all things. 

It is unnerving then, to think that sometimes the sky goes dark. Even more than storm clouds gathering, we see in the Biblical narrative, times where darkness enveloped the earth even more deeply than forty days and forty nights of rain could bring about. In the Exodus story Pharaoh rejects God out of hand. This supposed representative of the sun god Re, hardens his heart and sets his kingdom against that of Yahweh. One rejection at a time, we see chaos grow, the fields empty, and at the ninth plague, unending darkness envelopes Egypt. The language that the author of Exodus uses is straight out of the Genesis creation accounts. The God that has invited creation, and humanity, to join Him in spilling out in love, has loved us so fully that He allows us to reject Him, to work against His acts of creation.

The final act of creation in Genesis 1 had been to place humanity in the garden to work it and to take care of it. Instead, Pharaoh, and his governmental machinery had outsourced their labor to the Israelite slaves, stripping work of its meaning and the Israelites of their knowledge that they were made in the image of God. Notice how Pharaoh thinks that only he exists in the image of a god on earth. Instead of serving creation alongside the one true God, he has organized all of creation to serve himself only. He is willing to kill to bring this about. In fact, it was he who first turned the Nile to blood when he ordered that the Hebrew boys be killed to protect his powerfully fragile machine. Now at the final rejection of God by Pharaoh, the violence they had sown in the land grew to its full height, and all those who did not call on the mercy of the Lord lost their firstborn son.

Next, the Lord drew His firstborn, Israel (Exodus 4:22), through the waters in a redemptive act of recreation. He had split the waters just like in creation and brought forth life out of a land of death. He led them with a pillar of fire by night, and a cloud by day. Then, at Sinai, God commissioned them to be a kingdom of priests, and the holy nation that He had always intended for humanity to be (Exodus 19). Those of us who have read the story though, know that this calling is frustrated by the Israelites’ failings. They had been called to be a light to the world (Isaiah 49:6), but like Jonah, would often leave the world groping about in the dark, not knowing their right hand from their left (Jonah 4:11). Who will save us from this body of death (Romans 7:24-25)? Who will partner with God on behalf of the people and lead us back into the Eden of fullness and light? 

There had been one foretold. As in Isaiah 9:2, when we read that for those who have been walking in darkness a great light will dawn. Who could this be? The disciples of Jesus were fully convinced that He was the one they had been waiting for. The apostle John went so far as to call Him the light of the world, shining in the darkness (John 1). As He moved about the land giving sight to the blind, or exposing the darkness and corruption of the systems of this world, the crowds gathered as in anticipation of the dawn. He taught these crowds on the hillsides, on the seashores, and in the Temple, reminding them that they were to be like a city on a hill, and a light to the world (Matthew 5:14). As He moved among them, He lit their path  to show them the way (Psalm 119:105). As the Good Shepherd, He was willing to go far off the beaten path to bring all who would listen into the fold.

But there were those who refused to have the ears to listen, and simply did not have the eyes to see. Blind to the “kingdom come near among” them, they held fast to old paradigms and power structures. Their chief priests said things like, “sometimes it is better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish (John 11:50)”, and had no idea how right they were. They certainly were as Jesus described them, the blind leading the blind. They mistook the gloam of their pretended kingdoms for the dawning of a new day. In order to hold on to their moment in the sun, they put to death the true King of the Jews, the King of the entire Universe, and the lights went out. As the one who had spoken light into existence died, darkness fell over the land (Matthew 27:45). 

(Blow Out the Candle)

Take turns reading the seven last sayings of Jesus from the cross:

1. Luke 23:32-34

³²Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. ³³When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. ³⁴Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

2. Luke 23:39-43

³⁹One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” ⁴⁰But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? ⁴¹We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” ⁴²Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” ⁴³Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

3. John 19:25-27 

²⁵Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” ²⁷and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

4. Matthew 27:45-46

⁴⁵From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. ⁴⁶About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”)

5. John 19:28-29

²⁸Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” ²⁹A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.

6. John 19:30

³⁰When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

7. Luke 23:44-46

⁴⁴It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, ⁴⁵for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. ⁴⁶Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

Silence and stillness for six minutes, one minute for each hour Jesus was on the cross.

Pray the Lord’s Prayer together:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be Your name,
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
on earth as it is
in heaven.
Give us today
our daily bread.
And forgive us
our debts,
as we also have
forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not
into temptation,
but deliver us
from the evil one.