Text: Mark 15:33-47
Location and Date: Remsen Bible Fellowship, 07/06/2025
Title: The Darkest Day
Mark 15:33-47, And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 35 And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.” 36 And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” 37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
40 There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 41 When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.
42 And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. 45 And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. 46 And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.
Introduction
When you hear the phrase, “The Darkest Day”, what comes to mind? I don’t mean in world history—we’ll turn there very shortly. But for this moment, I want that question to be intensely personal. When you think of your darkest day, what comes to mind?
As you consider that day, I wonder if you asked then—or maybe you still ask now—“my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” You wouldn’t be the first to ask such a question. Three thousand years ago King David wrote those very words (Psalm 22:1), and as we just read, Jesus quotes them from the cross. David, and the other psalmists, asked a lot of questions along those lines.
Psalm 13:1a, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?”
Psalm 79:5, “How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever?”
Psalm 89:46, “How long, O LORD? Will you hide yourself forever?”
Psalm 13:1b, “How long will you hide your face from me?”
The psalmists knew about dark days. And they knew how to bring those days of darkness to the Lord. They did not do the normal Christian thing of putting a stiff upper lip on and pretending like every day feels “#blessed.” When everything felt dark, when God seemed distant, they simply asked: where are you, God?
Darkness Absorbed
The sort of honesty is striking coming from the psalmists. But it is, in my view, almost mind-boggling when it’s coming from the lips of Jesus himself. Verse 33 tells us that darkness enveloped the whole land for three hours—the sixth to ninth hours, that is, noon until 3pm.
Darkness in the Old Testament was largely associated with God’s judgement—think of the ninth plague in Egypt. Darkness enveloped the whole land. And this immediately precedes the final judgement—the death of the firstborn son.
Or consider Amos 8:9, ‘“And on that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.”’ Amos was speaking of the great and awful Day of the Lord, a time of judgement on Israel and the nations. The prophets Jeremiah and Micah both use similar imagery. The point? When God removes the light, the light which represents his blessing and presence, it is clear that his judgement has fallen.
But what should surprise us as we read this passage in light of the OT, then, is not the fact of God’s wrath, but the object: the whole land is dark, but who stands—or rather, hangs—at the center? God’s beloved Son.
We looked last week at the first half of this chapter, in which Mark clearly holds Jesus forward as the King of the Jews. He is God’s anointed, the Christ, the Messiah. And now, in verse 33, his place is just as clear: object of God’s Almighty fury. Why was Jesus in this place? To serve and save sinners. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Here, at the cross, Jesus is paying the price of that ransom. Enduring the hell of God’s wrath which you deserve. Which I deserve. Which all of those gathered around him that day deserved. The hell which all of sinful humanity deserves for our rebellion against our Creator—Jesus bore it on the cross.
No wonder, then, that in the culmination of such suffering Jesus cries out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?” — “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It’s a plea of brokenness, of sorrow, of desolation. He has borne the curse of God, endured hell, and in the midst of that suffering feels something foreign to his experience: distance from the Father.
Now, let’s be clear: the Father wasn’t absent. But his presence on Golgotha was not one of blessing his Son. It was not the voice of pleasure we hear at Jesus’ baptism or at the Transfiguration. His presence was an ominous darkness filled with silence. Where is the statement “this is my beloved Son”? Where is the statement of love, “in whom I am well-pleased”? Where is the admonition to on-lookers, “listen to him”? Silence. Darkness. The Son is forsaken.
The onlookers at the cross misunderstood Jesus, thinking he was crying out to Elijah. There were Jewish traditions which said that Elijah would come and help those in need, and those around the cross were apparently curious to see if he might show up. One person grabbed a sponge full of sour wine, basically the first century version of an electrolyte packet, and gave Jesus a drink.
But he didn’t hang there and wait for Elijah to come. He cried out with a loud voice: Mark doesn’t record what Jesus cried out, though piecing things together from the other gospels, it seems likely that here he says “It is finshed”, and/or, “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.” Mark is less concerned with precisely what Jesus said here, and more with the two-fold effect: first, we see the eternal effect: in v38, the temple curtain is torn in two, from top to bottom. There were two curtains in the temple, one between the main temple and the holy place—separating the priests from the people—and another, between the holy place and the holy of holies. Mark doesn’t differentiate for us which curtain it was which was torn. I’ve always assumed he was speaking of the inner veil, which would indicate Jesus opening the way to the Father apart from the sacrificial system. One of the commentators I read this week argued pretty strongly for it being the outer veil, which would place a stronger emphasis on God’s judgement of the Herodian temple—certainly a theme in Mark’s gospel, as Jesus predicted its complete destruction at the beginning of chapter 13.
In either case, though, the point comes back to this: Jesus’ death opened the way to direct access to God. We don’t need bloody sacrifices of sheep or bulls or goats, because the perfect Lamb of God has spilled his blood on our behalf. We don’t need a physical temple for priests to minister in and offer such sacrifices, because Jesus himself is the temple, the meeting place of heaven and earth. And we don’t need priests, because Jesus is our great high priest, and has made all of his people ministers of the New Covenant he initiated with his blood.
The darkness Jesus endured on the cross was a swallowing up of the greatest darkness we face: the reality of our own sin and its eternal consequences. He opened access to, and made reconciliation with, the Father possible—but not merely possible, he made it a guarantee for everyone who trusts in the sufficiency of his work in their place.
The roman centurion standing by didn’t grasp all of that. But he had watched a lot of men die. He had seen poorly, and he had seen men die well. But he had never seen the like of the man. And so the second effect of Jesus’ death which we see in this text is its immediate effect on the man standing there: “Truly this man was the Son of God!” He wouldn’t have all the theological content to go with that statement that you or I would. But he would know that Caesar claimed to be the Son of God. He would know that Caesar was the most powerful man on earth. And he sees that whatever Caesar claims, this man actually has.
It’s a significant feature of Mark’s gospel that the theme which he states at the beginning—that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mark 1:1)—is brought full circle with those very words “truly this man was the Son of God” carried on the lips not of the Jewish elite, or the religious leaders, but of a Roman soldier. In enduring the darkness of God’s wrath on Golgotha, Jesus has shone the light of truth into this man’s life.
Helpers Rendered Helpless
But that Roman centurion was far from the only person witnessing Jesus’ death. Gathering at some distance, Mark tells us there was a group of women. He lists for us the names of three: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses, and Salome. Mary Magdalene is most known to us because in John’s gospel we read of her interaction with Jesus after the resurrection. Salome was the wife of Zebedee, and the mother of James and John. She is probably Jesus’ aunt. The second Mary listed by Mark in this passage, called the mother of James the younger and Joses, is probably the same woman referred to in the other gospels as Mary the wife of Clopas. Apparently both her husband and sons were known to the early church, and it probably depended upon which group was being spoken to which was a better way to identify her.
What Mark tells us about these women is important: they had followed him down to Jerusalem, but this was hardly the beginning of their interactions with Jesus. They had followed him while in Galilee, and had ministered to him there.
Here is a pretty straightforward observation, but it still bears our noticing: no ministry —even the ministry of Jesus—happens without the hard work of women, much of it behind the scenes. This is important to remember, perhaps especially in a church where we believe the bible teaches that leadership and teaching roles are reserved for men. That reality in no way diminishes the value or importance or necessity of gifted and active women for vital and healthy ministry to take place. These women had ministered to Jesus through their service. If this was necessary in the ministry of Jesus, how much more for us today!
Now ladies, none of that is a newsflash to you. But put yourself, then, in the sandals of these women standing near the cross. They had followed this man, the king of the Jews, the promised Messiah, you had heard him teach and watched him heal. You had made arrangements with other ladies in your networks of family and friends to make sure Jesus and his disciples had a place to stay from town to town, you had made meals for this group of men, mostly in their late teens and twenties—heaven knows how much work that was—you had been able to help at every point along the way.
And now, here you stand, helpless. You have ministered to the Lord over the course of days and months and maybe years, and now, in his hour of greatest need, you stand helpless.
You’ve been there, haven’t you? When life takes a dark turn, and someone you love desperately needs your help—and there is absolutely nothing you can do. Nothing that is, except sit there and cry.
There is a temptation in those moments to feel like a failure. To feel as if you have dropped the ball. You’ve let your loved one down, you’ve let yourself down, you’ve let Jesus down. Dear friend, you can’t let Jesus down. You weren’t holding him up.
When it came to helping Jesus on the cross, there was nothing these women could do: and Jesus didn’t expect from them the impossible. There are days of darkness in your life when you feel helpless because you are helpless. And God does not hold that against you, he is not expecting anything from you in those moments of deepest grief other than to simply grieve. Sometimes even the best of helpers are helpless.
Taking Courage
Mark shifts his camera to one more character in this passage. Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council. The council likely refers to the Sanhedrin—the very body of men who had condemned Jesus in that illegal nighttime trial and turned him over to Pilate for execution. He was a man looking for the kingdom of God, and this explains his being drawn to Jesus—the king of the Jews.
Daylight is beginning to fade, there are only a few short hours before the Sabbath would begin at sunset. It was very common in cases of crucifixion for the bodies to be left on the cross for scavengers and carrion birds, but the Jews had requested that these bodies be taken down before the sun went down because the next day was a high feast day (John 19:31). Usually, then, the bodies would be taken to a place far outside the city and buried away from the view of polite society, although families could usually make a request for the body of a loved one. But Jesus’ family is nowhere to be found. Likely his mother knew she didn’t have the ability to give her son a proper burial in that limited time, and most likely had no resources of her own to even secure a tomb. And Jesus’ brothers are nowhere to be found.
Enter Joseph. This man, a member of the council, wealthy and well-respected, “took courage” the text tells us, and goes to Pilate. Why did this require courage? First of all, because to be identified with Jesus would connect you with his “crimes.” He’s essentially going to Pilate and being identified with someone who was just executed for sedition.
Now, of course, Pilate knows Jesus wasn’t guilty of any such crime, so maybe that risk is mitigated. Which brings us to the second and far more substantial area of courage required of Joseph: courage before his countrymen. By being identified with Jesus, the now-defeated enemy of the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, and all of the Jerusalem elite, Joseph is placing himself in opposition to all of those in his social circles. He was essentially signing up to be a social outcast. And he is doing so after Jesus no longer seems ascendent. This is not a bandwagoner. This is a believer. Friends, Joseph’s actions took real courage.
When Pilate hears the request, he is by the quick death, but once he confirmed with the centurion that Jesus was, in fact, dead, he granted Joseph the body. Joseph then took Jesus’ body and, though Mark doesn’t explicitly say this, we can assume he washed it; then he wrapped the body in a linen shroud which he had purchased. He then lays Jesus in a tomb which he either already owned or also purchased. The way the stone is described indicates that this was a tomb intended for the rich—while most tombs had rocks designed to be inserted into the slot and seal the entrance, a few 1st century tombs have been found which have a rolling stone. This large cut stone would have been set inside a grove and been placed in such a way that one or two men could roll it into place, as it was on a downhill grade. But it would take several strong men to roll it back up and out of the way. Thus, we have a fulfillment of Isaiah 53:9 that his grave would be with a rich man in his death.
Joseph took all of these actions at great personal cost. Literally, in that he had to purchase the shroud, purchase the tomb, and probably pay servants to execute all of these actions. It’s highly unlikely that he could have done this all working alone. And moreso, as we already mentioned, at great social and political cost, as well.
What was his motivation? We don’t get a first personal narrative from Joseph of Arimethea, and the narrator doesn’t tell us his motivations, either. We simply see his actions. And his actions speak loudly to a love, honor, and respect that is motivated—even in the darkness of loss and seeming defeat—to do the next right thing.
The women at the foot of the cross genuinely were helpless—they could do nothing for Jesus’ body with the time and financial and physical constraints they faced. But Joseph could. And so he did. This is another lesson for us in the darkness of our darkest days. Sometimes there is nothing to do. But sometimes there is something to do, some obvious and in front of you responsibility to take up. And in those moments, the thing to do is to step into that gap and do what needs to be done. Joseph could make sure Jesus’ body was honored, and he spared no effort, expense, or public criticism to make sure it was taken care of.
In his doing so, he afforded the women an opportunity to do what they could—mark the place where Jesus lay, so that they could come back Sunday morning.
He Knows Your Frame
Friends, there was no darker day in human history than that Friday afternoon outside of Jerusalem. There, the Lamb of God was taking away the sins of the world—taking them into his body, on the tree, and absorbing the wrath of God for you and for me. There, his dearest friends could do nothing to help him as he suffered. He bore that darkness alone.
But friends, that darkness lifted. Not immediately. The women still wept. Joseph, I’m sure, wept as he and his servants cleaned and wrapped and buried the broken body of the Lord. But when you are in your darkest moments, when you are wracked by questioning and fear and disappointment with God, I want you to remember: we have a Savior who has been in the darkness, too. He is not surprised when there is nothing you can do; though he will often leave you something to do, as small as it may feel. But when you feel the darkness will not lift, remember: our Savior has descended into hell, and he knows the way out of the grave. Friday was dark. Saturday was bleak. But Sunday will come.
