Calvary
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to be blotted out. Complete darkness enveloped the cross, and all the
vicinity about, like a funeral pall. There was no eclipse or other natural
cause for this darkness, which was deep as midnight without moon
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or stars. The dense blackness was an emblem of the soul-agony and
horror that encompassed the Son of God. He had felt it in the garden
of Gethsemane, when from his pores were forced drops of blood, and
where he would have died had not an angel been sent from the courts
of Heaven to invigorate the divine sufferer, that he might tread his
blood-stained path to Calvary.
The darkness lasted three full hours. No eye could pierce the
gloom that enshrouded the cross, and none could penetrate the deeper
gloom that flooded the suffering soul of Christ. A nameless terror
took possession of all who were collected about the cross. The silence
of the grave seemed to have fallen upon Calvary. The cursing and
reviling ceased in the midst of half-uttered sentences. Men, women,
and children prostrated themselves upon the earth in abject terror.
Vivid lightnings, unaccompanied by thunder, occasionally flashed forth
from the cloud, and revealed the cross and the crucified Redeemer.
Priests, rulers, scribes, executioners, and the mob, all thought their
time of retribution had come. After a while, some whispered to others
that Jesus would now come down from the cross. Some attempted to
grope their way back to the city, beating their breasts and wailing in
fear.
At the ninth hour the terrible darkness lifted from the people, but
still wrapt the Saviour as in a mantle. The angry lightnings seemed to
be hurled at him as he hung upon the cross. Then “Jesus cried with a
loud voice, saying, Eloi, eloi, lama sabacthani? which is, being inter-
preted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” As the outer
gloom settled about Christ, many voices exclaimed, The vengeance of
God is upon him! The bolts of God’s wrath are hurled upon him be-
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cause he claimed to be the Son of God! When the Saviour’s despairing
cry rang out, many who had believed on him were filled with terror;
hope left them; if God had forsaken Jesus, what was to become of his
followers, and the doctrine they had cherished?
The darkness now lifted itself from the oppressed spirit of Christ,
and he revived to a sense of physical suffering, and said, “I thirst.”
Here was a last opportunity for his persecutors to sympathize with and
relieve him; but when the gloom was removed their terror abated, and