6 Hours, 7 Lessons: How Christ’s Light Transcends Our Darkness

Life is predictably unpredictable. We don’t know when suffering will come, but we know we will all suffer. We all experience dark seasons in our life when the earth gives way beneath our feet and we feel we cannot go on. Perhaps you have been praying for your child and worry consumes your heart as you watch events unfold in their life that you have no control over. Maybe there is strife and division in your family, and you’re exhausted from walking on eggshells all the time. Maybe a health crisis has totally blindsided you. Or the bitterness of unresolved hurt keeps you up at night, burdened with negativity you can’t seem to shake. Christians know we can weather these storms if we are anchored in Christ, but that does not mean the storms are not terrifying and overwhelming.

If this speaks to you right now, then we want you to know that you are not alone. Jesus Christ is not only with you in the darkness, He has been through His own terrible darkness. He came through it and overcame death itself, and now He offers us the hope of life eternal in Him. But He also offers us His presence and guidance for the dark seasons we will experience along the way. Christ’s darkest moment was His Crucifixion on the Cross, and the Gospels tell us that, in the course of some six hours, He uttered seven statements. You can imagine that if, in the darkest moment of His life, when isolation and anguish consumed Him, He gathered up the strength to say something to us, then those things must be of great importance. In fact, those seven statements contain seven principles to live by when we face our own dark seasons. His words reveal lessons of hope, peace, and comfort. When we turn to those words, we find they have the power to bring us into the light of His love and protection no matter what suffering we face.

Christ could have come at any time, but out of His immense love for humanity, He chose to come during one of the most brutal eras in history. On that final Friday of His life, He experienced the pain of betrayal, desertion by His closest friends, and the brutality of death on the Cross. It started the evening before, when He was betrayed by one of His own disciples, Judas, who helped the soldiers arrest Jesus under cover of darkness. That led to late-night trials for crimes He hadn’t committed. Then, He faced the savagery of the Roman cat-o’-nine-tails, a whip made of nine cords. At the tip of each was tied broken metal, glass, and rock that would not only bruise and lacerate the skin but rip Christ’s body apart. The typical scourging involved whipping the right and left trapezius muscle thirteen times each, separating the shoulder from the neck. Soldiers would then typically whip thirteen more times down the center of the back, for a total of thirty-nine lashes. Numerous times they would use a rod to strike the inner thighs, some of the most sensitive skin on the body.

Then, the Roman soldiers placed a crown of thorns on His head, not only to mock Him but to create intense and excruciating pain in His head, neck, and face. And as if that wasn’t enough, they then made Him carry the crude, splintery Copyright 125-pound Cross—His own instrument of death—out of the city and up a nearby hill, where they strung Him up by hammering six-inch nails into His wrists and feet. There He would hang while His broken chest collapsed upon His lungs, slowly asphyxiating Him. A small step by His feet would allow Him to push Himself up to get a little more air, scraping His back against the coarse wood, but eventually His strength would give out and He would suffocate to death. Crucifixion was never meant to be a quick death but rather a long, drawn-out form of torture that would horrify all those watching.

But who was watching? While Jesus hung there on the Cross, most of His trusted disciples and followers fled in fear of similar punishment or in horror and grief over what was happening. Earlier in the week, people had lined the streets to welcome Jesus to Jerusalem, proclaiming, “Hosanna,” which means “save us,” but now they were yelling and spitting, “Crucify Him, crucify Him.” Only a small handful of people stayed with Him during the most terrible moment of His life. To say it was a dark season for Christ would be an understatement. Scripture records that even the sky turned dark: “There was darkness over the whole land” (Luke 23:44).

We often share that you can typically tell the value of something to someone by how much they are willing to pay for it. Obviously, death by crucifixion is a high price to pay, and it shows how much Christ values us and wants to save us. The Prophet Isaiah speaks of this in one of the most iconic Bible verses about the Cross when he says, “He was pierced for our transgressions; / he was crushed for our iniquities; / upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, / and with his wounds we are healed” (Is. 53:5). Tradition calls the final hours that took place in Christ’s life “Good Friday.” It was the day that ushered in our freedom—not from a foreign power but from our own sins. It was a day that paved the way to our rebirth from the “old man” to the “new man,” freeing us to work toward fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives. It was a terrible day for Jesus, but in the end, it was a “good” day for us. It is our contention in this book that Christ also did good for us in His dying breaths. If we can learn from the things He said as He faced His own death, we can receive comfort and grace in our own darkest hours.

Brief mention should be made regarding the recording of Christ’s Passion on the Cross amongst the four evangelists. The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) all record the Crucifixion as lasting for six hours (Matt. 27; Mark 15; Luke 23), while the Gospel of John differs in recording the duration of Christ’s suffering on the Cross as only three hours. Much debate and discussion has taken place on this issue, and you’re welcome to explore that on your own, but for the purposes of this book the duration of time is not important. We’re interested in what Christ said while He hung on the Cross.

Now, there is also some debate as to the exact number of statements Jesus shared while He was on the Cross. As St. John writes, “There are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). And, indeed, intelligent Christians can even disagree about the specific order of the statements. We will follow the order established by Orthodox Tradition. Again, for our purposes, the number of hours or number or order of statements are not as material as what has been recorded and what we can learn from it. We believe that Christ was still teaching us by His life, even in the final hours of His life. With every breath He took, with the pain so unbearable, with His body broken for us and His blood shed for us, the things He believed were worth saying give us wisdom and direction to follow amidst our own difficult moments.

In our first book, Renewing You: A Priest, A Psychologist, and A Plan, we outlined eight of the greatest struggles we see people face throughout our ministries. We tried to touch on the major facets of life that could pose challenges to how well we live out our purpose. However, in our travels across the country doing retreats and presentations, we received a fair amount of feedback from people saying, “I really liked your book—I read it twice! But can you speak more on how to deal with the seasons of darkness and despair? How do I get through those seasons? How do I have hope when I’m feeling hopeless? How do I get through when the storms feel unyielding?” Well, we hope that in some small way this book can use Christ’s darkest moments to shed light on how we do just that. If you are in a calm between the storms right now, may this book strengthen you and prepare you for the next storm. And if you are going through a dark valley and reach for this book, may it comfort and encourage you.

We wrote this book for all of you who feel these desperate Friday feelings, for the times when you are scared, angry, distressed, overwhelmed, hurt—and wondering where God is in it all. We know Sunday mornings feel like times to be cheerful, hopeful, and worshipful, but the fact is, we do not always feel cheerful, hopeful, or worshipful. Sometimes we come to church on a Sunday morning with Friday evening feelings in our hearts. We want you to know that the disciples themselves felt the same way. They had walked with Jesus, broken bread with Him, and learned at His feet—and still they felt desperate and abandoned by God when Jesus was killed. Not only that, but this book is premised on the idea that Jesus Himself felt these things—and He was on intimate terms with the Father! In other words, there is no darkness so dark that Jesus hasn’t also been through it, so deep that He can’t carry you through it.

Let’s get started!