On the day of Jesus’ death, nailed to a Roman cross on a hill outside Jerusalem, darkness fell from noon to three. A darkness in those days isn’t the darkness I am accustomed to in an American city full of streetlights burning all night. Perhaps the soldiers guarding Jesus lit a few candles down on the ground below him, but no light would have reached Jesus’ eyes.
Once I was enveloped in darkness in a cave when the guide briefly turned off the lights. In that minute without light, I felt an awful aloneness. Only holding my husband’s hand kept me steady. Jesus endured total darkness for three hours. I cannot imagine the loneliness.
My minute of darkness helped me understand my psychotherapy clients’ feelings of isolation.
And because God, by real human experience, also knows loneliness, he understands ours.
Sweet Jesus, you who understand the feel of the darkness, come hold our hands today in this dark world.