THOSE 3 DARK DAYS AND NIGHTS  (Day after Good Friday 4/11/09)

Today, as I reflect upon Your time in that dark tomb, I know even there was not without purpose.  In those 3 days and nights Your love still knew no boundaries.  Just like Jonah in the depths of the sea, You went into the heart of the earth and preached to the spirits in prison!  You even disarmed principalities and powers.  Not one moment of Your dark time was wasted as You wrestled and travailed over lives. 

The darkness and the light are the same to You.  In Your light, the darkness shines as day.  We remember that in our own dark times, we can not escape the boundaries of Your love and Presence.  And we remember that even as Moses drew near to You in the thick darkness, he found intimacy. 

So, Lord, we expect our own resurrection from the dark nights of our souls, and accepting that they have not been without Your loving purpose.  We look to Your light with expectation that we too shall rise triumphant over our own travails and sufferings.  Thank You for paying the price for us that we may triumph even as You did!

Ex 20:21  NKJV   

So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.   

Ps 139:7-12    NKJV   

Where can I go from Your Spirit?  Or where can I flee from Your presence?   8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there;  If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.    9 If I take the wings of the morning,  And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,   10 Even there Your hand shall lead me,  And Your right hand shall hold me.   11 If I say, "Surely the darkness shall fall on me,"  Even the night shall be light about me;   12 Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,  But the night shines as the day;  The darkness and the light are both alike to You.   

1 Peter 3:18-21  NKJV   

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, 19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison , 20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.  

Col 2:13-15  NKJV   

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.  

John 2:19-22  NKJV   

Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."    20 Then the Jews said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days ?"   21 But He was speaking of the temple of His body. 22 Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.   NKJV    Matt 12:40   40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 

Jonah 2:2    NKJV   

"Out of the belly of Sheol I cried,  And You heard my voice.