Like in Exodus, Jesus’ death is the place where his people can be saved, knowing that One is sacrificed in their place. Like in Amos, Jesus’ death is where God’s judgement is centred; our sins are poured out on Jesus instead of us. God is the same God in the Old Testament and the New. A God who saves his people who don’t deserve it, and who requires all sin to be paid for.

A series of very strange things happened around the time of the death of Jesus on the cross. While he was hanging on the cross, it became dark like night-time in the middle of the day, from around midday to 3 p.m. (Matt 27:45). That would be incredibly creepy. At the time when the light was usually the brightest, it was darkness instead.

Many have approached this event by trying to work out the way that it could have happened. Maybe it was an eclipse? Well, no. This happened at Passover time, which meant a full moon, so an eclipse was impossible. In any case, a solar eclipse doesn’t lead to darkness for three hours. We’re not told the mechanism that God used to do this. Obviously this doesn’t usually happen and cannot easily be explained, yet we believe that God controls all things and can most certainly do something like this.

The real question to ask is what it means. Why would God do something so odd? Matthew doesn’t stop to explain it; he only reports it. As readers of the gospel, we should be asking if there is anywhere in the Old Testament that might help us understand this. And there is; in fact, with this event, there are two important places to look.

1. The ninth plague in Egypt.

When God was about to save his people from slavery in Egypt, he sent a series of ten plagues on the Egyptians.

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