John 19:28-30 After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

One last act was performed before the beginning of the three darkest days in all history. Jesus has now completed His work, everything He had set out to do has been done. His last words here are “I thirst” and are said to keep the prophetic words of His coming and ending true.

If the only reason He said “I thirst” was to fulfill scripture, then what is the significance of those words, that they were placed in the Old Testament at all?

Matthew 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Having taken on the sins of the world, Jesus had given up His right standing before God, His righteousness. In order to regain His right standing, He had to die. This was said for our sake, so that we might know that to obtain the righteousness of God thru faith in Jesus Christ, we must needs die and be born again. At his point Jesus Christ had put an end of the law as a way to have a right standing before God.

Romans 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

Christ had just died. It would be three days before His resurrection. Resurrection power had not yet been released, and the law as a means to obtain righteousness with God was ended. During these three dark days, there was no way to stand before God, by obedience of law or faith. God was cut off from man, and inaccessible.

Access was lost for three dark days.

John 12:33 This he said, signifying what death he should die.

Here we are at the end of the year, just three more days until New Year’s Eve. I have been thinking about how to end this year’s blogs, about endings, about seeing the end coming. Then it occurred to me that Christ saw the end coming. But what end?

We live on this side of the Cross and our expected end is much different than this expected end which Jesus Christ was speaking about. He knew, with the certainty that only God could have, what would come in this new era, after His resurrection.

As we approach the end of this year we look forward to this next year being just like this one. The dates change but because we are in Christ nothing of any real significance is going to change for us. The biggest change has already happened for those of us in Christ.

What came to an end during those three days?

John 12:35 Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

The light of the world was no longer in the world. Those who walked with Jesus were cast into a darkness that the rest of the world could not imagine. Those three days were the darkest in history and only a few knew it to be true.

Up until these few found Jesus life had been a terrible struggle. Some were waiting on the Messiah, some were not. Some only sought an end to the struggles of life and the Romans. In Christ they found a way that was easy to see God and have a real deep and personal relationship with Him. It was effortless.

Then He was gone and came those three dark days.