Read: Mark 15:33–47

For younger children, consider reading “The Sun Stops Shining” in The Jesus Storybook Bible (pages 302–09).

Reflect

Jesus’s death was accompanied by several powerful signs. Darkness covered the land at noon. The curtain of the temple was torn in two. A Roman centurion confessed that Jesus is the Son of God. These signs point us to the reality that Jesus in his death has endured the judgment of God (signified by the darkness) to restore our relationship with God (tearing of the temple curtain) for all who trust in him as God’s Son. Jesus breathed his last to breathe new life into the dead. He was buried to rescue those in the realm of spiritual death. He has conquered “death by death,” the grave through the grave. Jesus died and was buried. Yet, Sunday is coming, the day that guarantees that all these things are true!

Reflection Questions:

1. What do these verses teach us about Jesus?

2. What do they teach us about our response to Jesus?

Listen to: “It Was Finished Upon That Cross” (CityAlight)

Pray

Holy God, we thank you for the sacrifice of your Son that brings us forgiveness, a right relationship with you, and our great hope of salvation through faith in Jesus. We ask that you would today bolster our faith, that we would confess with our lips and our life that Jesus is the Son of God. Help us to follow him in the way of the cross, dying to our sin that by faith we might know new life.