Luke 23:44-45

Luke arranged these unusual occurrences to show God’s displeasure with humankind for rejecting His Son. [Note: Marshall, The Gospel . . ., pp. 873-74.] The sixth and ninth hours were noon and 3:00 p.m. respectively. Darkness obscuring the sun represented judgment obscuring the beneficent light of God’s countenance (cf. Isaiah 5:30; Isaiah 60:2; Joel 2:30-31; Amos 5:18; Amos 5:20; Zephaniah 1:14-18; Luke 22:53; Acts 2:20; 2 Peter 2:17; Revelation 6:12-17). Evidently this was a local rather than a universal phenomenon. It could not have been a solar eclipse since Passover occurred at the full moon.

Luke moved the tearing of the temple veil up in his narrative whereas Matthew and Mark placed it after Jesus’ death as a consequence of that event. It symbolizes the opening of the way into God’s presence that Jesus’ death effected in those Gospels. However in Luke the reader sees it as a sign of God’s wrath. Specifically it seems to represent God’s judgment on Judaism for rejecting the Messiah. It was a portent of the judgment coming on Jerusalem that Jesus had predicted.