The Ninth Hour

In 1857, the rule that required nine innings in a baseball game was established. Though every run was important in adding up to the total score, the ninth-inning runs got the attention. This is where the drama heated up. In God’s “game,” the ninth hour is the big showdown. The ninth hour begins at 3:00 P.M. 

“The evening and the morning were the first day” (Gen. 1:5b). The Jews recognize 6:00 A.M. as the beginning of the second half of the day. Though there was a morning sacrifice, the evening sacrifice (a lamb was killed and offered to God by the priest) was made at the ninth hour. This ninth hour was the hour Jesus was killed and offered as “God’s Lamb” (Matt. 27:46).

Jesus was early aware that His “hour” was the time He would be sacrificed. For we that take up our cross and follow Him (Matt. 16:24-25), there is also an “hour” to lose our life. It is our ninth hour. Without the ninth hour there is no victory. It is in this hour that we find real life. We can die to self in a moment, at an altar, and then go on from there and slowly forget to carry the cross. We proclaim the power of the resurrection and quickly forget the power of the ninth hour. 

Jesus did miracles, preached the truth, and taught His disciples. He fulfilled many prophecies. At times His life was threatened. When the Jews sought to lay hands on Him they could not, “because His hour was not yet come.”

The ninth hour did come for Jesus. He did not flee from it—He owned it. What will you and I do in our ninth hour?

A grand slam in the ninth inning can win a world series. Some people give up on the game and head for the parking lot, and miss the game-winning grand slam. 

The night is darkest just before the dawn. Before Jesus’ ninth hour there was darkness over all the earth for three hours (Matt. 27:45). The chief priests, scribes, and elders were mocking Him. “He saved others; himself he cannot save” (vs. 42). It looked like the world was winning. The grand slam of all the ages was about to take place. At the moment, it looked like Jesus struck out. Then the graves started opening and “many bodies of the saints which slept arose; And came out of the graves after his resurrection” (vs. 52 & 53). Even before that, the centurion, and those that were with Him, seeing the earthquake and other things that were done, “feared greatly, saying, ‘Truly this was the Son of God'” (vs. 54).

In the ninth hour, Elijah called down fire from heaven (1 Ki. 18:29-40), and defeated the prophets of Baal. The crowd began to shout, Elijah! Elijah! (Elijah’s name means, “the Lord, He is the God”). That game almost got rained out. God’s rain came shortly after that and ended the drought.

So many good things in the Bible happened in the ninth hour. Don’t be afraid of the ninth hour. Yes, it is the hour of sacrifice. Don’t be afraid to present your body as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1). Even persecution and death are not the end of the game. Don’t run out before the ninth inning is over. Don’t be afraid to lose your life for Jesus’ sake, and find it!