The most striking point of this chapter, this time, was the description of the darkness which covered the land after the storm. I've never thought about the darkness as an analogy of Christ's absence. The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes.
We know death as being a type of prison due to the body and the soul being separated. Jesus was killed on this earth, and as a result, Jesus was in that "prison" for 3 days. The "
light and the life" of the world was dead, thus leaving only darkness existing on earth. No lights, sparks, flame, embers, or anything else which had anything to do with light could exist, because the source of it all had died.
A possible analogy also exists as to the horrible storm. Mankind tortured Christ until he died. The earth tortured man through that storm, thus killing (most likely) hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people. If I'm not remembering incorrectly, most (if not all) of the people killed during the storm were wicked.
Three days of darkness right after the worst storm in the history of mankind probably left a lot of people in pretty bad shape. Can't imagine the torment of such a thing - even down to the levels of hunger and thirst.