Matthew 27:45-54 No: 6 Week: 237 Friday 2/04/10 Prayer Spend a couple of minutes in quiet reflection and prayer before going on to today s meditation and Bible study, which is about the death of Jesus.... If appropriate, conclude by saying this prayer: Almighty God, we praise You for the sacrifice Jesus has made for us and for our salvation. May we always be thankful for what He has done for us: AMEN Prayer Suggestions Prayer ideas Get hold of a cross and place it in a convenient position. Look at it and think about what it means now in the light of what happened two thousand years ago On-going prayers Pray for higher education Pray that the subjects of Theology and Biblical studies will continue to be taught to high and Godly standards Meditation Give thanks for all those who will testify to Jesus Christ today Pray for countries of the world where the Cross cannot be raised. If we look upon the image of the cross or crucifix, And fail to find its truth, then something deep inside the human soul is compromised. How deeply can you look? Can you see the gory details? Will you let the truth of all that happened fill your soul? Or do you turn away from death, To look elsewhere and say that s awful, shocking! Perhaps, because we know what happens next, We like to look beyond this gruesome day To dwell on Easter s resurrection joy: The death of Christ in brutal savagery is seemingly too much; Not a sight we wish to see when eating bread and drinking wine... They say, He did it all for me and you. He did, so take this gift or lose it. For all of us now face a choice as absolute as life and death. Will we let ourselves be touched by Christ s redeeming sacrifice Which saves our souls, or will we join the rest, and walk on by? Bible passage Matthew 27:45-54 45 From noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came over the whole land. 46 And about three o'clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 47 Some of the bystanders heard it and said, He is calling for Elijah. 48 Straight away, one of them ran to get a sponge, soaked it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and offered it to him to drink. 49 But others said, Wait, let s see whether Elijah comes to save him. 50 Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and gave up his spirit. Paul H Ashby Derby 2008 www.prayerandbiblestudy.org 02/04/2010 page 1
51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks split. 52 The tombs also opened, and many bodies of holy people who had died were raised. 53 After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many people. 54 When the centurion and those who were keeping watch over Jesus with him, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, Truly this man was the Son of God! Bible Study Review It is never easy to read this passage of Scripture, particularly the first five verses describing Jesus last few hours on the cross. Yet this is the climax of Matthew s Gospel. The resurrection is still to come, and as we shall see in the next few days, it arrives with a mixture of joy and confusion. For today, the focus remains on the cross and the conclusion of Jesus earthly life, an event we can hardly respect unless we dwell on the words of the evangelists who wrote the Gospel records, and let them speak to us. Our reading begins with the final hours of Jesus life, and time has slowed down almost to a standstill. The Gospel story in Matthew has raced through time, from the stories of Jesus birth (chs 1,2) to His baptism and the beginning of His ministry (chs 3,4). From then on, Matthew mentions little about the passing of time until Jesus comes to Jerusalem for the Passover (ch 21). A few days later, Jesus is taken captive in Gethsemane (26:47-56), and the days become short. Jesus appears before Caiaphas in the evening of that day (26:57f.), and the next morning (27:1) He is brought to Pilate, who condemns Him to death and hands Him over for crucifixion. Time then slows down further, and by midday, Jesus has been crucified, and his life hangs by a thread, as the religious authorities watch with those standing by. Time stands still for three hours while Jesus is on the Cross, and darkness covers the land. The darkness represents the judgement of God and the respect of nature at this cataclysmic and historic moment; for the world was made by God out of darkness (Gen 1:2), and a new creation will be needed to bring light into the world again. We are also reminded of famous Old Testament prophecies, And on that day," declares the Lord God, "I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. (Amos 8:9 see also Joel 2:2,31 and Zephaniah 1:15). Then the silence is broken by Jesus cry to the Father, My God my God... (27:46), and a there is a flurry of activity as the people nearby attempt to do what is right by offering Jesus some wine, perhaps a drug to null the pain. But they misunderstand Jesus and cannot work out why He cries out for Elijah. The Jesus cries out again, and His spirit is released to the Father. Matthew records the moment of Jesus death with simple dignity and extraordinary power. Yet, as our reading continues, something extraordinary happens. We might expect that Scripture might suggest a respectful and thoughtful pause, but no, at the very moment of Jesus death it is as if a mighty power is released beyond anything previously known! Remember, this is still Good Friday! In many church services held on Good Friday the worshipper is left with the fact of Jesus death, and asked to wait until Sunday before receiving good news. But this is not the story we have in God s Word! God begins to work immediately after Jesus death in extraordinary drama and power (27:51). God defaces His own Temple, and powerful shows Himself at work on earth in what seems like an earthquake! People are raised from tombs (27:52), and in the final words of our reading, the centurion who was responsible for Jesus death, becomes the first Gentile to declare faith in Jesus as the Son of God! Remember, this all happens before we hear of Jesus resurrection! Much attention has been paid to the rending of the Temple curtain and this symbolic breaking of the barrier between God and people. However, there is so much more to the death of Jesus. It is as if resurrection power has been let loose in the world because God will not wait until Easter Sunday morning. For sure, no one will know that Jesus has been raised until after the Sabbath, but God re-creative power has begun its incredible and awesome work! Going Deeper The Bible study goes deeper to look at these issues: Jesus call for Elijah (27:46-49) The death of Jesus (27:50,51) The opening of the tombs (27:52,53) Paul H Ashby Derby 2008 www.prayerandbiblestudy.org 02/04/2010 page 2
The confession of the centurion (27:54) Jesus call for Elijah? (27:46-49) Going Deeper The darkness, and possibly even the silence that by implication accompanied it, was broken by Jesus cry with a loud voice. He said My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It is well known that these words were a quote of the first line of Psalm 22, and Matthew gives us the translation so that there is no room for confusion. Research into the words shows that Jesus may have spoken in Aramaic, and this would have caused the people round about to think He was calling for Elijah. However, this can never be conclusive, and we are left with scripture as it is; it is those who heard this cry who misunderstood what Jesus was saying, and there remains uncertainty about why Jesus said these words and what they mean. Is Jesus cry an indication of true abandonment by God the Father because He bore the sins of humanity? Or is it a pointer to the Resurrection, because His quote of Psalm 22 was a normal rabbinical way of referring to the meaning of a whole psalm (Psalm 22 ends with a prophetic expectation of resurrection), in the same way that we might say the words The Lord s my Shepherd and refer to the whole psalm or hymn? The Gospel writers do not give us any interpretation of this cry, they simply report the facts as they see them. The other great writers of the New Testament do not refer to these words directly, but the saying is essential to numerous theological statements in scripture; Rom 3:25, 2 Cor 5:21, Col 1:20, Heb 5:7-10; 7:27, 9:11-14. It is to these we should go for a fuller explanation of the theology of abandonment of Christ on the Cross by God. I simply offer my own observations. Whilst Jesus may have feared physical death as any man would, He had to handle a spiritual battle with death because Jews understood that death was a form of separation from the Father. This is what caused Jesus agony in Gethsemane, and from that time on, He knew His death would happen. He knew that He would be separated from the Father, but God would powerfully overcome that separation in a way which, as a man, he could not know until it happened. When the time of His death came, His cry was, in part I believe, a cry of agony at abandonment from God. He was broken by the agony of separation, but even though He could not yet experience it, He was also aware of the great words of Psalm 22 which end with resurrection hope; to you they cried and were saved, in you they trusted and were not put to shame (Ps 22:5). There is a divine paradox at the heart of Jesus death, and we can never quite express it in words; however, but both the agony and the victory of Jesus death are recorded by Matthew so that we might have a glimpse of Jesus saving work and give glory to God. Those listening appear to have been confused, but for different reasons. Some, for sport, attempted to offer Jesus a drink, enough to revive him to see what else he would say, unwittingly fulfilling Psalm 69:21 and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Others called them to stop (27:49), being more interested to see whether his cry for help from Elijah would be fulfilled. They misheard the word Eli which means my God in Hebrew, and thought Jesus was calling for Elijah in popular Aramaic. Elijah was the one who would come to bring deliverance, as we already know (Matt 11:10-15), but those playing sport with Jesus on the Cross were ignorant of the fact that Elijah had already come in John the Baptist. Their ignorant wait for Elijah was the last piece of foolish voyeurism directed at Jesus. The death of Jesus (27:50,51) The moment of Jesus death came with a loud shout, before He stopped breathing (27:50). The things that have been deduced from the few words of verse 50 are amazing, but Matthew recorded them with the simple dignity of one who knew death. How it happens at the end is rarely an explainable event and always mysterious. Some suggest that Jesus loud cry meant that He had more life left in Him, yet He voluntarily gave up His life. All this is trying to look too far into the mystery of death. God took Him at the right time. What happened next is extraordinary, and not often commented upon. From that very instant it is as if God the Father immediately acted to vindicate Jesus by performing miracles, unilaterally, which proved the truth of Jesus ministry and teaching! The accusation that was levelled at Jesus and possibly caused the greatest damage before Caiaphas and Pilate, was that He would tear down the Temple and rebuild it! God therefore tore down the veil of the Temple (27:51); an act which was more than a symbol of God s intent! There is endless argument about which Temple curtain was torn; the outer one that separated the Sanctuary from the Gentile court, a great Babylonian tapestry depicting the whole world and standing eighty feet high (which might mean that the Gentiles were now acceptable to God)? Or the smaller inner veil, separating the place of sacrifice from the holy of holies (which might mean that the priesthood had been abolished)? Or the curtain between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, separating the altar of incense, the candlestick and Paul H Ashby Derby 2008 www.prayerandbiblestudy.org 02/04/2010 page 3
the table of the bread of the presence from the mercy seat and the presence of God Himself? Matthew does not say which curtain, or dictate to us what it means. Theologians have tried to work this out with reference to Hebrews (6:19, 9:1-28, 10:20) but to no conclusion. I suspect that Matthew s own church, for which he wrote, regarded the curtain as a sign of all that was wrong with Temple worship, and did not theologically separate between the meaning of the different curtains. Jesus own teaching opened up the way to God for those who would have faith that His death as God s Son was a sufficient sacrifice for all people for all time. We do not need any further justification from this extraordinary event. Another explanation of the rending of the Temple veil could be this. Was it the Father s outrage at the religious authorities who had killed His Son, who had pretended to act in God s Name? Certainly, it would not be long before the whole Temple was torn down by the Romans (in AD70), and with it the destruction of every part of the Temple, sanctuaries, courts, curtains and all. When this happened, it was a sign to the early Christian church of the defunct nature of the Old Covenant as represented by the Jewish religious authorities and their Temple. The opening of the tombs (27:52,53) After the Temple curtain was torn, Matthew records an earthquake that split rocks and opened tombs. All this is suggestive of the Lord s last Judgement, as in Is 26:19, Dan 12:2, and Ez 37:1-14. It all sounds dramatic to us, but earthquakes had happened a few times in and around Jerusalem, and people had always taken it as a sign that the bodies of holy people were raised and this is well recorded in other ancient documents of the time. The miracle God performed however is best understood as the Father s gleefully and powerful demonstration of a link between the death of Jesus and the salvation of all the earth. A new work of Salvation had begun! Enormous confusion reigns amongst Christians over these verses (52 and 53), because one verse suggests that people were raised before Jesus (27:52), and the next verse jumps forward in time to make it clear that Jesus was raised before those who were raised were seen (27:53). I do not think that this can be resolved if we see God s work through Jesus death and Resurrection as a matter of timetables. There is something refreshingly glorious about the way that God goes about dispensing Resurrection with enormous liberality, an impression gained from a pure reading of Matthew, without allowing the details to dominate the picture. Clearly, something amazing happened at the tombs after the earthquake, because those who watched Jesus die saw the earthquake and all that took place (27:54). The moment of Jesus death was itself a moment of God s power and glory, something we struggle to comprehend. The conclusion of the Centurion (27:54) Instead of sleepy disciples failing to keep watch over their Lord at the garden of Gethsemane, here were the Gentile soldiers, watching all this up to the end of Jesus life. Some of them were those who had mocked him earlier (they was only one cohort in Jerusalem). Observing everyth ing that took place, they were not worried about the theological and historical issues with which we have had to grapple. They were immediately able to deduce that what was written over Jesus head was the truth. Like independent witnesses convinced of something they did not expect to see, they announced Truly this man was the Son of God! and in so doing they made a declaration of faith just as the disciples had done before (14:33). Application Good Friday saw the trial of Jesus, his flogging and crucifixion, his mocking and his ultimate death, but it did not end in despair. His disciples may well have felt this, and Matthew may well have remembered that awfulness of those days. He was one of those who had failed to follow Jesus and do what Jesus had asked and what the disciples had promised. It is presumptuous of anyone to make too many suggestions about what we can learn from this passage, but surely we can feel with Matthew as he records this story. Clearly, in hindsight, he was able to see that although he had been in great despair, the power of God was already at work. Always, despite all his failings, God has not failed him, nor anyone else. Indeed, this was the true beginnings of something new in the world, even though the formal start would happen on Easter Sunday morning. We have studied this single day for more than a week now, and we should not forget that it was indeed one single day, a terrible day for Jesus and a very special day for God. Whatever we learn individually from reflecting on the awesome events of that day, I suggest we remember that it ended with a great display of the Father s power, and a foretaste of what was to come in the resurrection. The sheer energy of God that was let loose on the world as soon as Jesus died is surely something that need further exploration, for it seems to me that God was waiting for this moment and knew exactly what He would do. For us, Good Friday is a moment of pure tragedy. This is because we cannot see beyond the confines of this world. I Paul H Ashby Derby 2008 www.prayerandbiblestudy.org 02/04/2010 page 4
believe that for God it was a day of extraordinary glory, bringing victory over death and all evil as resurrection power began to be unleashed on the world! Discipleship Questions (for use in groups) 1. What have you learned new from this study today? Share this if in your group. 2. Do you think that Jesus gave up His spirit voluntarily? Discuss your own reactions to the death of Jesus on the cross. 3. Can you summarise your thoughts about the death of Jesus? Take a piece of paper and write on it the key themes that have affected you. Topics covered by this text The darkness over the land at Jesus death Jesus last words The cataclysmic power of God let loose by Jesus death Personal comments by author Here in this passage, the extraordinary pathos of Jesus death is recorded side by side with God s acts of power. Are we being taught by the Lord that death is never what it seems? Our forefathers certainly believed that death was an entry into a great glory and was to be celebrated as such; yet our generation and society never seems to escape the heavy sadness of death. I believe that the Christian disciple can be confident about death because of what happened to Jesus and also the amazing acts of power that accompanied it. We can and should testify to life after death before it happens; it is at the heart of our faith. Ideas for exploring discipleship Take some time to reflect on the death of Jesus, and read through the passage of scripture for today. You may well feel that you need to read through other related passages. Let the Lord God speak to you through these immensely important words. Pray for those facing death or who fear death. If you know of anyone who is getting elderly and may fear death, then speak with them about it. One of the greatest problems today is that some will not speak about death; yet death is the key to eternal life! Final Prayer Lord God, speak into our hearts the truth of Jesus great work for us on the Cross, and where words are not enough, enlighten our spirits. Forgive us if we have misunderstood the mysteries of Salvation, and lead us into all truth as we read about the death of Jesus, AMEN Paul H Ashby Derby 2008 www.prayerandbiblestudy.org 02/04/2010 page 5