Good Friday 2019
Matthew 27.45-54
Introduction
A few years ago Mike, Andrew, and I took a pilgrimage to Chicago to watch the Tigers play the Cubs at Wrigley Field. It was summer, but early in the game the sky went dark. Severe storms rolled in. I’ve never seen it so dark. I’ve never heard thunder so loud, lightning so close. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I thought we were going to die. I though the stadium was going to collapse. It was like the wrath of God was being poured out on northern Chicago. It was a darkness you could feel.
Exposition
We’ve read from three different accounts of the crucifixion and death of the Lord Jesus Christ and we’re going to focus in on Matthew’s rendition. Verse 45, he says, now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. From noon til 3p there was darkness over all the land. “Land” is the noun γῆν, which can also be translated “earth.” Matthew is drawing your mind back to the beginning.
The Scriptures begin, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters (Gen 1.1-2). God created all things and before he spoke the light into existence, there was darkness over all the creation. When Christ died, it’s as if the world is de-created. The creation is reverting back to its original darkness. After Jesus cries out, the earth shakes and the rocks split. While God’s creatures don’t know whom they’re crucifying, the creation does, and she bows her head in shame.
Matthew also harkens the Exodus account. You see, as YHWH judged Egypt with the 10 plagues, the 9th plague was darkness. Exodus 10.21 says, then YHWH said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.” In their sin, Israel had become Egypt. The darkness is God’s condemnation for the sins of his people.
Verse 46 says, and about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus quotes Psalm 22.1. Jesus is revealing two things to us: (1) he’s declaring that he is the true forsaken one. He is the man of sorrows. Jesus is the one who is pierced for our transgressions. Jesus Christ is the chosen one to bear the wrath of God for the sins of his people. In this moment Jesus is receiving the just condemnation for the sins of all who believe. Every bitter thought, every evil deed. All of your sins, past, present, and future, are being justified by Christ on the cross. All of the hell that believers rightly deserve because of their sin is being unleashed on Christ on the cross.
But Jesus is teaching us something else as well, you see often times, teachers would quote one verse of a text and the implication is that the entire text was being fulfilled. Listen to the end of Psalm 22:
The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord! May your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.
As he is dying on the cross, Jesus is declaring the victory of God! Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus is the Lord’s King who is bringing blessing to the nations through his penal substitutionary death on the cross.
And then we have this confusion about Elijah. Jesus cries, “Eli, Eli,” which is, “my God, my God” in Aramaic. And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” Those around Christ think he’s calling Elijah. They know the prophecy at the end of Malachi, but if they had listened to Jesus during his ministry, they would know that it had already been fulfilled. John the Baptist was the Elijah that the OT was predicting.
But there is a canonical point to Matthew’s reference to Elijah. He has already alluded to Genesis in verse 45, and Psalms in verse 46. Now he mentions Elijah in verse 47. The OT that Matthew would’ve read wouldn’t have been formatted like ours. In STJ, they had what is called TNK – torah, navim, and katuvim. Torah is the law of Moses. Navim is the prophets, and Katuvim is the writings. Matthew refers to the torah with his Genesis allusion, the prophets by mentioning Elijah, and the writing by quoting the Psalms. Matthew is declaring to us that Christ’s death on the cross is the goal of all the OT. Everything promise made in the OT is fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. All of the promises of God find their ‘yes’ in him (2 Cor 1.20).
In verse 50, Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. This is the final Passover. Exodus 12.30 says, Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. Because Israel had become Egypt, their 1st born was required. Jesus is true Israel. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! Jesus gives out the final cry for the sins of his people, and then he dies.
Verse 51, and behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The temple is the place in the old covenant where heaven and earth met. But Jesus said that he would tear the temple down and rebuild it in three days. This is the moment where Jesus tears the temple down. The old covenant sacrificial system is rendered void. The final sacrifice has been made. Now there will never be another temple again in Jerusalem because Jesus is the true temple.
In verses 52-53 we’re reminded that the death of Jesus cannot be separated from his resurrection. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. This is a bit of a parenthetical statement because Matthew says it happened after his resurrection. Before he died, Christopher Hitchens went on tour with Doug Wilson debating atheism v. Christianity. This was a text that Hitchens used to try and pin Wilson down. How do you explain this madness?
In the original Greek of the Apostle’s Creed we confess that Jesus descended to Hades, the land of the dead. But Jesus could not be contained by death because he is the Lord of life. Jesus is literally so much life, that death spit him out. And what Matthew is cluing us in on is that death spit some others out with him. Of course, Jesus is the only one in history who has been resurrected glorified – the firstborn from the dead. But these saints were a witness that Jesus had been dead, and that he was dead no more.
But then we come to the climax of this pericope. The centurion, the roman sanctioned official there to witness the death of Jesus of Nazareth, makes an astonishing claim. It’s a claim that Pilate didn’t understand, even though he was a higher-ranking official. It’s a claim that Judas didn’t understand, though he spent three years with Jesus. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!” Even though these soldiers were wrong in so many ways, in this way, they were right. Jesus is truly the Son of God.
Conclusion
That night at Wrigley Field was a darkness that could be felt. It was nothing compared to Good Friday. Jesus willing took the just wrath of God for our sin. The wages of sin is death (Rom 6.23a). Jesus died. God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures (1 Cor 15.3). Mourn tonight for the death of Jesus in the place of sinners, but don’t mourn as those who have no hope. Genesis says that darkness covered the face of the deep, but it goes on to say, and God said, “Let there be light.”