The Most Important Day In the Most Important Life Ever Lived!
God’s Verdict on the Cross
Matthew 27:45-54
March 24, 2002
Today we conclude what I trust has been an encouraging and challenging study for you, as we look one last time at the most important day in the most important life ever lived. Let’s read together from Matthew 27! PRAYER
Brazil is a land of contrasts. Ten years ago I was able to witness some of these contrasts firsthand, as I spent two weeks there on a missions trip. These eyes have never seen a more beautiful place than Rio de Janeiro. The view of sunset from Sugar Loaf Mountain is priceless. The magnificent city of Rio is seemingly one mountain after another rising thousands of feet straight out of the azure blue Atlantic Ocean. The glistening white sand beaches such as Ipanema and Copacabana are contrasted by rocks and cliffs. Standing like a sentry above it all is Corcovado Mountain, and atop Corcovado is the Cristo Redentor, the Christ statue, arms outstretched as if beckoning the world to come to Him. The richness of this tropical beauty is astounding; I was there, and I have every intention of going again, for a longer stay, before my time here is past.
But then there are the favelas. We’d call them slums, but what we call slums in rich America are high-rent districts compared to these ramshackle dwelling places. I went into a favela in Sao Paulo, and I was amazed at the way millions of Brazilian people live. Corrugated metal forms rooves over literally hundreds of lean-to shelters, enclosing the overcrowded, unsanitary living quarters for the poorest of the poor. Hunger, disease, unemployment, and lack of education are only a few of the problems facing these millions of people. In some ways, though, these do not represent the greatest of contrasts; poorer yet are the half-million street children who live in Sao Paulo alone, homeless for one reason or another, who sleep under trees and live from day to day—or die.
Rolf Italiaander imagines a poor man from one of the favelas in Rio climbing laboriously up to the summit of Corcovado and speaking to the Christ statue:
I have climbed to you, Christ, from the filthy, confined quarters down there…to put before you, most respectfully, these considerations: there are 900,000 of us down there in the slums of that splendid city…and you, Christ, do you remain here at Corcovado surrounded by divine glory? Go down there into the favelas. Come with me into the favelas and live with us down there. Don’t stay away from us; live among us and give us new faith in you and in the Father. Amen.
What would the Christ say? Would He not point to the 24 hours we have been studying for these last two months? And would He not say, “I did come to live among you; I gave my life for you; and I live among you still!” The cross tells us that Jesus does care, and that He does love, and that He does not remain in Heaven aloof and unconcerned.
In today’s Scripture, we come to understand the significance which the Father attached to Calvary’s cross. Let’s note several demonstrations of this:
God called attention to the significance of the cross by:
1. Sending darkness to cover the land.
That sun had risen over 12,000 times since a little baby boy drew His first breath in a Bethlehem stable. Over 12,000 times since the Incarnation it had carried on its dutiful task of giving light to God’s creation, with predictable regularity. But on this day, it shined down upon man nailing his Maker to a tree. Oh, to be sure, it had witnessed plenty of injustice. But on this day, it refused to be party to this awful scene. God the Creator signaled His response to the crucifixion of His only begotten Son by turning out the lights! When He had been born in Bethlehem, a new star shined in the night sky. Now that He was dying, the dependable sun ceased to shine for a time. For three long hours, from noon until 3:00 PM, by the Jewish reckoning of time, men and women crept around with candles in their hands, unable to understand what was taking place. We’re not certain as to the extent of this darkness; the Greek word here might mean “land”, indicating a regionalized darkness, or it might mean “earth”, indicating that the entire planet fell under darkness for these hours—and there exists some extra-biblical evidence to suggest just this possibility. Regardless, the Bible records this as God’s first response. What did it signify?
Likely, a sign of judgment
Rabbis had long taught that a darkening of the sun would signal the judgment of God, and this is likely just what we see taking place.
A. On mankind as a result of sin
Perhaps this was a divine object lesson. Throughout Scripture, darkness is associated with judgment. This is a heinous act, one which, while in the counsel of God from all eternity, nonetheless involved real culpability on the part of those who did the crucifying. “His blood be on us, and on our children”, the mob had cried; Judas had greedily sold out the Master for a little money; the chief priests had plotted the murder, and gutless Pilate wasn’t man enough to stop it. But this judgment was also
B. On Jesus as He bore the sin of mankind
While this darkness was real and tangible, so was the darkness of man’s sin that Jesus bore on Calvary. It is out of the darkness that His cry comes; it is in the darkness that God’s justice was poured out upon the undeserving Son of God. But it is also in the darkness that justice met grace, and grace won!
God responded to the cross by snuffing out the sun, but also by
2. Turning His face away from His only Son.
The mocking crowd seized upon Jesus’ words in order to mock him (“maybe he wants Elijah!”); they knew perfectly well what he was saying; He quoted from Psalm 22. Despite the surrounding darkness, these bloodthirsty ones still refused to acknowledge the truth about Jesus. But His was a haunting cry of pain and grief; this was the only time when Jesus did not refer to God as “Father”; this was the first and only time in all of history when somehow, in ways that escape our limited ability to understand, God turned His back on God! It is said that Martin Luther went into seclusion for an extended period of time seeking to come to grips with this question: how could God the Father turn His back on His Son; it is said that Luther returned as confused as ever before. God cannot look upon sin, we are told by Habakkuk; Galatians 3:13 indicates that Jesus “became a curse for us”. Isaiah had foretold the day when the Messiah would be “pierced through for our transgressions, (and) crushed for our iniquities.” God the Father could not look upon this, and so in some tangible way evident to the Son, the Father turned His face away and forsook Jesus that He might die on the cross all alone. In so doing God demonstrates for us the wretchedness of our sin, our sin which we treat all too often as not that bad a thing, our sin which we excuse away or justify ourselves by comparison. Our sin is such a wretched thing, though, that as the Father watched the Son begin to bear it, He had to turn away.
3. Tearing the veil of the temple in two.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record this event which to the Biblically uninitiated might make little sense but which portends tremendous benefit for each of us. To what does this veil refer? It was a huge, woven veil, sixty feet long by thirty feet wide. In the Temple, the center of worship for the Jews, this ornately-decorated blue curtain separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple. This Holy of Holies was the symbolic dwelling place of God Most High among His people. It was a place so sacred that it could only be entered once a year, on the Day of Atonement (perhaps you’ve seen “Yom Kippur” on your calendar; this is that day). Only one man, the high priest, could enter, and then only for a few minutes. Having gone through elaborate cleansing himself and having confessed his own sin, this high priest would enter the Holy of Holies in order to sprinkle blood on the altar to atone for the sins of the people. This kind of separation between the Holy of Holies and the rest of the Temple signified the unapproachable holiness of God.
Interesting then, isn’t it, that the very first post-death event that the Bible records is that God the Father, from top to bottom, tore the veil of the Temple in two! What does this mean?
A. No more sacrifices
This yearly sacrifice pointed forward symbolically to the event which caused the Father to tear the curtain: the death of Jesus Christ as the once-for-all sacrifice for our sins. Why didn’t you bring your goat to church this morning? Because the sacrifice has already been made. We’re going to be studying the book of Hebrews later on this year, and we will talk in detail about this then.
B. No more human mediators between God and man
Paul writes in I Timothy 2:5 that “there is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” Not only do you not bring your goat to church, you don’t come to me to in some way absolve you of your sins nor to confess them to me. Jesus is our Mediator; He is, according to Hebrews 4, our great high priest.
C. No more barrier to access
The veil was no longer needed; we now have direct access to God through Jesus Christ! Turn to Hebrews 10:19-ff. The tearing of the veil of the Temple in two signified the fact that you can do just what you have done today; you have come to God in prayer through Christ; you have (hopefully) confessed your sin to God and asked Him for forgiveness directly, rather than through another person. And you have done these things because of Jesus’ death and God’s subsequent tearing of that dividing partition in two! The message of God, to even His own people, for multiplied hundreds of years, had been, “stay out!” Now, with the death of Christ, the message changed in an instant; now it was “come in!”
Oh, and can you imagine the immediate effect that that would have had on the priests who were serving there in the Temple, and on those they told about it? Acts 6:7 talks about a great number of the priests coming to faith through the witness of the early church—all of them should have!
4. Sending an earthquake.
Earthquakes attended God’s speaking to Moses on Sinai, and His speaking to Elijah as recorded in I Kings 19. God’s wrath is spoken of in the Bible as producing earthquakes, in several places. God again used a physical sign to proclaim His might and power, and very possibly His wrath against sin.
5. Opening the tombs of Old Testament saints.
This is a bit of a mysterious event; the Bible doesn’t give us all the details that might be necessary to fully satisfy our curiosity. It is also true that the appearance of these Old Testament saints to others did not take place until after the resurrection; it is altogether possible, though we are only speculating, that Matthew might record this here not in its chronological place. Nonetheless, this unusual event testifies to us of the reality of resurrection life after death.
And perhaps most, if not all, of the 3000 who responded to Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost had freshly in their memory the events of that fateful day. I can see many hearing words that Peter preached, about the signs and wonders God worked attending the public ministry of Jesus, and then thinking back to the darkness, and the earthquake, and these strange reports that saints long dead had come back to life. Pretty powerful testimony to the reality of Christ! And many, no doubt, accepted that testimony. Yet we read that there were many who, in the face of this overwhelming evidence, these miraculous responses of God, chose to ignore the evidence. I wonder how many went about their routines the next day as though nothing had happened?
The setting for the play was London, and it envisioned the dropping of an atomic bomb on the city. As the curtain rises, the family is seated in the living room; things are askew all around them, and plaster hangs from the ceiling. While it is obvious that something has gone terribly wrong, the mother and father carry on with normalities of living, Father reading the Times of London, and commenting to Mother on the state of things. The daughter, Annabel, is filled with consternation, even as she pours cups of tea for her parents.
“Mother, Father, look out the window; half of London has vanished; even Harrods’ is gone!”
To which the mother replies, “Oh, no, those Russians would never bomb Harrods’. Perhaps another place but certainly not Harrods’.”
The daughter is growing more hysterical. “But it’s terrible! People are walking around disfigured; I saw one man with his nose gone!”
To which Father replies, “Oh come now, dear, there have always been lots of disfigured people around, dear; why a certain Mr. Tuttle I know has a tattoo on—well, never mind where—but it is certainly a most unpleasant thing. Can I have two lumps of sugar, dear?”
“And you, Mummy, one lump or two?”
“Two, please. And dear girl, take that frown off your face right now, do you hear me?”
“Oh, but Mummy, doesn’t it bother you that Westminster Abbey is now a huge hole in the ground?”
“Oh, dear, it was just a place for American tourists anyway. I much prefer the little chapel down the street. Now how about you run upstairs and tell Grandma to come down for a nice cup of tea.”
“But Daddy, there’s no upstairs, and Grandma hasn’t come down yet.” And the little girl runs off the stage.
Father stands and looks at Mother. “You know”, he says, “I think I’ll turn in.”
“Me too”, says Mummy, and she follows him off the set.
In the face of the incontrovertible evidence, this London family chose to live as though nothing had happened. And undoubtedly, so did many in Jerusalem.
And so do many today. Jesus died on the cross; God the Father put His indelible stamp on the matter; and yet today, there are so many who will act as though nothing is different. God has rendered His verdict on the cross; what is yours?
“What do I do with a message like this?”
1. Take a moment to breathe a prayer of thankfulness to God for the amazing gift of His Son, especially considering the agony of knowing that the Father had turned His face away from Jesus. Does gratitude for God’s goodness motivate you to faithful service and obedience?
2. Consider the wonderful privilege of direct access to God’s throne via Jesus, our Mediator. We likely often take this for granted, since we’ve known no other way, but this was revolutionary for the Jews who followed Christ. We face the danger, however, of treating God casually in light of this access that we enjoy. Consider again the wonderful truth that we serve a God Who is at once both transcendent in his holiness, and at the same time immanent—God with us!
3. Remember again that we have the promise of God that eternal life is ours. We can get caught up in the benefits of living life as a Christian (peace, purpose, direction, etc.) and unconsciously miss the great reality that Jesus came to bring us eternal life. No matter how good—or bad—life can be here, it is nothing compared to eternity!
