Christ on the Cross with Mary and St John by Rogier van der Weyden (1457)
Good Friday
Rev. Ash Bramblett
Matthew 27:11-61
You probably familiar with the phrase, “This isn’t what it looks like.” Think about the cross.
One man praised God, saying, certainly this man is innocent. And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.
And all his acquaintances, and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance, watching these things. So what comes to your mind when you hear the phrase, “this isn’t what it looks like?” Maybe we think of a sitcom and the shenanigans that go on, someone who’s got themselves into an absurd situation, and then was discovered, and then they say, this isn’t what it looks like.
Or we might think of someone else who’s caught in a compromising situation, saying something similar. So what I want to suggest to you is that the cross has a sense in which we would say as we look at what is going on, this isn’t what it looks like. It looks like the execution of an obscure, religious leader from the Middle East, from a troublesome sect, from the armpit of the Roman Empire.
A person, one of countless, who was chewed up by the oppression of the Roman government, But it isn’t what it looks like. The events of that day make it impossible to assume that this is just another Roman execution. Just the things we read.
In verse 44, It says it was about the 6th hour, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. While the sun’s light failed. So the 6th hour being noon, the ninth hour being 3 p.m., the approximate time of Jesus’ death, the sun going out, the sun going dark, is a symbol all throughout the Old Testament of God’s judgment.
In particular, associated with what’s called the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is mentioned throughout scripture, refers to the time when God will intervene in human history. Often for judgment, but the imagery also includes judgment that leads to salvation.
So it was thought by many that there would be an ultimate day of the Lord, at the consummation of the world. And yet there were also types and precursors of the day of the Lord. Joel gives a description that sounds very similar to the events that we just read in the Gospel account.
In chapter 2 of Joel’s prophecy, “For the day of the Lord is coming, and it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like blackness there is spread upon the mountains. The earthquakes before them, the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars will draw their shining.
And I will show wonders in the heavens and on earth, blood and fire, and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.” So that darkening of the sun is evidence of this is a day of the Lord, perhaps the day of the Lord.
God is visiting the people with judgment for salvation. But in what particular way? We can think of it in from 2 different angles, both of which are true.
God is bringing judgment on the people. The darkness and the quaking indicate the justice of what is going on. The fact that the innocent son of man is being crucified.
But in a more important sense, the judgment that has arrived is the wrath of God being poured out on Jesus as he bears the sins of the entire world as a substitutionary sacrifice. We think of judgment day being some future event at the end of the world, but there is a true sense in which this is judgment day. The day on which mankind will pay for their sins, but instead someone else has stepped in and suffered in our place.
The judgment we are seeing that is being poured out on Jesus is accomplishing something. And we see it symbolized in verse 45. where it says the curtain of the temple was torn in two. So the assumption is that this is a curtain that divides the holy place in the temple from the most holy place, the holy and holies in the temple, where the Ark of the Covenant sat.
And that place, it is sometimes called the Mercy Sea. symbolically is the throne of God on earth. And man’s sin required that there be a separation between those 2 places. And as you were probably aware, it was only on one day of the year that the high priest was allowed to go in and after extensive ceremonial cleansing to make offering for the people, but as Jesus offers his blood as our sacrifice, his own perfect life, the curtain is torn in two.
And Matthew tells us that it’s torn and two from top to bottom, a 60 foot high curtain, 4 inches thick. Only God could tear this curtain in two. Only God can break down the divider between man and his holiness.
And so it represents the removal of that barrier by God. Not because God is any less holy, not because we are anymore. But because the ultimate sacrifice has been made, the debt has been paid once and for all.
So just as in that text that we read a few minutes ago in the New Testament, reading, therefore, brother, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that it was open to us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God. Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
We see that Jesus own body is the curb. And as his body is broken in crucifixion, the curtain is torn and broken so that we may, again, from Hebrews, with confidence draw near to the throne of grace. that we may receive mercy and find help in our time of need. Those 2 facts, the connecting of the darkening of the day on the day of the Lord, and this miraculous tearing of the curtain in the temple, paint a pretty blatant symbolic picture of what is actually taking place here.
Jesus’ death is atoning for the sins of the world and making peace with God. And with his mission accomplished, the mission that the Father had sent him to do since the beginning, he says his final words. in verse 46. Calling out with a loud voice, he said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
And having said this, he breathed his last. So John, the gospel of John references Jesus’ last words as being, it is finished. But Luke is drawing attention to a different point for us.
We see numerous references in the Old Testament scriptures to the day of the cross. It’s always struck me that Jesus is pretty quiet on the cross, right? He doesn’t say a whole lot.
But what we immediately realize is that Jesus is referencing and saying much more than he’s actually saying with just a few words. Again, you’re probably aware that there are 7 phrases that Jesus says from the cross. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
“Today you shall be with me in paradise.”
“Woman, behold thy son, and behold thy mother.”
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken?”
And “Father into your hands, I commit my spirit.”
So Luke and John are the ones from whom we hear most of Jesus’ words from the cross. Each of them tell us 3 of those different phrases. that he says. If Matthew and Mark were our only sources, the only thing that we would know that Jesus said from the cross would be my God, my God, why have you forsaken?
But Jesus isn’t quiet on the cross. He’s hyperlinked if we can throw an anachronism in there. He is referencing things backwards and saying much more than just a few words that he said.
And so why have you forsaken me? A reference from Psalms. I thirst, another reference from Psalms.
And the same is true of, Lord, into your hands. I commit my spirit. Looking back to Psalm 31.
And so what I want to do is quickly read Psalm 31 and but I want you to hear it as Jesus speaking these things. Now, obviously, all of the songs, there’s a sense in which they are being written by the psalmist, and so we hear it from them. But I also want you to hear Jesus saying these words.
“In you, O Lord, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me! Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily! Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me! For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me; you take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord. I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have known the distress of my soul, and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away. Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me. I have been forgotten like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. For I hear the whispering of many— terror on every side!— as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors! Make your face shine on your servant; save me in your steadfast love! O Lord, let me not be put to shame, for I call upon you; let the wicked be put to shame; let them go silently to Sheol. Let the lying lips be mute, which speak insolently against the righteous in pride and contempt. Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind! In the cover of your presence you hide them from the plots of men; you store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues. Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city. I had said in my alarm, “I am cut off from your sight.” But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help. Love the Lord, all you his saints! The Lord preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride. Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 31:1–24, ESV)
So as Jesus hangs there naked and ashamed, bleeding out and suffocating to death, condemned by his enemies, rejected by the people, abandoned by his friends, and seemingly even abandoned by God.
He points us to Psalm 31 and says, this isn’t what it looks like. Strange things happen that day. Luke mentions the darkness, but Matthew also tells us that there is an earthquake, just as in Joel’s prophecy, that the tombs of various saints crack opened and they were seen walking around the city. in the coming days.
You can do with that whatever you want. These strange signs and the presence of God and the gravity of the moment are not wasted on those who stand in mocking spectacle of Jesus. The soldiers thought that they were just executing a rabble rousing Jew.
The Pharisees in Sanhedrin thought he was a blasphemous revolutionary usurper. But verse 47 tells us that now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying certainly this man was innocent. And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.
Those who have mocked realize something is terribly wrong. In their own way, they are coming to realize that this is not what it looks like. So when I was in the 8th grade, we read a medieval morality play called Everyman.
If you’re not familiar with it, it’s basically a Catholic version of Pilgrim’s Progress. But towards the end of the story, every man at a certain point utters a Latin phrase. He says, in minus, to us, commendo, spiritone, male.
I didn’t know what that meant because I didn’t know Latin. But I looked it up and found that it was the words into your hands. I commit my spirit.
And so even as an 8th grader, I recognize the gravity of that phrase. that somehow it summarized everything, that it was all encompassing in its nature, that it was a summary of Jesus’ life, that is a summary of his cross, his death, and is the same in our lives. We entrust our lives to God. We trust our debts to God.
We entrust the 2 a.m. tragedies, the doctors diagnosis. The way we’re children, we entrust our ministries and our marriages. We trust our meaning, and we lay all those things in the Father’s hands.
And because of what Jesus did on this, his darkest day, in the world’s darkest day, if we have placed our faith in him and received the free gift of salvation through his blood, that even on our darkest day, we can say, this is not what it looks like. Death is not final. Evil does not win.
The greatest injustice ever perpetrated by man is actually the ultimate act of mercy that all history hinges on. And the God who was, and is, and always being. Through his son Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. is faithful yesterday, today, and forever.
