Friday, April 3, 33AD

Matthew 27:45-56

At least three people are known to have been executed by Roman authority just outside of Jerusalem on or about April 3, 33 AD.

In other parts of the Roman Empire it is likely that a number of others were executed as well.]

There is no reliable way to determine how many others may have died on or about April 3, 33AD.

At least four writers share some of the details of that brutal execution. Only one of those four was an actual eyewitness. Matthew, Mark, and Luke were not present but had reliable, eyewitness accounts on which they could rely.

Of the three who were executed on that day only one name is known. Two of the three were criminals. The third was crucified because of political expediency, as least as the Jewish leader expressed it:

John 11:49–50 (HCSB)

One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! You’re not considering that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.”

Of course this One whose name is known that died on or about April 3, 33AD is Jesus Christ, son of Mary, the One who had been conceived in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit.

His death, nearly 2,000 years ago, is still making an impact across the world.

What is it about the death of Jesus that it stands out so clearly in human history?

Jesus Gives His Life - It is Not Taken From Him

John 10:17–18 (HCSB)

This is why the Father loves Me, because I am laying down My life so I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down on My own. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again. I have received this command from My Father.”

From the beginning of His public teaching and healing activity, Jesus knew that soon He would be asked to die.

Prior to His arrest and trials, we overhear Jesus praying:

Matthew 26:37–44 (HCSB)

Taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is swallowed up in sorrow —to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with Me.” Going a little farther, He fell facedown and prayed, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.” Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping. He asked Peter, “So, couldn’t you stay awake with Me one hour? Stay awake and pray, so that you won’t enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, Your will be done.” And He came again and found them sleeping, because they could not keep their eyes open. After leaving them, He went away again and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more.

Three times Jesus prayed the same words. After the third time, He gathered the few He had taken with Him and was arrested, put on trial, carried His own cross, and allowed the Romans soldiers to do what Pilate had ordered. ‘Crucify Him.’

Jesus was not killed by some random act of violence. He was not crucified because Judas betrayed Him.

Jesus was in full and complete control of His body - as painful and difficult as it must have been - to the very moment

Matthew 27:50 (HCSB)

Jesus shouted again with a loud voice and gave up His spirit.

One of the remarkable acts recorded by Matthew is how Jesus recited Psalm 22 in the midst of the agony of crucifixion.

Most people didn’t die because of crucifixion. They died because they asphyxiated. The pressure of the body bearing down on the diaphragm made each breath more difficult. To speak at all was truly remarkable.

What are we to make of the words from Psalm 22 recorded in

Matthew 27:46 (HCSB)

About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Elí, Elí, lemá sabachtháni?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Did God somehow violate the unity of the Trinity?

Did God withdraw His presence from His Son at that moment?

Did the Holy Spirit depart from Jesus?

Are those the reasons Jesus cries out about being forsaken?

While much of what occured in that moment is hidden from us, we can affirm several crucial facts:

a). God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit remained One God in Three Persons

b). “He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21, HCSB)

c). At that moment Jesus experienced the full and complete wrath of God towards sin - the sin of all humanity past, present, and future.

The cross, as one insightful author notes,

“…is the enactment in history of an eternal decision within the being of God…God is against all that is not part of his purpose; that is the meaning of his ‘wrath.’”

Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, MI.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2015), 50

Jesus’ death demands we pay attention

As Jesus was suspended between life and death on the cross a supernatural darkness fell upon the land.

This was no eclipse, this was no fog. This was a God-caused sign calling for people to take notice of this event!

As Jesus “cried out...” and “gave up His spirit” (Matt 27:50) the earth quaked and rocks split.

Luke recalls the events of that final week, he wrote this about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem:

Luke 19:37–40 HCSB

Now He came near the path down the Mount of Olives, and the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen: The King who comes in the name of the Lord is the blessed One. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven! Some of the Pharisees from the crowd told Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out!”

Most people who have survived an earthquake describe the experience as similar to hearing a freight train bearing down on their home.

Perhaps those closest to Jesus could find no reason to lift up praise to God as Jesus gave His life. The earth itself cried out as only the earth can do - PAY ATTENTION! TAKE NOTE OF WHAT JUST HAPPENED!

In the Temple itself the curtain/veil that separated the inner, Holy of Holies from the prying eyes of sinful people was torn in two - starting at the top - disclosing once for all the place where God dwells.

Vs 52 records another way that creation responded:

Matthew 27:52 HCSB

The tombs were also opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

Only Matthew records this strange phenomenon. The appearance of these from the dead were God’s ways of calling out - PAY ATTENTION!

There is more than simply what you see occurring as Jesus gives His life.

Jesus’ death changes those at the cross

Matthew 27:54 HCSB

When the centurion and those with him, who were guarding Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they were terrified and said, “This man really was God’s Son!”

It is doubtful that this was the centurion’s first crucifixion.

A centurion was a commander of at least one hundred - and perhaps as many as 1,000 soldiers.

He was no new recruit, having just joined.

As he experienced the events surrounding Jesus giving up His life, his life was changed!

Matthew gives prominence to several women who were followers of Jesus.

Notice who wasn’t there: any of the male followers, with the exception of John.

It would have added to the scorn and humiliation heaped on Jesus by the ruling elders of Judaism that ’women’ were among those who followed Jesus.

Some of these women followed Jesus’ body from the cross to the tomb so that on the first day of the coming week they could finish caring for the body of Jesus in the tomb, performing one last act of honor and respect.

Purpose not Pain is the Point of the Cross

It should not surprise us that there is hardly any mention of the physical pain which Jesus experienced. There is no doubt He suffered intense pain, beyond what most of us can imagine.

As writers trying to make sense of the cross decades after the fact, these writers, and another named Paul, all focused not on the pain but on the purpose of the cross.

Darkness, earthquake, rocks splitting open, temple curtain torn, dead being raised to life, Roman soldiers professing their amazement. These physical manifestations, experienced by all who were near the cross, aren’t the purpose.

So, what is the purpose of the cross? The Roman’s and the Jewish leaders meant the cross to be humiliating . They intended to silence once and for all this ‘Jesus’ and His followers.

It is crucial that we grasp God’s purpose for the cross.

Listening to Jesus’ cry, suggesting abandonment (Matt 27:46) helps us to recognize God’s purpose.

God created Adam and Eve, placing them in a perfect environment, and guarding their lives with a mandate to multiply, to manage, keep, and cultivate the garden till it spread across the entire globe.

Adam and Eve disobeyed one command. God had decreed that the consequence of their disobedience would be death. The enemy prompted Adam and Eve to question whether or not God was serious.

God was serious.

Among the first children Adam and Eve bore, Cain killed his brother Abel.

Then Genesis 5, recounting the generations from Seth (Adam and Eve’s son) to Noah is punctuated with this phrase:

‘and then he died.’ With one exception, Enoch (Gen 5:22-25), the descendants of Adam and Eve through Seth experienced physical death.

The cross is where Jesus took the burden of humanity’s sin upon Himself so that He might suffer death for all.

The decision was in the eternal counsel of God before the first act of creation.

The cross would be the place where God’s wrath would be focused - a wrath that rests upon anything and everything that is not part of God’s purpose and plan.

The death Jesus died on the cross is God’s gift to us - instead of bearing His wrath because of our actions that inhibit and impede God’s purposes, Jesus took the wrath in our place.

The death of Jesus, we will see next Sunday, also makes possible a new life, a life according to the likeness and image of God as known in Jesus Christ.

Why did Jesus die?

We have looked at some of the events and teachings of Jesus that occurred in His last week.

If we ignore the cross, if we excuse away the cross nothing else Jesus did, nothing else Jesus said has any impact or effect in our lives.

Like the Roman Centurion, each of us is called to look at Jesus on the cross and ask:

Why?

What is God’s purpose in Jesus’ death for me?

Truly, this is the Son of God -

the One who came to take away the sin of the world;

the One who opens the door to the kingdom of God;

the One through whom sin and guilt are eliminated; the One in whom life as God intended it to be is found.

We are here today - reminded of Jesus’ death by the words we read, the songs we have sung, and by this cross highlighted behind me on the platform.

What do you see? What do you hear?

Will you allow God to take what Jesus accomplished on the cross and apply it in your life?

Will you discover freedom from sin that oppresses, sin that imprisons, sin that hinders you?

Will you discover freedom from the guilt of knowing you can never measure up…but because Jesus died for you God acknowledges His obedience, His faithfulness to the point of death as ours when we acknowledge Him?