Word of Salvation – Vol. 44 No.9 – March 1999

 

The Son's Death Brings the Father's Pleasure

 

Sermon by Rev S. Bajema on Matthew 27:45-56

Scripture Readings: Matthew 27:45-56

Suggested Hymns: BoW 188:1, 4; 301; 305; 392:1, 3, 4; 400:1, 3

 

Sermonette 1 - The Way God's Son Dies (Vss. 45-50)

 

Dear Church of Jesus Christ.

The darkness which came on that first Good Friday was like a huge blanket that covered the land.  At the time of day when the sun would have been its brightest, there was no light at all.  And you couldn't just say that heavily-laden storm clouds had come that day.  You couldn't see at all!

But it was more than just something like night for Jesus.  This was the impact of God's curse shown in physical phenomenon.  The curses of God expressed in Deuteronomy come to their fullest expression against this one on the cross.  For not only is this the curse of Deuteronomy 21, which was against anyone hung on a tree, but it is the whole curse which is against a disobedient people.

Especially in Deuteronomy 28:29, where the LORD spells out His curses in the most comprehensive way, He said, “At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark.  You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you."

Those Israelites in Moses' time knew what it was like in their own recent history.  For total darkness had been one of the plagues which had covered Egypt for three days – a darkness so heavy it could be felt!  A darkness also confirmed later by the prophet Amos, as he spoke of the coming day of the LORD.  As he quotes God Himself, “In that day, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight." (Amos 8:9)

How graphically this is fulfilled now!  And how vivid it would be for the Jews who make up Matthew's original readers, as their Scriptures are even more fulfilled!  For, congregation, those listening Jewish believers would have realised what we see in our first point.  This is... THE WAY GOD'S SON DIES.

Now, by way of background, we note that a curse is the opposite of a blessing.  While a blessing is an announcement of God's care, a curse is an announcement of God's punishment.  Just think of the Lord's blessing that kept the night away while Joshua destroyed the five Canaanite kings and all their armies.

But the person who is cursed is abandoned by grace – they’re abandoned by God's compassion and goodness and struck by God's powerful wrath.  That's why it went so terribly dark.  That's why Jesus Christ cried out so hauntingly, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  All our curses are on Him!  And Matthew, to show how desolate and desperate Jesus is, uses the original Aramaic in which Jesus cried out.

As those among us who have come here from different countries, with different languages, might go back to that language to express something very personal to you, so Matthew does here for the Hebrew believers.  And that is all in addition to the obvious quotation of Psalm 22, which the words of Jesus are.

In His humanity our Lord takes all our sin upon Him.  Whether they are the sins of commission, the sins so clearly illustrated by what the chief priest and elders have done in nailing this innocent man to the cross; or whether they are the sins of omission, which those around the cross show by not understanding Jesus' words.  Because they certainly heard His words – Jesus shouted it out in full strength.

it would be with an equally loud voice that Jesus would cry out His last words in a few more moments.  So those standing there can't avoid their own share in proceedings.  Not that they could be innocent anyhow, for we are all equally guilty on this, we all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory.  But to finish the apostle Paul's quote here from Romans 3, for we are also “justified freely by God's grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” (vss.23f)

THE WAY GOD'S SON DIES tells us, congregation, about the reason why God's Son had to die.  Can you see – it was for you and me!  For who is it that nailed Him to a cursed cross but those who ought to have been there themselves?  But Christ looked beyond and He saw.  Do you see it, too?

Let's now sing, in response, hymn 305...

Sermonette 2 - The Way His Father Replies (vs 51)

The very moment Jesus Christ gave up His life, the world around Him literally blew up!  For when the text says “at that moment", it joins the tearing of the temple curtain, the shaking of the earth and the splitting of the rocks with the death of God's Son.  Other Bible versions say it even more clearly with: “And behold!"

So, what is the connection?  Is this creation crying out its anguish?  Could this be what the apostle Paul means when he says in Romans 8 that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth?  We actually need to go a step back further still.  For why it's clear that it is creation shaking and splitting, you don't just rip the immensely thick temple curtain with even a gale-force wind.  That takes something quite supernatural!  It takes the God behind creation, the Heavenly Father Himself.  And so this second part is called... THE WAY HIS FATHER REPLIES.

Friends, we mustn't forget that the task Jesus is doing here is the very one set by His Father.  John's Gospel speaks often of this.  In chapter 4 Jesus says, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work" (vs.31).  Then, chapter 5 has these words from Jesus, “...I seek not to please myself but him who sent me" (vs.30).  The very next chapter is no different again, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me" (6:38).  You'll find it keeps coming back in Scripture, especially in John's Gospel.

And does His Father find His Son's work acceptable?  Well, several times in His ministry the Father does indeed confirm His acceptance of His Son's work.  In Matthew's own gospel we have it at the beginning of Christ's ministry, in chapter 3 with His baptism.  Remember the words there, “As soon as Jesus was baptised, he went up out of the water.  At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased'" (vss.16f).  And in the account of 'The Transfiguration' in chapter 17 it's a voice from the cloud enveloping the Lord and those three disciples – a voice that says this time, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.  Listen to him!"

Now, with it all done, there is nothing more God needs to say physically in the presence of His Son.  But He does say it to the world!  For what does the temple curtain being torn tell us but that God's Word is going out!  So often has Satan struggled to get through that curtain and unseat the covenant God from amongst His people Israel.  But now it's God who tears that dividing curtain away to bring about His way throughout the earth!  No longer would the Lord only dwell among Israel; no longer would Israel be His only nation, for now would come true spiritually the promise to Abraham: "You will be the father of many nations" (Gen.7:4).

Do you see it congregation?  The tearing of that curtain, the veil that kept the LORD for Israel, meant the preaching of the Gospel to all the world!  Because what is the Gospel but that Christ has fully paid for the sins of believers.  Imagine the shock for the Jews that the torn curtain gave.  The Holy of Holies in open view, visible to Jew and pagan alike!  All those sacred things, which not even ordinary Jews could see, are exposed.

You see, dear friends, throughout His suffering, up until His death, Christ was still being the Messiah for the Jews.  Matthew's interaction with their Old Testament scriptures showed how it was only with His death that there was an end to all those ceremonies.  That Israel didn't understand, that a veil remained on their mind, to use the words of the apostle Paul, and so the prophecy of Psalm 69 became fulfilled, shows us why the Church afterward developed elsewhere.

It was the Jews who so much persecuted the followers of their own Messiah.  Thus, through the refusal of his direct descendants, Abraham became the father of many nations.  The promise given even before Abraham, of Japheth living in the tents of Shem, means we are now branches grafted into the olive tree, instead of its natural branches.  It was Christ on the cross who not only shook the physical ground at Calvary - He moved across the world and through the ages, and into our hearts, today!

Let's respond now to God's Word with singing hymn 392, vss. 1, 3, & 4

Sermonette 3 – The Way That Saints Arise (vss.52-56)

We have been seeing a number of unique Jewish aspects in these verses of Matthew which brought home to them – and through them to us, too – the world-changing and time-challenging impact the death of Christ was.  But while Matthew has put what we've seen so far in a particularly Hebrew context, the facts mentioned have been no different than Mark or Luke, or John for that matter.

With verse 52, however, we have an incident for which you'll find no cross reference in the other gospels.  For the tombs breaking open and the bodies of many holy people who had died being raised to life, is uniquely in Matthew's Gospel.  And we have to wonder why.  Just like we have to see if there is any connection with the verses which follow it, too, because grammatically there's a distinct unity.  So here is our third part...

THE WAY THAT SAINTS ARISE!

Schilder speaks of the resurrection of past saints as a cry from the coming church of the dead.  It means we have the third of three cries, for there is the cry of Christ from the cross, the cry of the Father through His creation, and now the cry of the church.  It is quite some chorus of witness to the stupendous act which Jesus has done; for they all point to the most overwhelming victory that He won!  And then the witness from the coming church is itself three-fold.

There are those who arise with the supernatural opening of the tombs.  As they are touched by THE LIFE Himself they show the defeat of death.

Then there is the centurion and those with him guarding Jesus.  This gentile man was driven to confess his utter helplessness as he acknowledged completely Christ's working in His own life.

And there are the women-folk themselves.  Some of them hadn't given up at all, but were there, faithfully waiting for what the Lord had told them would happen.  Unlike the disciples whose faith is dormant until Easter Sunday, these ladies were still following Jesus.

The past saints, the future believers, and the present members.  It covers the lot, doesn't it?  But especially in relation to those risen from the dead, the point is convincingly made.  For Jesus has just been taunted on the cross about getting Himself off the cross, and so bringing Himself back to life.  Now He does just that, through the resurrection of believers who have recently died.  We understand they would have recently died because they are able to appear to people who recognised them in the city later.

These resurrected saints tell that this Jesus is the link between the two covenants.  But will it help at all?  Could this bring a different effect than what Jesus had told with that parable of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar?  In that story the rich man, suffering intensely in hell, pleaded with Abraham for the beggar Lazarus to tell his family to watch out – to which Abraham replied that if they haven't listened to Moses and the prophets, not even a person rising from the dead could convince them!

It's here that exactly this happened; and it's true, there's no repentance from this city!  Quite the opposite, as we'll discover, when the Jews begin their own witch-hunt against the church.  For though the writings of their own Jewish theologians taught them that in the messianic era many righteous should rise from the grave, they couldn't see it.  Now those righteous people have risen, they are there, witnessing live to them.  But it won't change a thing.  Without the Jews being alive by faith in Christ not even Moses and the prophets appearing to them will change anything!

How different it is for you and me.  Though we don't live in the holy city, though no risen saints from the past have appeared to us, and though we haven't seen the sight the centurion saw, we have been brought to faith.  Like those women, we can be faithful, waiting expectantly, seeing beyond any present despair because of the great hope we have in here!  Let's do that and not be found dormant like the disciples themselves.  Let's look to Jesus!

Amen.