Matthew 27: 45-56 – He died for us

Imagine for three hours sunlight was shut out. When Jesus was hanging there on the cross, midway between heaven and earth, the whole weight of the world’s evil saturated and converged on Him. So heavy and thick was evil that the sunlight of God’s love was blotted out, just as the sunlight of the world was shut out for three solid hours. Feeling the heavy load, Jesus loudly cried out quoting the first part of Psalm 22, “Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani.” At that precisely point He felt so forsaken by God. For these words translated, literally mean “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus was bearing the weight of the sin of the whole world. The repulsiveness of sin had forced the face of God to be turned away from the Son who was bearing all of it at that moment. Here Jesus was giving His life as a ransom for many and the sin of “many’ was what caused the separation between Him and the Father He found great delight in.

Some on-lookers thought He was summoning Elijah to come and help Him. Of course this was furthest from Jesus’ mind. Matthew had referred to Elijah in chapter 17 at the Mount of Transfiguration, and also John the Baptist. Elijah had indeed come, not to rescue Jesus through His critical moment, but to point Him toward it, to assure Him that He was on track in the Father’s will.

Finally we see in verse 50, that Jesus let out a loud cry and then gave up the spirit. In other words He died. The crux of Jesus’ mission is this: He remained faithful to God, even at the point when He was forsaken. And He took hold of sin that hanged around the necks of incalculable millions, yours and mine included, and dragged them with Him into the obscurity of death to be destroyed. And the first to respond to what He accomplished was the physical and natural earth. The thick veil in the Temple that separated the Holy place from the Holy of holies was tore from top to bottom. Presumably by the earthquake that also took place in the city at the time of His death. In that, God had removed the veil that prevented entrance into His presence. Not only was the veil torn, the earthquake had also split open tombs, and some believers of God of old were revived and went into the Holy city of Jerusalem to show themselves to many.

For a while now Jesus had been sending warning to the priests and they had opposed and rejected Him. His death spelt the beginning of the end of the old system. They had refused to be that city set on a hill to radiate God’s light. So from now on the light would come from another hill, the hill called Mount Calvary. It was on that hill that the King of the Jews was put to death, cruelly and shamefully. And here we borrow words of the song that say, “There is a green hill far away, outside the city wall, where the Lord was crucified and died to save us all.” Here Matthew tells of another centurion, who stood and saw all that had taken place, and in a moment of shock had a quick enlightenment. He exclaimed “Surely this is the Son of God!” Hasn’t this scene been repeated many million times over? Many over the course of time, reading the same account had in shock surprise received the revelation of truth and exclaimed – This is truly the Son of God!  

As we read the account of Jesus’ death, we should anticipate the glorious result it would bring, not as the disciples and the women that were present looked at the whole scene. To them, that day was the gloomiest, darkest and filled with death. So to them the situation was a dim and hopeless one. They did not have our advantage of knowing what took place three days later. Today, like that centurion, we know without a shadow of doubt that Jesus is indeed God’s Son. We must, therefore, live out our life based on that conviction, that this is truly the Son of God! We must live in ways that can best attest to the world that we have indeed been impacted by His life that was given up for us once and for all!