39. Matthew 27:45-64: Jesus Dies

Matthew 27:45-56: The Death of Jesus

Did God Abandon Jesus? (Mt.27:45-46)

“Creation begins with darkness giving way to light, and when lights go out and the world goes back into darkness, it is a signal that creation is being undone.”[1] And that what we find Matthew telling us in the buildup to Jesus’ death. Nothing more or stronger could express the unthinkable horror of what was happening on Skull Hill that fateful day.

Little wonder Jesus cried out from the cross “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (v.46). What else could he have said given the enormity of this event? This quotation from Psa.22:1 sets his travail within the tradition of righteous suffers in Israel. As creation unravels the divine voice sounds again as it did over the watery chaos of the first stage of creation (Gen.1:2). But this is not a calm voice of settled declaration. It is a cry of agony. This is the end of all things. Not the end of the world as we might think about it but the end of the world sunk in sin, alienated from itself, and at odds with creation itself. 

Here is the great and terrible day of the Lord which Elijah was to precede and herald. And Jesus has told us Elijah has come in the person of John the Baptist (11:14; see Mal.4:1). So when the onlooking Jews mockingly say, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him” (v.49) they show that they understand neither the role of Elijah or the meaning of scripture as Jesus has already shown (13:14ff.). They do not know what is happening right in front of their noses.

And neither do we much of the time. And that’s because we forget to read these stories about which so much has been written and theorized and debated in their natural context of 2^nd Temple Judaism. British scholar Andrew Perriman has done the most to lay this perspective out against the traditional assumptions so I will rely on him to spell it out here (at some length):

“The idea that the kingdom narrative—the story of the clash with paganism—would entail the suffering of the righteous as a consequence of Israel’s sin is well established by the time we get to Jesus. We see it in Isaiah’s suffering servant and in numerous accounts of the violent oppression that a faithful section of Israel endured from Greek and Roman overlords, with their own leaders often conspiring against them.

“Jesus was not the first Jew to die on a Roman cross, but more importantly for the New Testament narrative he would also not be the last. His crucifixion anticipated the crucifixion of thousands of Jews during the war against Rome a generation later. He suffered the wrath of God that would come upon his people.

“The account of the Lord’s Supper suggests that Jesus attributed sacrificial meaning to his death: he was implicitly the Passover lamb; his blood confirmed a new covenant with his followers, as Moses had sprinkled the “blood of the covenant” on the people (Ex. 24:8). But these are not pointers to a deeper theory of personal atonement. They are ways of speaking about the effect or impact of Jesus’ death in the unfolding kingdom narrative.

“The supper is a fellowship meal for the disciples who will have to follow Jesus—the Son of Man who must suffer and come in his glory (cf. Lk. 22:22)—on a journey of Christ-like suffering until the kingdom of God comes and they are vindicated. They are bound together as an eschatological community. They share the meal in order to remember him until they eat together again when the kingdom of God comes. During the course of the meal Jesus says to them:

“You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Luke 22:28–30)

“Jesus’ death is eschatological before it is soteriological, which is why Luke makes so much more of the resurrection and ascension in Acts than he does of the crucifixion. Or to put it another way: Jesus’ death has narrative significance rather than theological significance.

“Luke’s soteriology in Acts is otherwise very simple: Jews and Gentiles are exhorted to repent of their sins and to believe that the resurrection of Jesus changes everything, both for Israel and for the nations; if they believe that, their sins are forgiven.

“The same point can be made with respect to Paul’s statement that God put forward Jesus “as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Rom. 3:25). It adds nothing to work this up into a general theory of substitutionary atonement. The narrative argument is that Israel faces condemnation under the Law because of persistent sin; Jesus (as the Son sent to Israel in the likeness of sinful flesh) was faithful unto death; on the basis of this God has demonstrated his righteousness regarding his people; and those who believe this, whether Jew or Greek, will be publicly justified at the parousia, when the nations confess that Jesus is Lord.

“Within the context of this narrative it makes sense to say that Jesus’ death was a propitiation for Israel’s sins, serving a purpose similar to the sin offering on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:15). But the efficacy of the whole thing lies in the faithfulness of Jesus and the belief of his followers regarding the future outcome.”

More from Perriman:

Jesus’ death was not a metaphysical event requiring abstract theological explanation. It was a historical event that had far-reaching historical repercussions. What set it apart from the many other deaths of righteous Jews at the time was, on the one hand, the claim that Jesus was the Son sent to the vineyard of Israel, and on the other, the confirmation of that vocation by his resurrection from the dead and elevation to a position of supreme authority at the right hand of God.

“As part of the narrative it made sense to invoke Old Testament themes of sacrifice, but the language is not straining to articulate a transcendent mystery of atonement. It is simply part of the telling of the story. Our interest in it lies in the fact that it is our story. We are still living it out.”[2]

I know this is a lot to read and take in and is likely very different from what you have heard and been taught. But it’s a logical extension of how we have trying to read Matthew from the beginning. That is, as the climax of Israel’s story with God in which Jesus, and as the Son sent to regather and reconstitute Abrahamic Israel through a death that would achieve that reconstitution and at the same time serve as God’s promised judgment against all the “Egypts” of the world (including the unbelieving majority of his own people who have become Egypt by their disobedience). Jesus’ death and God’s raising him from the dead also served to reassert and reestablish God’s rightful authority over these nations.

So Jesus died for his people bearing the wrath of unbelieving Israel and the nations against him. Abrahamic Israel died with him (Jesus as the one faithful Israelite) and rose with him (the new Abrahamic Israel). And the mark of this newness is signaled by Matthew when he tells us Jesus “gave up his spirit” (literal translation of the end of v.50). “At that moment” the curtain between the holy place and the Holy of Holies where only God dwelt is torn from top to bottom.[3] This rending of the temple curtain echoes Jesus’ prophecy of its destruction (24:2) and points to the new temple of the soon to be risen Jesus and his followers. That new temple is created and sustained by the Spirit Jesus has just given up! Israel expected a great outpouring of the Spirit on the great day of the Lord (see Ez.36:27; Joel 2:28-29). And here we see it happen. God is released from the now defunct temple by Jesus “giving up of his spirit.” As Leithart says,

Israel is waiting for the Spirit, and at His death Jesus cries out and “yields up His Spirit.” This might be just a way of describing death, but I think Matthew intends something more. This is not just Jesus’ death, but the death of Jesus as the gift of His Spirit, the Pentecostal cross. Jesus received the Spirit at His baptism, went to the wilderness in the power of the Spirit, preached and taught and healed in the power of the Spirit, and now at His death, yields up that Spirit, giving it to those who receive Him. He is Elijah on the cross, and as He departs He bestows a double measure of the Spirit on us.”[4]

God is now loose in the world in the power of his Spirit. The great Day of Lord, expected by Israel to shake the world to its foundations (Isa. 24:19-20, 23; Hag.2:6); looked for resurrection of the dead (Ez.37); and the conversion of the nations who come to Mt. Zion to serve and learn from Yahweh (Isa.2:1-4). Thus the strange story of the earthquake, the dead rising, and their return to Jerusalem in vv.51-53. What are we to do with this?

-Are these actual events?

-Or symbolic expressions of the hopes Israel held?

-Something else? 

I can’t say with certainty though I lean toward the second possibility above. In any case, Wright’s comment seems on point:

“Whatever we think about the earthquake, and the bodies of God's people of old being raised from the dead - and it has to be said that this is one of the oddest tales anywhere in the New Testament - we who live so much later do not have to look to one or two extraordinary occurrences at the time in order to be able to say that Jesus' death has changed the shape of the world.”[5]

And that, I think, is finally what Matthew wants us to see!

The Centurion’s confession (v.54) He affirms Jesus rather restrained answer to the high priest’s demand, “tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God” (26:63). He answered, “You say I am.” Here the Roman soldier adds a rousing affirmation to the high priest’s question, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”

The final note Matthew gives us in this section is to detail of the women who serve as witness to the end of Jesus’ life as they had attended and supported him in his ministry. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the Zebedee brothers are specifically named (v.56). Jesus’ male  disciples in hiding for fear of their lives due to their association with Jesus cannot serve as witnesses to Jesus’ execution. The women play that role. In this new world of reordered relations the women’s presence gives us a clue to heightened role they will play in this new temple. They do not, of course, experience it this way at that time. But when we discover in the next chapter that two of the Marys mentioned here are also witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection (28:1) we are surely right to emphasize their presence and commissioning as part of the new order of relations between men and women after Jesus’ resurrection.

Excursus: Did God Abandon Jesus on the Cross?

Jesus’ cry from the cross - “My God, my God, why have you forsaken (or abandoned) me,” – has not surprisingly occasioned much comment and debate. What did Jesus mean? Was there some kind of rupture or break in relationship or fellowship between the Father and the Son at this climactic moment in Jesus’ story?

I can’t rehearse that history here but I would like to make few comments. 

-that Jesus quote this phrase from Psa.22:1 situates this situation within the Jewish understanding of the innocent or righteous sufferer. To import it back into what might or might not have happened within the inner trinitarian life of God guarantees misunderstanding. All we can say on this latter score is that within trinitarian theology the works of God are indivisible and what one member of the trinity does the others share in too, in intention, motivation, and execution. To posit a “break” in the relationship between the Father and Son here violates this fundamental rule of trinitarian grammar.

-we have learned to read Old Testament quotes in the New Testament in light of the full context of the quote in the Old Testament. They are recalling the whole setting and teaching of the situation in which the quote is located and not merely the specific wording and teaching of the particular verse itself. Psa.22 begins in lamentation with this cry of forsakenness by the righteous sufferer but ends with his praising God, including v.24:

“For he did not despise or abhor
    the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me,
    but heard when I cried to him.”   

This suggests to me that the issue is not some break in relation between the sufferer and God but the sheer agony of the ordeal he is undergoing. Wright is correct: “When Jesus cried out, in the opening words of Psalm 22, asking why God had abandoned him, Matthew does not intend us to think, in a comforting sort of way, 'Oh, that was all right; you see, it only felt like that. Actually, God was carrying him through.' Part of the whole point of the cross is that there the weight of the world's evil really did converge upon Jesus, blotting out the sunlight of God's love as surely as the light of day was blotted out for three hours.”[6] Yet, as with other of Israel’s righteous sufferer’s Jesus maintained his trust in God’s faithfulness to him and to his vocation to see him through the very real agony and darkness of this moment to the light he was sure lay on the far side of it. This is, in my judgment, a characteristic expression of the Jewish way of faithfulness, that is, to hold together in heart and mind the utter and ugly reality of a situation with extravagant (and at the moment, apparently unwarranted) hope. Jesus is crying out in this agonized declaration both the utter reality of his situation – he is dying as a blasphemer to his people, a traitor to the Romans, and an apparent failure to God (no Jew expected a suffering, dying Messiah!) and in the larger context of Psa.22 voicing his hope that will not, in fact, be the truth, that he will be vindicated and rescued by his God. The suffering, agony, and desolation are deathly; the hope is resurrection through and beyond death.

Jesus is Buried, His Tomb Sealed and Guarded (Matthew 27:57-66)

Matthew’s account of Jesus’ burial anticipates his resurrection. He does all he can to forestall likely objections to this hallmark of early Christian proclamation: the resurrection of Jesus from the grave.

-Joseph of Arimathea is wealthy and doubtless well-known and respected in the community. His testimony to the reality of Jesus’ death and burial would carry great weight. That Pilate released Jesus body to Joseph is evidence that is executioners had done their job. Yes, Jesus really died.

-His tomb was new. There were no other bodies in there awaiting decomposition so their bones could be removed and placed in a ossuary. Jesus’ body/bones were not confused with others or mistakenly removed. Yes, Jesus was really buried and the body in Joseph’s tomb was his.

-His tomb was sealed and guarded against the common practice of the time of grave robbery. Besides that, the only parties with an interest in removing his body were the disciples. But they were hiding in fear of their lives. Unlikely they would so soon risk such a theft. No, Jesus’ body was not stolen from Joseph’s tomb.  

-Finally, that the two Marys who witness Jesus’ resurrection were also witnesses of his burial. They knew where Jesus was buried. No, the women did not go to the wrong tomb on Easter morning.

Matthew is not trying to prove anything here. This is not cheap apologetics. He is concerned to prepare readers to wonder, marvel, and even believe the testimony that Jesus was alive again on Easter morning! These other matters might detract from their focus on the real offense, the real miracle, here – that somehow God has raised the dead, buried, protected body of Jesus from the grave. So Matthew dispatches those concerns here.[7]

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[1] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 4768.

[2] https://www.postost.net/2017/02/death-jesus-not-difficult-understand-you-might-think.

[3] Keener notes: “Stories were told of catastrophes occurring at the deaths of pious rabbis, especially those whose intercession had been vital to the world; on rare occasions, Greek writers also applied such stories to the deaths of prominent philosophers. These events would have communicated Jesus’ importance quite well to ancient observers and readers” (IVP Background Commentary on the New Testament, on 27:51.

[4] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 4839.

[5] Wright, Matthew for Everyone: 192.

[6] Wright, Matthew for Everyone: 190.

[7] On all this see Wright, Matthew for Everyone: 195-196.