You know what makes a good leader? They can lead you somewhere that you want to go but don’t know how to get there. You know what makes a great leader? They can lead you somewhere you don’t want to go, but know you have to. You know what makes an excellent leader? They can lead you somewhere you didn’t know you needed to go, and they help you overcome the challenges along the way.
Our world has a lot of good leaders, but they’re usually the ones that speak to the choir. A lot of political and pastoral leadership lands in this category. You already believe in a set of principles on an issue, whether it’s small government or following Jesus. You know what you want, you just don’t know how to achieve it, a good leader helps you get there.
Great leaders are a little harder to come by. These are usually military leaders that call their troops to war. They can be presidents guiding a nation during a time civil unrest, like Lincoln, or parents trying to help their child overcome depression.
But excellent leaders are almost impossible to find, because they have to know something that no one else knows. They have to have insight into the deeper recesses of a person’s life, things they didn’t know about themselves. Most leaders work on the obvious, but excellent leaders work on the unknown of the inner person. And they move us from where we think we should be, to where we ought to be. But these leaders just don’t say, I know you need to go, they walk with you along the way.
Out of all the leaders I’ve read about in history who are consider noteworthy, they fall into either being good or great, but only Jesus, in my opinion, is excellent. Because he doesn’t call us to something we know we need, he reveals what is most needed, then sacrifices to bring it to us, and then lives with us along the journey.
And it’s Jesus’ work that brings us back to our sermon series in the book of Matthew, where we’ll be picking it back up in chapter 27, verse 32. And as we open to Matthew 27:32, let’s look back on the previous weeks.
This last section has been focused around Jesus’ authority. And so we have seen that as disciples, we are to be satisfied in Jesus’ authority by seeking and doing his will. This means that we do not seek our own satisfaction apart from Jesus’ will, but instead, seek his will above our own, which leads into the satisfaction that our souls long for.
We then saw that as disciples we must be on our guard for the trap that calls us to be self-reliant. That says, “I am strong without God.” It’s a trap that we can easily fall into, when we believe the lie that we can do things without the work of Jesus. We must always remember that without Jesus we are doomed to fail, but with him, we have already won.
Following that, we saw that to overcome this trap we must resolve ourselves daily to follow Jesus. Like Jesus resolved himself to go to the cross, we must look to God and say, your will be done, not mine. This has to be a daily commitment and more often, a decision by decision commitment. Like we breath and blink, we must seek the will of God above our own.
Finally last week, we walked through the final trial of Jesus. There we saw the humiliation that Jesus had to go through. It was in that humiliation that we talked about how if we were there, it would be us who stood in the place of the mockers. Being honest about our responsibility in leading Jesus to the cross, both humbles us and should cause us to praise him. Because it was our sin that held him to the cross, our rejoicing at his sacrifice should be daily, just as our submission to him should be.
This now leads us into the final verses of chapter 27, where we see the cross. Let’s read Matthew 27, starting in verse 32 together.
32 As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene (sa-ree-knee), named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. 33 They came to a place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). 34 There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused to drink it. 35 When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. 36 And sitting down, they kept watch over him there. 37 Above his head they placed the written charge against him: this is Jesus, the King of the Jews.
38 Two rebels were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. 39 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads 40 and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” 41 In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 42 “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44 In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
45 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,[c] lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
47 When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”
48 Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. 49 The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”
50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
54 When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”
55 Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs. 56 Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.
57 As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. 58 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. 59 Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60 and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. 61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.
62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63 “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”
65 “Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.
In these 34 verses, a lot of Scripture is fulfilled, and there is so many minor details that are integral to the layering of what is happening, that we could spend a few weeks going through each. Yet as usual, we are looking at the overall picture that the Holy Spirit is painting through the pen of Matthew. So let’s walk through these four parts of the cross to see this portrait’s brush strokes.
After Jesus’ horrific beatings at the hands of the both the Jewish guards, and Roman soldiers, Jesus is led out to the place of his execution. We can see that the beatings have taken their toll on Jesus, because the soldiers conscript a man named Simon to help carry Jesus’ cross. The soldiers led Jesus to Golgotha and there nailed him to the cross and raised him to suffer for hours on end.
It is here that we must pause and recognizing something that is happening in this passage. Jesus cries out in verse 45, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” This phrase comes from Psalm 22. By looking at this Psalm, we can see that it is a parallel to the crucifixion and will be referenced several times. Listen to this from Psalm 22:11, “Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.12 Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. 13 Roaring lions that tear their prey open their mouths wide against me. 14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me (v.11-14).”
These words of the Psalmist parallel the moments leading to the crucifixion. Jesus’ time in the Garden, the unjust trials that he had to go through, and as we’ll see the moments throughout his cruxifixction. This Psalm is very important to the crucifixion story because it carries a lot of the imagery to the act of crucifixion. In verse 16 of Psalm 22, listen to the imagery of the piercing nails, “Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet.” In imagery the Psalmist is prophesying of Jesus on the cross.
So let’s turn to the Jesus on the cross, and see how this Psalm plays out.
It’s here on the cross that we get a series of moments that are very important. Matthew starts by letting us know that Jesus was presented with a wine and gall mixture. This had become a custom of the Jews to help with the pain for those being crucified and was based on Proverbs 31:6-7, “Let beer be for those who are perishing, wine for those who are in anguish! 7 Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more. Yet, Jesus rejects this pain reliever, choosing to embrace the pain of the cross. Now Jesus isn’t rejecting this compassionate act because it would be wrong of him to, but rather that he would be fully aware of what was going on. Jesus needed his mental faculties as clear as possible so, as we’ll see, prophecy could be fulfilled. Again we see this in Psalm 22, verse 15, “My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.”
In the next moment we see the people casting lots for Jesus’ clothes. Basically they are gambling for the only earthly possessions Jesus had. This was customary for the executioners, and was seen as sort of a bonus to the job. Yet, this moment is again fulfilled in the words of Psalm 22:18, “They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.”
In the next moment, we hear of mockers yelling at Jesus. They says things like, “‘You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God (Mt. 27:40)!’” And “‘He saved others…but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, “I am the Son of God (MT.27:42-43).’””
Now listen to the words of Psalm 22, “6 But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. 7 All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. 8 ‘He trusts in the Lord,’ they say, ‘let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him (v.6-8).’”
These people mock Jesus, yet they are falling right into the prophetic words that they say they believe, but show they do not.
Matthew then takes us to where the as sun reaches its highest point in the sky, where several moments follow each other. First, the shine of the sun over the land goes dark. It’s here that we should pause. Because we have a record of this event outside of the Bible where the sun was darkened in such a way and an earthquake occurred. In the writings of Phlegon (flee-gone) of Tralles, we get this quote, “In the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad, there was a great eclipse of the Sun, greater than had ever been known before, for at the sixth hour the day was changed into night, and the stars were seen in the heavens. An earthquake occurred in Bythinia and overthrew a great part of the city of Nicæa (https://www.freechristianteaching.tv/the-ad-33-date-of-the-crucifixion-according-to-phlegon-a-secular-greek-historian).” Working out the years of Phlegon (flee-gone), we get the spring of AD 33. This corresponds with the Passover of that year. So not only is the prophetic word fulfilled, but its events are witnessed by others in the world.
This is followed by Jesus’ crying out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” People in the crowd hear the Eli, and think that Jesus is calling out for Elijah. A man taken by God in a chariot instead of dying like everyone else. But here again, Jesus isn’t succumbing, he’s pointing his disciples back to Psalm 22, by quoting it’s opening. The opening of the Psalm reads, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? 2 My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.”
And we might think that Jesus is succumbing. He’s succumbing to the pain, he’s succumbing to this torture, but we must remember Jesus was resolved. He resolved himself in the garden to go to the cross, because it was the will of the Father. And if we keep reading in Psalm 22, we can see the resolve of the Psalmist as well. “Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the one Israel praises. 4 In you our ancestors put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. 5 To you they cried out and were saved; in you they trusted and were not put to shame (v. 3-5).”
When Jesus quotes the beginning of this Psalm, it’s to point his disciples to it. It wasn’t me Jeremiah, or Paul, or Matthew, or any other theologian that said, “Oh hey, Psalm 22 fits with this Jesus story.” No it’s the Holy Spirit reminding Matthew, that Jesus spoke this opening to point his disciples to see how this crucifixion was spoken about hundreds of years earlier, so that his disciples would trust in the fact that this horrific scene had purpose. Jesus’ authority, God’s work, was not being defeated, but instead was being fulfilled.
And then we get what Matthew says in verse 50, “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.” This lets us know that Jesus held on as long as he willed so that all prophetic words would be fulfilled. Jesus didn’t just die, be purposefully let go, so that the full sacrifice and what was spoken through the prophets would be satisfied.
It’s then that we get creation’s response to it’s Creator’s sacrifice. Notice the sequence of events. The curtain is torn from top to bottom. Since the days of Moses, that curtain represented the separation between God and man. Only one person could pass by that curtain, but now it was torn in two, and the pathway away from the separation between God and man was established through Jesus.
Next, the earthquake. The quake didn’t cause the curtain to rip, Jesus’s sacrifice caused that, but the earth shook in response to the Savior’s death. From this quake, old saints were raised in a miracle never seen before, even to this day. This seems to be a taste of the full resurrection that is to come, but even these saints waited to come out of their tombs until after the resurrection of Jesus came out of his tomb, so that he would be the first in all things.
Following Jesus death on the cross, it isn’t a Jewish person who speaks these words, “Surely he was the Son of God (v.54)!” No it was a Gentile soldier. It wasn’t one of the Pharisees or priests of the Jewish people, the ones that should have made this statement. No it was an adversary of the Jewish people. A man who represented the subjugation of God’s people. He was the one who recognized the greatness of Jesus. But Matthew also mentions that the women were there as well. The men disciples, those, like the religious leader, who should have stayed by Jesus’ side, they were no were, but the women were there and they were watching.
The women were watching as Jospeh of Arimathea took Jesus’ body down from the cross. They watched as this Jospeh took Jesus to a new tomb and laid him there. And unknown to them they watched as yet another prophecy was fulfilled; this one from the Suffering Servant passage of Isaiah 53:9, “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.”
But you know who was also watching? The religious leaders. They knew where Jesus was buried, they knew that he had prophesied that he would raise from the dead, and so they sought to position guards outside of the tomb so that no one would be able to claim Jesus rose again.
And that’s where we leave it. We leave it as the world left it. Jesus was dead, mocked and defeated on the cross. As the rock rolled over the tomb, the disciples, both men and women, saw their Master taken and his teachings failing. As the guards were posted, the religious leaders left it as just another failed Messiah come and gone. Their power secured. To Pilate, it was left as just another Jewish squabble dealt with.
But we know, as the disciples should have known, that this was all done for the purposes of God. We walked through several prophecies that this fulfilled. From the Servant Songs of Isaiah, to the Crucifixion Psalm 22, we have seen that the work of Jesus was purposeful and powerful. It tore the curtain that separated God from man. It shook the ground and raised saints from the dead. And as the stone rolled over the tomb, Jesus rested as he once did on the seventh day. In that creation week, Jesus spoke the universe into existence and started a relationship with his creation. In the week that led to his crucifixion, Jesus again worked, but this time to bring out reconciliation between God and man. That the rebellion of the first man Adam, was rectified in the man Jesus.
This is why Paul proclaims in Romans 5, “12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. 15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many (v.12-15)!”
Jesus did it! And we are the result of it. If we recognize our sin, that we have rebelled against God and his word, and accept Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf, we now live in the death and life of Jesus. The Cross of Christ is the pathway to God. No more religious rituals, no more separation, Jesus is the pathway, his cross the sacrifice, and as we’ll see, the resurrection God’s stamp of approval that it was accepted.
My challenge for you this week is to read though Psalm 22 and then to re-read the crucifixion story. From the Garden of Gethsemane to the tomb of Jospeh. Read the two together, so that you can praise God for his work through the Psalmist and his work through the cross.
Let us be a people who stand on the revealed Word of God, trusting that what God has spoken has and will come to pass. That in our darkest day, we may trust as our Savior trusted, in the will of the Father. Amen.
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