Matthew 27:28–31, 45–50, 54

Bible Studies for Life 
Director, Resource Center for Pastoral Excellence, Samford University

DEATH LIKE NO OTHER

Matthew 27:28–31, 45–50, 54

My mother passed away Dec. 10, 2014, at 87 years of age. She was a faithful wife, loving mother, friend of many and active in her church until she was no longer able. We were surprised how suddenly her death came. She had a heart attack in her sleep. I arrived at the emergency room not long after she did. She was conscious and knew I was with her. The doctor and attendants did what they could but her heart was just too weak. They turned off all the noise making monitors, pulled the curtain around her bed and left us alone. Within minutes after they left she passed from this life to the next — peacefully, quietly and without pain.

This Sunday’s lesson invites us to think about Jesus’ death. His was anything but peaceful, quiet and pain free. What meaning can be found in this horrible death?

Jesus was mocked by the people (28–31)

Public rejection by His own people who chose a criminal over Him was humiliating enough. Jesus endured even greater humiliation from mocking soldiers and jeering bystanders. He was given a scarlet robe, a crown of thorns, a scrawny length of reed as a scepter and a scribbled placard declaring Him “King of the Jews.” A peasant had to carry His cross because He was so physically weak.

Jesus was abandoned by God (45–50)

Jesus took upon Himself the brokenness and lost condition of humanity as the ultimate demonstration of God’s love. It seems inconceivable that the God of love would abandon His Son at the time of His greatest suffering and anguish. Such an understanding is because holiness and sin are incompatible. Yet how could a loving Father do such a thing? Many thoughtful Christians find it difficult to accept this understanding even in light of Jesus’ anguished words, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (v. 46).

Jesus’ cry was from a psalm of lament (Ps. 22:1). Many Jews who heard Him likely made the connection. Lament psalms describe a sense of peril or desperation felt by an individual or community. They usually include a progression from thoughts of peril and feeling that God is absent to awareness of God’s presence and activity on behalf of the individual or community. Lament psalms are about more than pleas for help in desperate times. They include a message of trust and hope in God who delivers and makes things right (Ps. 22:4–5, 24, 26, 30–31). Even as Jesus felt overwhelming vulnerability and pain during His final redemptive activity, He continued to trust God as He knew His death was near.

Did God abandon Jesus? We understand “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). Could it be the darkness (v. 45) represents the condition of all who reject God’s Messenger and His message of redemption and hope? Or rather than the usual understanding of the darkness indicating God’s abandonment, might the all-encompassing darkness represent God’s all-encompassing nearness during the time of Jesus’ despair? Even in our darkest times, when all hope seems lost, we trust that God is a “very present help in times of trouble” (Ps. 46:1). Our best understandings need room for the mystery and wonder of God’s activity.

Jesus was acknowledged as God’s Son (54)

Those present observed the “King of the Jews” as a naked, bleeding, outcast receiving the ultimate humiliation. Matthew includes apocalyptic details of an earthquake, opened tombs and raised saints walking the streets. Matthew wants all to know this was no ordinary death. Skeptics on the scene that day pondered what they experienced and were changed. Even now skeptics who ponder Jesus’ death and its meaning can experience a change of heart and life.