Understanding the Misunderstanding: Matthew 27:46-56(Sermon)

Introduction

Thank you, worship team. It is good to gather and praise the Lord. Today, we are going to be talking about arguably the most significant event in all of history. People didn’t understand what was happening.

The Romans were killing the Savior of the world, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
Criminals suffering with Jesus made fun of him.
The Jewish leaders hated this Prophet, Great High Priest, and King Messiah because they thought he was an imposter possessed by the devil.

Matthew shares a misunderstanding in our passage and zooms out, giving us four subsequent blessings flowing out of Jesus’s death on the cross.

TEXT

I will have W.K. read the text. We are continuing our sermon series in the book of Matthew as we preach verse by verse, chapter by chapter. We are in chapter 27, starting at verse 45. We will project the words behind me. Would you please stand with me in honor of God’s Word?

MATTHEW 27:45–56

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. (Matthew 27:45–56, ESV)

PRAYER

The Word of the Lord. [Thanks be to God]. Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, thank you for your Word. It is true. This is familiar; however, it reminds us you suffered for our sins. We need your help to follow you. We need your mercy to trust you. We can’t wash our guilt away; only your blood does that. Help us recall and rejoice in your love expressed on the cross. We praise you for access to God our Father, hope everlasting, spiritual eyes to see, and a calling. In Jesus’s name, we pray, amen. You may be seated.

CONTEXT

We are diving back into Passover week, 2000 years ago. It was Friday. The disciples had run away when Jewish authorities arrested Jesus the night before. Peter said he would never do such a thing but did. Jesus went on trial in the middle of the night and said nothing until he said something that was enough to get a death sentence. What did he say? He associated himself with an ancient prophecy in Daniel. The Jewish leadership declared it blasphemous and worthy of death. However, they couldn’t administer this execution. That was the job of Rome. Matthew tells us that Peter snuck back to watch this farce of justice. When people figured out that Peter was there, they associated him with Jesus. Peter denied knowing Jesus, not once, not twice, but three times. Jesus had told him that he would do this. A rooster crowed, and Peter recognized what he had done. He wept for the guilt of his lies. In the meantime, the priests sent Jesus to Pilate to get their sentencing. Yet, Pilate interrogated Jesus and determined he didn’t deserve to die. Pressured by the Jewish leaders, he capitulated and had Jesus flogged and crucified anyway.

STRUCTURE:

Vs. 45 A Timestamp

Vs. 46–50 Psalm 22 and a Misunderstanding

Vs. 51–56 The Dramatic Implications of the Son of Man’s Death

The structure of our verses begins with a simple time stamp (vs. 45), a quote from Psalm 22, and a misunderstanding (vss. 46–50), and concludes with Matthew zooming out and giving four dramatic implications of Jesus’s death (vss. 51–56).

Main Idea

The main idea of the text is that:

The Son of God died to give great gifts, some misunderstood

Matthew looks at who Jesus was and compiles the blessings of Jesus’s death in these verses. We must determine where we land. Are we like those who were confused and against him, or do we align with those who now have access to God, hope everlasting, spiritual eyes to see, and a calling?

TIME

Let’s look at verse 45 to see how I came up with this structure and main idea and how it relates to us today. Look in your Bible to Matthew 27, starting at verse 45.

“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour” (Matthew 27:45, ESV).

The way the Jewish people organized time in Jesus’s day differed from ours. Their days began at sunset, not sunrise. Their hours were like two rough twelve-hour periods that varied depending on season. That meant the sixth hour in our passage was about noon, and the ninth hour was about three. We know then that the darkness in the middle of the day was not a solar eclipse like earlier this year. For those of you who saw it, it was eerie. I looked out my backyard, but a number of you traveled south. And from what I heard, the feeling and silence were striking. Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote that during these three hours, the Jewish priests were slaughtering Passover lambs. So picture this: it was dark, and the priests were slaughtering lambs in the temple, blood was flowing from the altar, and outside of the city, the Lamb of God was crying out to God while taking away the sins of the world, doing what these lambs were symbolically meant to do. This was Good Friday.

The Son of God died to give great gifts, some misunderstood

On the chronology I have argued in the comments on 26:17, this would place Jesus’ death about the time the official slaughter of the Passover lambs began on Nisan 14 “between the two evenings,” (Exod 12:6) which was interpreted according to Josephus, War 6.423, as meaning from the ninth to the eleventh hours (cf. m. Pesaḥ. 5:1,3). Matthew, however, does not draw attention to this aspect of the timing. (R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publication Co., 2007).)

DEBATE

Let’s jump to verse 46:

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ ” (Matthew 27:46, ESV).

Matthew tells us the meaning of these words in Greek. My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? This was a direct quotation from Psalm 22. Keep your mark in Matthew 27 and go to Psalm 22 if you have your Bible. Let’s look at verse 1. Psalm 22 goes on to say:

“Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,

and by night, but I find no rest” (Psalm 22:1b–2).

These verses echo a Jewish prophecy from Isaiah 53.

Yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;

he has put him to grief;

(Isaiah 53:4–10, ESV)

Matthew goes on to tell us that,

“Sone of the bystanders, hearing it [the Psalm], said, ‘This man is calling Elijah’ ” (Matthew 27:47, ESV).

Remember the big idea of the passage:

The Son of God died to give great gifts, some misunderstood

What did Jesus mean? The bystanders thought he was calling on the famous prophet Elijah. But that was not what Jesus was getting at. They misunderstood. What did Jesus mean God had forsaken him? How? Did God the Father forsake God the Son? Did God separate from God? We bump into a mystery when dealing with the details of the Trinity. We know from the rest of God’s revealed Scripture that his nature is unchangeable, and he is one. How does this work? What is happening? Jesus didn’t cease to be God. The other prophetic passages we read can help us understand what was happening. Isaiah 53 again said:

But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5–6 , ESV)

He took our sins. Paul said to the church in Greece that Jesus became sin so that in our relationship with him, we have the righteousness of God. Another way to put it is that Jesus exchanged his perfect track record for our imperfect one. He bore the penalty we deserved. The referee saw the foul, and a teammate took the consequence. But it was much worse as if the referee had ejected him from the game. Or, banned from ever playing. But worse. What was going on in Jesus’s mind? I believe that Jesus had the whole Psalm memorized and going through his head. Verse 3 points to God’s character and hope. Look at verse 3 of Psalm 22.

Yet you are holy,

enthroned on the praises of Israel.

In you our fathers trusted;

they trusted, and you delivered them.

To you they cried and were rescued;

in you they trusted and were not put to shame. (Psalm 22:3–4, ESV)

Was Jesus trying to cry to God, his father, for help? Not Elijah? What was he praying about? Was he reminding himself of the truth of the Bible? Was he remembering the prophecy he was fulfilling? We know that he was suffocating on the cross. To recite Scripture out loud required Jesus to push down on his feet and pull up with his hands to gather his breath. His lacerated back would scrape against the wood. Verses 6 and 7 go back to the pain he experienced. Yet, the tone of the prophecy in Isaiah and the Psalm moves from despair to hope as it concludes. Isaiah states:

When his soul makes an offering for guilt,

he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;

the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

make many to be accounted righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:10–11, ESV)

His days will be prolonged. He shall be satisfied. He shall make many to be accounted righteous. The Psalm ends:

Posterity shall serve him;

it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;

they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,

that he has done it. (Psalm 22:30–31, ESV)

Friends, the dead one, Jesus, would not remain dead for long. He would rise. Posterity, a future people, would serve him. He shall see and be satisfied. Some would follow him and become his hands, feet, and mouth, testifying to his greatness. I believe Jesus was praying, talking to his Father, remembering this prophecy, declaring, and planting seeds of hope and faith in his audience.

SOUR WINE

Turn back to Matthew 27, verse 48. But people misunderstood.

“And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, ‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him’ ” (Matthew 27:48–49, ESV).

Each gospel account mentions this offer of wine. Psalm 69:21 predicts. Most commentators think this is the cheap wine of the soldiers called posca. I read that the worst criminals were put up high in the air, justifying a need to extend the reach of a vinegar-soaked sponge. (http://www.globaljournalct.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/19.3-Benjamin-J-Rusch-The-Sponge-Stick-Scatological-Undertones-to-Christs-Humiliation-at-the-Crucifixion.pdf) The crowd stopped this offer because they thought Elijah might come. They misunderstood Jesus.

ELIJAH

Let’s talk briefly about this. Jesus was the only prophet at Golgotha. Elijah was not coming to rescue Jesus. He had already come. But they killed him. John the Baptist was in the spirit of Elijah, and he was beheaded. These bystanders didn’t put the pieces together. To be candid, if I lived back then, I would be confused, too. Jesus’s disciples were confused. Things tend to make lots more sense looking backward.

YIELD UP

At this point, Matthew wrapped up Jesus’s death in verse 50:

“And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit” (Matthew 27:50, ESV).

Jesus’s time was up. He gave up the ghost. Notice he was in control. In Matthew’s account, Jesus chose to die at this point. He knew it was coming. He came to die. He had to die for the penalty of our sins. It was for the joyous outcome of his death that he endured this cup of suffering.

Four Witnesses

In verse 51, Matthew catalogs four fundamental blessings from Jesus’s excruciating death.

“And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened” (Matthew 27:51–52, ESV).

We see in verses 51 and 52 four inanimate objects demonstrating Jesus’s extraordinary nature:

a curtain,
the earth,
rocks,
and tombs testified about Jesus’s death.

The curtain was significant because it separated our Holy God from his people. I read that this massive curtain was “60 feet high and 30 feet wide” (ESV Study notes). The book of Hebrews tells us how exclusive it was to be in the proximity of this special place.

Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place, having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant… holding the manna, and Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant.…

These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. (Hebrews 9:3–7, ESV)

GREAT GIFTS OF GOD

ACCESS

Jesus’s death opened a way for us to draw near to our holy God. We didn’t have to be the high priest of the tribe of Levi, Male, and a perfect specimen to enter God’s presence once a year with enough of the right kind of blood to satisfy his anger for ourselves and the people. Hebrews goes on to say,

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God[Jesus], let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. (Hebrews 10:19–23, ESV)

RESURRECTION

The result of Jesus’s death is access to our holy Father. But that is just the beginning. Keep reading verse 52: “And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many” (Matthew 27:52–53, ESV).

Matthew is the only author in the Bible to mention this too. The dead saints came back to life and appeared to many in Jerusalem. Pay attention to the timing in verse 53. When did the dead come back to life? After. After what? The resurrection. The resurrection of who? Jesus. Matthew jumps ahead of his chronological biography. Why? I believe he did this to highlight the incredible ramifications of Jesus’s death. Here, we are at a turning point in history. Maybe the most important part of Matthew. God became man so that men and women might become right with him again. We don’t know the names of the resurrected, how long they were there, what they said, or how they got to heaven. But we do know they went into Jerusalem and appeared to many. This was a foretaste of the reality we all will enjoy through faith. One day, we will experience the resurrection. Jesus defeated death on the cross. It has lost its sting. Death now is sleep for the followers of Jesus. Those who trust in Jesus’s death for their sins and imitate his way will delight not only in access to the holy Father but also in a resurrected body that no longer suffers:

Leukemia, Pneumonia, and Influenza,
Diabetes, Heart Disease, and Covid-19
Sprains, Back pains, and Migraines.
Arthritis, Bronchitis, and Meningitis,
Dementia, Insomnia, and Fibromyalgia,
Broken Bones, Kidney Stones, and Vertigo

These will all be no more.

I AM THE RESURRECTION

Jesus said a week before this,

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25–26, ESV).

Access to a holy God and life everlasting without sickness or pain are blessings of faith in Jesus’s death on the cross, but that is not all.

54 SEEING

Look at verse 54. The spiritually blind see.

“When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, ‘Truly this was the Son of God!’ ” (Matthew 27:54, ESV).

The centurion oversaw something like 100 soldiers, and his men were filled with awe and wonder. They proclaimed that Jesus was a Son of God. They agreed with Jesus’s followers. Very likely, these soldiers were the mockers and abusers. They were the ones who twisted a thorny vine and put it on his head and pretended he was the king of the Jews and spat on him. They were likely the ones who stripped him naked in front of everyone. They were the ones who drove the nails into his wrists and his feet. They were the ones who wrote the sign that hung above his head as a joke. They were the ones who saw the sky turn dark, felt the earth shake, and smelt the blood, dirt, and death that afternoon. They heard him cry out as he died. They changed their convictions and aligned with his people. Jesus was Jewish and came to save Jewish people. However, it was through the Jewish people that the world, including Roman executioners, was blessed. All nations would find the benefits of Jesus’s death. Jesus proclaimed,

“The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28, ESV).

Jesus came to earth to live and die for all who would believe. God loves the world. One day, people from every tongue, tribe, and nation will bend their knees and worship this Son, the Lamb who was slain. This gentile and his men were on the front lines of those who would come to faith. The spiritually blind will receive sight.

55 FOLLOWING AND MINISTERING

So we see the death of Jesus results in access to God, the Father, resurrection, hope, and spiritual sight. Jump to verse 56 to hear what else flows from the cross.

There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. (Matthew 27:55–56, ESV)

You may recall Matthew’s theme of following the promised king into his kingdom. We have met some of these followers.

The first follower Matthew mentions after Jesus’s death was Mary Magdalene. Luke wrote:

“From whom seven demons had gone out” (Luke 8:2, ESV).
Not all these women were wealthy, beautiful, powerful, educated, and classy.
Mary had a sorted history.
She followed Jesus from Galilee.
She was there at the cross, burial, and empty tomb.

Then there was Mary, the mother of James and Joseph. She appeared later in Matthew as the “other” Mary. Matthew’s lack of naming her Mary, the mother of Jesus, or putting her near the cross leads me to believe that she was another follower of Jesus, not his mother. Many followed Jesus.
Then, there was the mother of Zebedee’s sons, James and John. They were a fishing family with some connections to priestly folk. She was the one who tried to get VIP seating for her boys at the table when Jesus would come into his kingdom. While that blew up in her face, her faith remained. She followed Jesus with these women.

All three were observers and adherents, but Matthew writes as if there were others. They traveled with the twelve disciples from the region of Galilee about a seven-day walk. I believe Matthew included these women as a model for all. Anyone can be a follower of Jesus, regardless of being male or female, Jew or Gentile. The calling to follow is expansive.

The Son of God died to give great gifts, some misunderstood

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR US?

What is your take on Jesus? Where are you with him?

Do you see him as he is in the Bible?
Are you living in light of our access to God, the Father? Or do you just come to church once in a while out of habit? Is God your insurance plan or safety net but not your Lord and Master? On what terms do you come to God?
Do you have a hope of everlasting life, or is this the only life you are living for? We are part of another kingdom. Far too often, people see this life as all that it is. They put all their hope in this one. They are missing out. Most of our existence will be outside of this time. How much of your life are you preparing for the next one?
Do you acknowledge who Jesus is? Are you willing to admit when you are wrong? Can you turn from your wrong way of seeing and acting to trust in Jesus, like the centurion and his men? Or are you too prideful? Look in the mirror. Be honest with God and yourself before it is too late.
Finally, do you follow Jesus and minister where he wants? We can easily coast. We can go through the motions and miss out on the adventure that God has for us. Let us trust in him and run to him like the gentile soldiers, dead now alive, and the women who stuck with him till the end.