Do open your Bibles with me at Matthew chapter 27. We're gonna pick up the story in verse 45 of chapter 27 and see how this story flows through three scenes culminating in these women's encounter with Jesus when he met them and said greetings. and they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. It's been 2,000 years since Jesus died on the Roman cross and his followers have domesticated the story to some degree. The cross is no longer something which strikes terror into the hearts of people. Because fortunately, we don't kill people that way today. It's not the normal means of execution, and certainly, if it were, we would never see it, whereas people in the ancient world could not avoid it. It was there, outside their town or village, as a regular reminder that they were under Roman occupation, and that Romans did terrible things to people who broke their laws. Mel Gibson, in his movie, The Passion of the Christ, got into a lot of trouble for the gory details into which he went. Actually, he didn't go into the details as much as he could have. In spite of all the violence there was in that movie, the real violence of the Roman flagellum that was used was far more severe, shredding flesh as it did, very often exposing internal organs Nine times out of 10, the victims who were thrashed, unconscious, died before ever they were pinned to a cross. And certainly by the time we find Jesus on the cross, as we do in verse 45 of chapter 27, his heart has already been weakened by the ferocity of the scourging. His blood loss will have been severe. His struggle for breath is such that he has to push down on the nail through his heels and pull on the nails through his wrists in order to give his chest cavity enough space to draw in some oxygen, whereupon the pain would make him collapse again onto the nails and onto the peg that was pinned just at His groin. It was a dreadful way to die. But as we look at this section, I want you to notice that the focus on Jesus' death in these three pictures that we have focuses on the moment as He died, at His death, and then after His death. Watch as he dies. For as he dies, Matthew describes him entering darkness. Look at verse 45. From the sixth hour till the ninth hour, there is darkness over all the land. That's from about noon till three in the afternoon. Thirty-three years before, there had been brightness and singing at midnight. when he was born. Now there is darkness and silence at midday as he dies. For three hours he has suffered in the sunshine at the hands of men. Now for three hours he suffers in the darkness at the hands of his father. People never forgot that darkness that prevailed over much of the Roman Empire The pagan historian Thallus, writing in 52 A.D., records this darkness in his history of the world, a darkness that was reminiscent of the darkness in Egypt, about which we read in Exodus. when there was a darkness that could be felt that hung over Egypt. The night the Passover lamb was killed and the firstborn sons in every home in Egypt were killed by the angel of death. When the prophet Amos predicts the future, he says about the day of the Lord, will it not be a day of darkness, not light, of pitch dark, without a ray of sunshine? And goes on to say, I will make that time like mourning for an only Son. Amos chapter 8. The darkness often was a symbol of judgment or brought home a sense of judgment on the land, the land of Egypt, of judgment on Jesus. The darkness into which Jesus went, well might the sun in darkness hide and shut its glories in when Christ, the mighty Maker, died for man the creature's sin. Entering darkness, we find Jesus experiencing wrath. Because out of the darkness he cries out, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, a mixture of native Aramaic and the Hebrew of Psalm 22. It would have been easy for the bystanders to think he was calling out for Eli or for Elijah rather than for God. My God, my God. Why? Usually he called God his father. But now he's crying out in God-forsakenness. And it isn't just that he feels forsaken. You know, sometimes when someone is trying to show they understand what you're going through, they'll say to you something like this, I'm sorry that you feel like that. And what they mean is, of course, I don't really understand what you're feeling, but I'm sorry you feel the way you've told me you feel. But when Jesus is on the cross and he's crying out, my God, why have you forsaken me? That God forsakenness was not just that he was feeling on his own, feeling isolated, feeling that there he was on a cross and all his friends were scattered or they're just a bunch of them over there and they can't help me and he's feeling isolated. This is not a feeling, this is a fact. When Jesus is feeling God forsaken on that cross, He is God forsaken on that cross. John Calvin puts it like this, Jesus expressed the horror of great darkness, this God forsakenness. by expressing the only verse of Scripture that actually described it and which he had perfectly fulfilled. In other words, the God-forsakenness and the darkness put together tell us that Jesus has gone into outer darkness. He describes that outer darkness as hell. Hell is the experience of utter darkness and of God-forsakenness. And here is Jesus. He has gone out and in that God-forsakenness, heaven is silent. He cries out from the cross, My God, My God, why? And whereas throughout His life the heavens have been noisy with God, whether it was the angels at His birth singing praise to God, glory to God in the highest, or whether it was the Father breaking through at His baptism saying, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased, the heavens were glad to break into singing or into speech to acclaim Him. But now the heavens are silent. My God, my God, why? The other Gospels tell us that in that deep darkness at one point He cries out from the darkness, And he had told the parable on one occasion about a man in hell who was thirsty and asked for something to drink. And here is the Lord Jesus. He is in hell. Whereas for that man who is in hell, he still doesn't have a drink to this day. Here is Jesus. There on the cross, as it were, God takes the agony and the wrath of hell and he compresses it into a three-hour period and Jesus is in that place of wrath and suffering. Mel Gibson couldn't get that into his movie. You can't even imagine this. This is no accident. This is the plan that had been agreed on by the Father and the Son before the creation of the world, that the Father would have a people and that Jesus would stand in for those people. There on the cross, Jesus becomes sin for us. All of the rapes, and the child abuse, and the unkind words, and the gossip, and the killing fields, and the Holocaust, and the 9-11s, and the murder in Rwanda, and the broken promises, and the shattered dreams, and the lies, and the oaths, and the kiss and tells, and the hatreds, and the jealousies, and the pride of countless men and women throughout history. There they are. He is wounded for our transgressions. He is bruised for our iniquities. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. In the words of Elizabeth Browning, Yea, once Emmanuel's orphaned cry his universe has shaken. It went up single, echo-less, My God, I am forsaken. It went up from the holy's lips amid his lost creation, that of the lost. No son should use those words of desolation. Jesus is God forsaken for you and me so that you and me may never be forsaken by God. He experiences darkness. He experiences wrath. He emerges triumphant. Look at verse 50. When Jesus had cried out in a loud voice, He gave up His spirit. That great cry, that's what it speaks of. Drawing on every reserve of strength is almost surprising for one who is so suffered. But Jesus does just not gradually fade away. His life does not end with a whimper. Emerging from the darkness and the forsakenness, having experienced wrath for His people, there is a cry of victory, a loud shout of victory from Jesus on the cross. John tells us because he was there precisely what he shouted. He shouted, Tetelestai, finished, accomplished, done. In other words, Jesus has done everything that is required for the salvation of his people. Everything. There is nothing left to be done. He has accomplished it all. Jesus did it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. And after his loud cry, he commits himself to his Father. Luke says, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Matthew says, he gave up his spirit. He's in command. He's in control. The battle is actually won. The real business of the cross has been transacted in that three hours of midnight at midday. In that darkness of sin bearing, curse bearing, wrath bearing, He has done the work, and now it is the business to die. As he dies, Jesus becomes a ransom for many. Then the scene changes. For at his death, that is at the moment of his death, behold, what happens? The tearing of the curtain. At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. That curtain that hung between the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place, 18 meters high, four inches thick, a sign that said to everybody, no access, nobody gets in here. Only once a year on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would go in there to offer the blood and to sprinkle it on the Ark of the Covenant between the two great cherubim that were placed on top, on the mercy seat between the cherubim. Once a year. And now that work has reached its culmination. Here is the Lord Jesus, do you notice? And he offers himself to God. He yields himself up to God. He's giving himself up to this business. He is acting as our high priest. And now the lamb having his blood shed, the lamb, the high priest offers the lamb of God to God to be the lamb of God who will take away the sin of the world. Because He did that, you see, the way to heaven is now open. It's open permanently. Because He did that, there is now no place for all the ceremonial and ritual of the Old Testament way of worship. It's all come to an end. It's come staggeringly to an end. The tearing of the curtain means the end of that way with its priests and its sacrifices and its rituals and its ceremonies. And everything has now been fulfilled. It has been completed. It has come to an end. Why? Because everything it talked about, everything it pictured, everything it prophesied, everything has found its nexus in Christ. He is the temple. The torn curtain spells access. No longer does God have to be approached by means of ritual and ceremony and we go to Him directly. The tearing of the curtain, the shaking of the earth, the earth shook, and the rocks split. Again, there's independent corroboration from both Jewish and Roman sources. Both tell of the temple being shaken and of a lintel collapsing 40 years, around 40 years before its destruction. The great bronze gates of the inner court opened of their own accord. So it happened. And this is why it happened. It happened. What was its significance? because the shaking of the earth very often is a symbol of the appearance of God. Isaiah chapter six, Isaiah goes into the temple and he sees God in his splendor inside the temple and the whole building, the whole area, the whole temple mount is shaking at the very impact of the presence of God there. God is present. And there's the raising of the dead. The tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs. And after Jesus' resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. Key phrase there is after Jesus' resurrection. these resurrected people, after Jesus' resurrection, that is, He is the firstfruits of those who died, after Jesus' resurrection they appeared to people in the city. I bet some people got a fright. They were walking around Jerusalem Sunday morning and there was Uncle Ebenezer coming along towards them. They got a fright. Many dead people rose. They knew they were dead because they'd buried them. That's how they knew they were dead people. They didn't go around with a sign saying, I was dead a minute ago, and now I'm not. They were recognized. It was an amazing thing. Now you put these signs together and you learn something of the meaning of Christ's death for every child of God. It means that there is readiness of access to God. You go straight to God through Jesus. You don't need anything else. We pray in Jesus' name. Why? Because we want to be heard. We come to God through Jesus because we want to have access to him. There's only one name under heaven given to human beings by which we can be saved. But then the third scene, the scene changes again after his death. After his death, three things happen. First, he's buried by his friends. Jewish law required that the body of an executed prisoner be buried before sundown on the Sabbath, on the day preceding the Sabbath. Jesus' relatives didn't possess a tomb in Jerusalem, but they were from Galilee. But there was a man called Joseph of Arimathea. He was a rich man, we're told, and a follower of Jesus. We don't know anything. We can speculate about the background. Had he been a secret follower? Had he just, you know, been committed to Jesus quietly? But whatever it was, there came a moment in that man's life when whatever fears he may have had evaporated. And now the business that he gives himself to is caring for Jesus. He finds boldness, he goes to Pilate. He asked Pilate directly for permission to take the body. He takes the body, treats it with great care. He gets a clean linen shroud and lays it in his own new tomb that had been cut in a rock. A great stone is rolled over the tomb. And we have a little note there. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there. Why is that important? It's more important for you to know that they knew what the right tomb was. They were there. They were sitting there watching all of this going on. Well, of course they would be. They were not going to leave Jesus till they knew his body was being looked after. They had stayed through the whole messy, horrible, painful, heart-rending crucifixion. They were not going to leave till they saw that body in the tomb cared for. They were there, buried by his friends. Then we find the tomb guarded by his foes. He's guarded by his foes. Even in death, look at verse 62. Even in death, the authorities are afraid of Jesus. They were unable to deny his miracles. The only thing they could do about the miracles was to attribute them to the devil, because they happened. There were too many witnesses to disprove them. But the real thing they feared, you notice, is raised. by one of the people, one of the Pharisees who came to Pilate and said, sir, we remember how that imposter said, while he was still alive, after three days I will rise. That would really spoil everything. If Jesus rose again, or even if his friends stole his body and then said Jesus had risen again, that would spoil everything. And so they come to Pilate, and Pilate understands what they're saying and so to, appease them and perhaps even to protect himself, he appoints a guard and the guard go off and they seal the tomb, they post a guard, the hours slip by, everything is fine and dandy, and then there's an earthquake. There's an earthquake. And so the third thing that we see from this period after his death is that Jesus is raised by the Father. In verses one to four, we have the story of these women. The women who were there and saw where he was buried came back the next day, and they came back to see the tomb. Mark, in his account, says that they came back with a purpose of anointing the body, but frankly, they probably wouldn't get in there to do that, so they came to see the tomb. When I'm back near Hamilton in Scotland, which is very, very rare, I always go up to the Bent Cemetery. Bent, imagine calling it. It's called it because it's on Bent Road. Really creative names for roads in Scotland. And in that cemetery is a gravestone with my parents' names on it. And I go there sometimes to see the grave. They came to see the tomb. When they arrive, the guards are there. So there's the guards. There's the two Marys. And five things happen in quick succession. Do you notice the things that happen? I want you to notice about these women, by the way, they did not come believing. They came courageously. Actually, they show more commitment than the men. Still that way, isn't it? Very often. But they didn't come believing. They didn't come believing that Jesus was alive. They came to see the tomb. But they came. And suddenly five things happened. First of all, there's the earthquake. I said the earthquakes in the Old Testament are connected with manifestations of the presence of God. At Sinai, for example, the earth trembled. When Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, the earth trembled, the temple trembled. There was an earthquake. Secondly, there was an angel. Angels are God's special messengers. They bring his presence into a situation. Usually the very presence of an angel terrifies people, terrified these guards, by the way. Angels are not kind of pretty, girly-looking creatures with long white robes and big feathery wings. They're nothing like that at all. You see an angel, you're terrified. Every time an angel appears to anybody in the Bible, the first things they say are, don't be scared, don't be scared. There was an angel. Do you know what this angel does? It's the third thing they saw. The angel takes this stone. Now, you've seen pictures of the grave after the resurrection, and usually, they usually fairly cleverly represent the kind of grave it was. It was hewn in a rock, so it was like a little cave dug into the rock. And then there was a big groove in front of it, and in that groove there was this huge stone that would take several people to roll. What this angel does is this. He picks up that big stone, turns it over, puts it down, and then sits on it. I mean, it's really amazing, isn't it? That's what he does. So here they are, they just come to look at the tomb. They arrive at the tomb, and there are the soldiers that they'd left there the night before when they saw the tomb sealed. Tomb's still sealed. Soldiers are still there. Suddenly there's an earthquake, and then there's this great big angel comes down, picks it up, turns it over, puts it down, and sits down on the stone. It's an amazing picture. Then they notice his appearance. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. He was dazzling, this angel was. It's reminiscent of descriptions you find in Daniel chapter 7, where it's a description of the ancient of days. It's a bit like the picture of the angel in Revelation chapter 10. Another great big strong angel that comes down out of heaven clothed with a cloud and a rainbow on his head and his face like the sun and his feet like pillars of fire. It's a bit like the picture of Jesus in Revelation chapter 1 where he is in his glorified heavenly state. It's an overwhelming picture. And they were dazzled by it. They were probably thinking, there's an angel, would you turn down the light? It's too much. And then there were the guards. You notice that, the guards. They're still there. You wonder, what happened to the guards? Well, the guards are there, and they're lying around the place, petrified, immovable. They're terrified by what they've seen. It's as if the language of Psalm 2 has come into place. You remember in that psalm, the Lord in heaven laughs, laughs at those who in their arrogance think that they can tie down God or that they can seal up God or that they can frustrate God. Here are these guards themselves lying all over the place. I mean, Mary and Mary must have thought to themselves, Glad they're not supposed to be guarding us. I mean, really. Mary and Mary are upright. These guards are immobilized. Now why is all this happening? Well, it's happening for Mary and Mary's sake. And it's happening for our sake. It's happening to build up our confidence in the story and in what God has done. It all happened in order that we might begin to make sense that this is a climactic, this is a monumental event. This is no small backwoods kind of thing. This is full of supernatural things or amazing events. These women saw it. These guards saw it. We know about the guards because the women were there. The women and the guards together give testimony that this all happened. This was a well-known story. This was not done in a dark place. We're not just dependent on the women for this story. But they were there. And the guards eventually, they run off. And they go back to the powers that be. And then they have to come up with a story as to what's happened. His disciples came and took the body. These two girls get the blame for stealing a body. Well, as you go on to the end of this little section here, an angel speaks to them. Don't be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. The angel reminds them he said he would do this. You didn't believe him. You watched him die, you saw him buried, you didn't believe it. But he's done what he said he would do. He is risen as he said. Go and tell his disciples. Now isn't it a very gracious thing of God that God should do this and that he should do this, all of this stuff for these two women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary? that he should make these two women, who in a court of law in those days could not even give evidence, and their evidence mean anything. They were just not even cited as witnesses or to testify about anything. They were disregarded. They were nobodies. And he just got overturning the cultural forms of the day, and he's making these two women eyewitnesses. and is sending them back to tell the disciples. And it's as they go back, they meet Jesus. Now, what strikes me, and does it strike you as you read that, is that after all the palaver, do you have that word in American? No? After all the shenanigans, do you have that word in American? Well, after all the earthquakes and the stone rolling and flipping and sitting on and dazzling and scared soldiers, and after all of that, it's supernatural, isn't it? Supernatural. They just meet Jesus. It's Him. It's just Him. It's the Jesus they knew. The Jesus they've loved and followed and saw die and now He's alive again. But it was just Him. He meets them. They're not scared of Him. Isn't that amazing? Scared of the angel? Not scared of Him. They know Him. In fact, when He says greetings to them, they came up and they took hold of His feet and they worshipped Him. There was nothing about Jesus they found unapproachable. Nothing about the risen Jesus that scared them off. Nothing about the risen Jesus that raised a question in their mind, is this Him or is this not Him? There was nothing about the risen Jesus that said, don't come near. The curtain has been torn. The curtain of the temple's been torn. You come to God directly through Jesus. They came to him. They touched his feet. They worshiped him. Isn't that an amazing scene? And then off they went to their brothers. To tell my brothers, he said, to go to Galilee where they will see me. You see, this story of this first Easter really goes to the very heart of the Christian message. There is no Christianity apart from this. No risen Jesus, no Christianity. No resurrected Lord, no reason for us being here. But through these events, you see, as he died, going into that darkness for us, at his death, the temple's curtain being torn, The end of the old era because the old era has been fulfilled in Him. After His death, His burial, the guarding of His tomb, and His resurrection from the dead. Why did the angel come down and flip that stone? Was it to let Jesus out? No. He flipped the stone so that the women could see it. so they could look in and see the places empty where he lay. Jesus was already risen. The angel did it for us so that we could see he is risen just as he said. Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because he lives, I know who holds the future. Because he lives, I will live also. And if you're a believer, you will live also. And one day we'll meet each other in the new heaven and the new earth and you will recognize me. I'll be better looking then. So will you be in resurrection bodies. Easter is the best Sunday in the Christian year. I'm glad you laughed because you should laugh. I'm glad you're happy because you should be happy. If you're a believer, this is what it's all about. This is what it means for us to be followers of Jesus. Jesus lives, thy terrors now can, O death, no more appall me. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this glorious Easter morning. Thank you for the glory of our risen Lord Jesus. Thank you that in the ordinariness of the lives of those two women doing what we would do, if a loved one had just died, go and check the grave. They discovered the grave empty. And they discovered that Jesus had done what he'd said. He also said that he would raise us up in the last day. Because He lives, we will live also. We cry to you on this Sunday morning. Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus. Split the sky. Come again. Take your power and reign. Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen.