From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, "This man is calling for Elijah." At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him." Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. [Matthew 27:45-51]
Only three of the gospels say anything about the birth of Jesus; only three describe the Last Supper. Only one contains the Sermon on the Mount (although another has a Sermon on the Plain). Many of our favorite stories about Jesus are recorded in only one or two gospels, but the death and resurrection of Jesus are found in all four. That gives a clear indication of how central these events were for the first Christians, and how important they are to Christians today.
On this “Good” Friday, we remember particularly the events that began with Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, his betrayal by one of his closest friends, and the cruel treatment and rejection that he received from the leaders of his religion. Our sad walk on today's Way of the Cross began with Jesus being condemned to death. We can only imagine how he must have felt. All his work, the people he healed, the truths he spoke, now come down to this: he will be put to death for challenging the status quo, for threatening the power and privilege of the religious leaders, for stirring up people who just might try to overthrow the government of Rome. “What shall we do with this man?” “Crucify him!”
We followed Jesus on that Via Dolorosa, that Way of Sorrows, and we shared each sorrow as we meditated upon it. I don’t know which of them touched you the most, which ones spoke in your heart, “I’m sorry you had to endure that, dear Lord―for me.” Whichever ones they were, I hope you will keep them in mind over the next 48 hours, the time when the world held its breath as its Lord and Savior lay in a rock-hewn tomb.
There is a detail surrounding the moment of Jesus’ death that is only found in Mark and Matthew. When Jesus’ uttered a loud cry of agony and then breathed his last, an important thing happened, but it is a detail that we can easily miss.
When Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, he modeled it after the Tent of Meeting that Moses had set up for the Hebrew people to worship God during their 40 years’ Exodus in the desert. Of course, the tent was portable, so it was light-weight and small in dimensions. Solomon went far beyond the original plan in building a vast temple complex on the top of Mount Zion.
Solomon’s Temple was laid out as a series of courts, one inside another, ending in the most sacred place, the Holy of Holies. Anyone could congregate in the outermost court, but only faithful Jews could enter the gates to the more sacred spaces. The first interior court was open to all Jews, but only men could pass through to the next level. Approaching the holiest place, there was an area where only priests could enter, and there were altars there where the priests offered sacrifices night and day.
Finally, there was the most sacred spot on earth to the Jews, the Holy of Holies, or inner sanctum. It was the tallest of all the Temple buildings. Inside was the Ark of the Covenant, containing the original stones of the Ten Commandments. The only person on earth who was allowed to enter that space was the High Priest, and he was only permitted to do it on one day each year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
When he went in, the High Priest had completed eight days of ritual purification. Not only was it the holiest place in the world, but God was very particular about holiness and it was believed that God would instantly strike dead anyone who tried to enter without being properly sanctified.
The High Priest wore special vestments on this day: a long coat with bells sewn onto the hem, and a long, silken cord for a belt that reached all the way outside the Holy of Holies. The bells told those on the outside that the High Priest was still alive and moving around, and the cord allowed them to pull his body out, should God strike him down for some sin or misstep.
The Holy of Holies was separated from the rest of the Temple―and from the rest of the world―by a tall, heavy curtain that reached from floor to ceiling. That curtain said to everyone, “the Lord God, in all his power and might, is inside here; you are not worthy to enter or to see inside.”
I think you get the picture. The Temple was the holiest place on earth for Jews. The inner sanctum was the holiest place in the Temple, and the closest place that humans could get to God. The great curtain kept people out, and it kept God in.
At the moment when Jesus died, the world changed. Until then, sin had separated us from God, from the beginning of time. No matter how many times we repented and turned back to God, we always sinned again. No matter how hard we tried to do what was right, we always ended up doing something that was wrong. We were powerless to break the endless cycle of sin. It was a hopeless situation, and we could do nothing about it.
So God did something about it. God sent Jesus, his Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, to us. Jesus lived among us and taught, and healed. But the most important thing that Jesus did was to die for us, for our sins. And when he did―at the very moment when he took his last breath―everything changed. The chasm between us and God that was caused by our sins was closed. All the things that separated us from fully knowing and loving God for all eternity were destroyed. And the curtain in the Temple, that symbol of separation, was rent in two from top to bottom. No longer were we kept away from God’s holiness; no longer were we unworthy to be in God’s presence; and no longer would we die forever because of our sins.
The Way of the Cross is the Way of Life, the Way of Salvation, the Way of Redemption. Jesus had to walk that Way alone. No one could do it for him, certainly not one of us. But at the end of that Way lay hope, lay redemption, lay reconciliation between God and man. Jesus walked that lonesome road―for you and for me, and we thank God today for his love in doing so. Amen.
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