Reading: Matthew 27-28, Psalm 94
As he has done all through his Gospel, Matthew writes the ending loaded with ties to the story that came before. He has quoted extensively from the prophets, the law of Moses, and the Psalms, and he comes now to the last scene of prophecy, which is in so many ways a playing out of the great prophecies of Isaiah and his visions of the coming Servant of the Lord, who makes all things new. The final act in Matthew’s Gospel is a confirmation of Jesus authority in a way that goes beyond that of any of the prophets, pointing to his irrefutable conclusion the Jesus was the Messianic King, the Son of David, Son of Abraham.
Proceeding from the story in yesterday’s reading in which the High Priest and the other leaders of the day chose to turn Jesus over to Rome, we get a scene in which Jesus confronts the real political power in his day and time, personified by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. This is a strange confrontation in that Pilate really appears to want nothing to do with the conflict at hand. Though Jesus claims to be the King of the Jews, Pilate sees no reason to hold him. He tries to set him free. He tries to have him punished and then set free. His wife sends him a message saying not to get involved. He tries an end run around the High Priest and his party by getting the people to ask for the release of Jesus. Nothing works. Out of tactical maneuvers, Pilate eventually accedes to their demands and hands him over to be crucified.
Sometimes I think people raised in the church get so familiar with this story we miss the point. The people who should have cared enormously that Jesus was the Messiah all reacted in the opposite ways the should have. The Jewish leadership, who should have either fully embraced Jesus as Messiah or totally rejected him and killed him themselves, instead rely on the power of Rome- the most foreign of foreign powers, who saw their own ruler as a God-King. The Roman governor, who should have been on the lookout for any Messianic Jewish figure as the most significant threat to his power and authority, sees nothing wrong with the Messianic King Jesus and tries to set him free. Everyone in this story acts backwards, like they are reacting to something they can’t quite put their fingers on.
This, of course, is Matthew’s point. Jesus said this would happen. He fully intended to end up on a Roman cross. Matthew has him setting out to do this from very early on in the book. Jesus is the primary actor in this whole drama, everyone else is reacting to him, not he to them. The only character in the whole arrest-trial-execution scene that is going right where he wants to go is Jesus, the highest authority. Matthew is painting this picture in a bunch of ways- with words, declarations, actions, drama, you name it. He wants his readers to get the point. This is The Guy. He tells us some dramatic stuff, some of which the other Gospel writers pick up and some which only Matthew tells us. The really crazy ones? The Roman centurion’s confession that Jesus must have been the Son of God. The temple veil torn in two. The dead people rising out of their tombs, wandering into Jerusalem, and showing up at their friends houses.
To Matthew, this is the climatic scene of the entire Hebrew Scriptures. The last act in a drama lasting thousands of years, in which the story of the human problem is finally dealt with once and for all. There is a great deal to say about the Passover, Day of Atonement, and the whole idea of one life paying for others, but that is too much for a format like this one. So I’m just going to talk about the temple and the tearing of the veil.
Remember back to the building of the tabernacle in Exodus. How this was a different kind of space. A space that looked different. Smelled different. It was unique and set apart. It was full of imagery that evoked the Garden and the original state of the humans before they chose to take the knowledge of good and bad into their own hands. It also was the seat of God’s throne. The place that a human could come and plead the case of his people before God personally. This one guy, the High Priest, was to carry the guilt of all the people into God’s presence and basically beg for mercy. But he can only do it after all kinds of special redemptive activities that demonstrate his purification. He basically has to wear a space suit. This is all set up in the tabernacle, then in the Temple of Solomon, and finally once again in the temple build by the returned exiles. On two of those occasions the glory of God occupies the throne room. On the third, that never happens. The exile, the end of the Mosaic covenant in which this whole system was expounded, had already happened. The Jerusalem temple at this point is largely a reminder of what the returned exiles have lost, and there is a group, the Pharisees, that believe the exile never really ended, and that only by rigorous obedience to the law can God’s favor be restored. I think these are the people Matthew is primarily writing to. For them, the tearing of the veil is a revolutionary moment. The barrier into the throne room of God, completely closed to them since the days of the exile, is open again. The High Priest has entered the throne room (we will pick this all up in the book of Hebrews in a couple of months) and plead the case of his people. And in response, God has opened the gates to paradise. The Garden is no longer locked in the Most Holy place in the Temple. It has gotten out. When it does, foreign soldiers confess that Jesus is Lord. Dead people get up and walk around. The earth shakes. Everything changes.
The most shocking turn of events occurs then. The guy who just died on a Roman cross, who rests for a Sabbath day, proves to be so full of life that he gets up from the dead. Matthew tells of the great hope of the humans fulfilled, as the first and greatest consequence of the human problem is unwound. When they take the knowledge of good and bad into their own hands, humans will surely die. But this human didn’t stay dead, and now he is The Guy in Charge. The rules have changed, and that is what Matthew wants everyone to know. That is the good news.