The Gospel According to Matthew - Week 43

This teaching is from Matthew 27:49-28:4

We pick up the story from last week on the evening of Passover.  Jesus is on the cross, it’s three in the afternoon. Jesus cries out, “it is finished” and dies just as the sacrifice is being offered in the Temple. At that very moment the curtain in the Temple is torn from top to bottom. That curtain separated the Holy Place of the Sanctuary from the Holy of Holies in the rear of the Sanctuary. The curtain was a massive curtain approximately 60’ by 30’ and about 8 inches thick.

Symbolically - this is a sign that everything has changed. The entry way to the Holy of Holies which had been only for a chief priest to enter once a year for atonement was now wide open - a physical representation that the way to the Heavenly Father is now opened for all.  No longer through multiple sacrifices, it is now through the blood of the Son of the Living God. That entry gives us direct access to the Father through the Son.

There was darkness from 12-3pm and when Christ died, there was a massive earth quake and a Centurian exclaimed, “Surely, this was the Son of God!”

Jesus’ burial - Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilot to ask for Jesus’ body and it was given to him. 

God’s command in Deuteronomy 21:22-23 says, “If someone guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is exposed on a pole, you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.” 

The Jewish people followed this command from God and so Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’ body down from the cross at His death and didn’t allow it to stay on the “pole.” Joseph wrapped the body in cloth and placed Jesus in the tomb that he had recently purchased for himself.

Pastor shares archeological and historical evidence of the site of Jesus’ burial site under the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

After Jesus is placed in the tomb the chief priests and pharisees - who do not normally agree with each other - went together to Pilate to remind him that Jesus had said, “After three days I will rise again.”  So Pilate tells them to secure the tomb so that Jesus’ disciples could not come steal the body and claim Jesus had risen from the dead.

The tomb was secured by sealing it with wax around the stone at the opening of the tomb and a guard was posted.

We move into Matthew chapter 28 where we read the story of Jesus resurrection. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go to the tomb early the next morning when again there is another violent earthquake at the time of Jesus’ resurrection. An angel comes down from heaven, rolls the stone of the tomb away from the opening and sits on it, frightening the guard.

All the plans of man to do away with Jesus have come to an end. And now God is intervening in a remarkable and powerful and awesome way.

Join us next week for the rest of Jesus’ amazing resurrection story that is also ours!

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