Saturday, 11 April The King Ascends His Throne. Matt. 27:51–66
Have you noticed the new heading above? The King Ascends His Throne.
This great Ascension to a throne, the like of which has never been since before nor since, began with a remarkable event. At the moment of Jesus’ death, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom (v51).
The curtain being referred to was not some chintzy material hanging over the bay windows, not a nice homey red and white check decorating the sunny kitchen casements. It was the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies, sometimes called the Most Holy Place, from the more common areas of the temple.
Inside the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s temple was the Ark of the Covenant, a large golden box containing the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in God’s own handwriting, a jar of manna (the miraculous angelic bread [panis angelicus] that had fed the Israelites in the wilderness), and Aaron’s staff that had budded with almond flowers before Pharaoh in Egypt. Over the top of this ark was a massive structure made of pure gold – two cherubim whose wings stretched out and met in the middle over the top of the ark. This was known as the mercy seat (kippur, in Hebrew), the place where the High Priest, once a year would place the sacrificial blood for the forgiveness of the sins of the people.
That ark had been lost centuries ago, when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem. There have been countless legends and stories about where it is, now. They don’t concern us here. But in Jesus’ day, there was no ark. Still the High Priest went in on Yom Kippur, the great day of Israel’s forgiveness and placed the blood inside the Most Holy Place.
This Most Holy Place could only be entered by the High Priest, once a year, under special conditions. It was the place of absolute holiness, where the presence of God was believed to dwell physically and into which no ordinary person could enter. It was so holy that the curtain separating it was about five centimetres, (two inches) thick, in heavily woven material. At the very moment that Jesus died, this curtain was torn in two from top to bottom. As if God himself had torn it, this massive curtain was opened and the entrance to the Holy of Holies was made open for the first time in history.
Jesus had claimed to be the replacement of the temple in his own body. Now that he had died, sacrificed for the sins of the whole world, there was no more need for a special place to bring the blood of animal sacrifices anymore. So the writer of Hebrews tells us:
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. (Heb 10:19–23)
When a Roman centurion and the men with him (v54) saw this, their first words were an affirmation of Jesus’ message that everyone else in the previous paragraphs had been at pains to deny. The first Christian converts were a Roman centurion and some of his men!
Go and tell that to Pilate and the chief priests! They thought they were putting down a rebellion. Before the blood was dried on the ground, the Christian church was underway.
Do you remember our very first reflection in this series? We read about the women in the genealogy of Jesus; and now, here at the end where Jesus ascends to his glorious throne, Matthew shows us the women again, in vv55–56. They were there at the cross watching from a distance. As we think back through Matthew’s Gospel, the women were often there, sometimes in the background, often in the thick of the action. He might be a Jewish writer writing for Jews, but for Matthew the role of the women was critical in the story of Jesus.
No doubt Joseph took a risk going to Pilate. But even Pilate had received reports about a possible threat to Jesus’ body and he was not about to take any chances. Anyway, Joseph was a rich man; rich men can get anything from politicians.
The next day, the priests and Pharisees sent a special envoy to Pilate to ask for a strong guard on the tomb. I can’t help but wonder how much some of the officials might have been secretly worried that they might have got it all wrong and were very keen to ask Pilate to protect their backs.
It was these same priests who were there in the beginning of Matthew, too. They were careless, then, of the impending event in Bethlehem. They knew the promise, as we saw earlier in our readings, but they just didn’t bother to keep an eye out for the Messiah’s birth. They didn’t take care to watch for his coming in. But when it came to his death, they were very careful to put a Roman guard over the tomb to make sure he didn’t get out!
Matthew’s point seems clear. They weren’t interested in truth then, and they were not interested now. Their only interest was in keeping their political position safe.
We’ve seen Matthew’s skill as a storyteller several times in this series. Now we see it again. Do you remember learning about the literary device of dramatic irony at school? It is when a character in a play does or says something on the stage, but the audience knows that what he says or does will be dramatically overturned soon, because they know something that that character does not. Shakespeare used this device to great effect often in his plays.
Now Matthew finishes this section, which we call the second last chapter of the Gospel, with this lovely example of dramatic irony:
“Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.
They made the tomb secure! It’s perhaps not quite done to laugh on Good Friday or Easter Saturday as we read the story of Jesus’ crucifixion, but really, I think Matthew wants us to! This really is heavy irony ladled on with a shovel. Dad’s Army off to secure God’s tomb!
Perhaps, after the terrible pain of the crucifixion and the awe-ful death of Jesus in the midst of ridicule and torture, Matthew invites us to leave the scene with a little smile on our lips, at the very least. The tomb secure? Ha! Just you wait and see!
Prayer: Oh, my heavenly Father, how much you loved us! You were there all through this terrible time. You were watching over your Son. You felt his every pain; you heard his every prayer. You were willing, in your Trinitarian self to die for us, for me. Oh, my God!
