Matthew 27:45-56

Matthew 27:45-56 Jesus dies and some Gentiles recognize him as the son of God

Mark tells us that Jesus was crucified at 9:00 a.m. (the third hour) and died at 3:00 p.m. (the ninth hour).  Matthew picks up the story at noon.

What is the symbolic significance of it growing dark in the middle of the day (verse 45)?

What does Jesus cry out in verse 46?

What does “forsaken” mean?

Forsaken means abandoned; deserted and left entirely on your own.

Some bystanders hear “Eli” – which means “my God” and misunderstand him, thinking he is invoking Elijah.  Interestingly, the name Elijah means “The Lord is my God” (The New Oxford Annotated Bible, footnote to Matthew 27:46, p. 1789.)  In Jesus’s time, people saw Elijah as a helper who might come to you in a time of need (The New Oxford Annotated Bible, footnote to Matthew 27:47, p. 1789), so it is easy to see why they might have jumped to the wrong conclusion.

How do the bystanders react when they think Jesus is calling for Elijah?  There are two different reactions, one in verse 48 and another in verse 49.  What are their reactions?

Jesus cries out one more time and dies.  John tells us that Jesus’s final words were, “It is finished” (John 19:30), while Luke records, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46).  Matthew describes Jesus’s death by saying that he “gave up” or “yielded up’ his spirit (Matt. 27:50.  Some translations just say, “breathed his last,” which does not capture as well the sense of the Greek word that he was voluntarily letting go of his life.

What does Jesus’s death mean to you?

Before we go on to discuss what happened when Jesus died, let’s go back to Jesus’s final prayer, which begins with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (verse 46).

In verse 46, Jesus is quoting the first words of Psalm 22, which are denoted as 22:1 in the NRSV and most other Bibles and as Psalm 22:2 in the NABRE.

(Explanation: Many of the psalms have a “superscription” – a comment before the psalm begins.  These superscriptions were part of the original Hebrew.  They were not added by the people who translated the Bible into English the way passage headings.  We do not know when these superscriptions were first attached to each psalm, but they were there before the psalms as we know them were finalized.  A superscription may indicate who the psalm was written for or by, or what type of psalm it is, or how it should be played, or what it is about.  Sometimes, it uses Hebrew words the translators are not familiar with, and some translations leave those unfamiliar words untranslated.  In most Bibles, including the NRSV, the superscription is not given a verse number, and the text of the actual psalm begins at verse 1.  The NABRE in many cases assigns the superscription to verse 1 and begins the text of the psalm at verse 2.  As a result, the verse numbers sometimes don’t agree between Bibles.  I will give both sets of verse numbers: the number used by the NRSV and most other Bibles, followed by the number used by the NABRE.)

Read Psalm 22.  Notice, as you read, the shifts in the psalmist’s mood.

In Psalm 22, the psalmist begins with feelings of abandonment, and then moves to remembrance, to urgent plea, to trust, to anguish, to hope, and finally to confidence in what he and God will do in the future.

Considering the psalm as a whole, how would you describe the overall tone of Psalm 22?

Would you say the psalmist is primarily feeling forsaken, or something else?  How would you describe his overall mood?

Although the psalmist starts out feeling abandoned, by the end of the psalm he is declaring that God is with him, that he will fulfill his vows and praise God in the assembly, that the poor will eat and be satisfied, and that God will provide deliverance.

These questions about the overall mood of the psalm are important because Jesus would have been able to recite this entire psalm from memory.  The psalms were the hymns and prayers of his Jewish faith community throughout his life.  Since he would have known the psalm by heart, do you think he would have stopped at verse 1, or would he have kept going, praying through the whole psalm as best he could?

What verses in the psalm would have seemed to Jesus to be accurate descriptions of what he was going through?

Here are some of the things he would have noticed: Verses 7-8 (8-9 in the NABRE) would have reminded him of the mocking he was enduring.  Verses 14-17 (15-18 in the NABRE) describe some of the torture he was experiencing in being crucified, including having his hands and feet pierced.  Verse 18 (19 in the NABRE) describes what he would have seen from the cross: the soldiers dividing up his clothing.

There is a difference between feeling abandoned and losing hope.  Has Jesus lost hope in his Father?

Jesus is still praying to his Father, so he has not lost all hope.  He has not turned away from God in despair.  And as he prayed Psalm 22, his words from that prayer would have been words of hope, not words of despair.  You can feel abandoned and still not lose hope in God.

Is it OK to feel abandoned at times in our lives?

Can you feel abandoned and still not lose hope in God?  Explain.

There is a difference between feeling abandoned and actually being abandoned.  In the psalm, is the psalmist actually forsaken, or does it become clear by the end of the psalm that the psalmist recognizes that God is with him ? Explain.

This is an important issue, because some Christians have used Matthew 27:46 to help build a theology that God abandoned Jesus on the cross.  That idea is deeply flawed for many reasons, some of which are explored in God Did Not Abandon Jesus on the Cross.

Go back to Matthew 27:45-56 and read Matthew 27:43.

Are the chief priests suggesting that Jesus’s God has abandoned Jesus?

Are the chief priests right that God has abandoned Jesus?

As Jesus quotes Psalm 22, one way to view it is that he is directly refuting the chief priests’ claim that God has abandoned him.  He is starting at verse 1, in which the psalmist thinks he is abandoned, and then reciting the rest of the psalm, which walks through some of the evidence that what was happening to Jesus was prophesied in advance and fit into God’s grand scheme for the salvation of the human race, and then reaching the end of the psalm where the psalmist expresses confidence that God has not abandoned him and God has provided the salvation the people needed.  That fits perfectly with the fact that Luke and John tell us Jesus went on to say, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46) and “It is finished” (John 19:30).

In verse 51, what two things happened when Jesus died?

What is the symbolic significance of the curtain in the Temple being torn in two?  And what is the significance of it being torn from top to bottom?

The curtain or veil was a large, thick curtain that covered the entrance to the Holy of Holies in the Temple – the place where the presence of God was believed to reside.  No person was allowed to go there except, once a year, the High Priest on the Day of Atonement.  There are many ways to think about the symbolism here: Temple sacrifices were no longer needed; access to God was no longer restricted; God would no longer reside in the Temple but in human hearts; the Old Covenant, with its reliance on the blood of animal sacrifices, has been replaced by the New Covenant in Jesus’s blood because of his once-for-all sacrifice.

The curtain was very tall.  No human could tear it from the top down.  That the curtain was torn from top to bottom signifies that this is God’s doing – that through Jesus’s death God has removed the barrier between himself and us.

What is the symbolic significance of the earthquake?

In Joel 2:10, earthquakes happen in the day of the Lord.  It shows God is at work.

In verses 52-53, what does Matthew tell us happened after Jesus rose from the dead?

Do you know any Old Testament prophecies that relate to the idea of people coming back to life?

In Ezekiel 37, God shows Ezekiel a valley of dry bones that, at God command, come back to life (37:10) as God opens up graves and bringing people back to the land of Israel (37:12).

What is the significance of dead people coming back to life, insofar as it relates to Jesus’s death?

How did the centurion and the soldiers under him react (verse 54)?

We don’t know if “son” should be capitalized in their statement about Jesus – i.e., whether they declared him to be the Son of God or a son of God – because the Greek only had one case at that time.  But either way, what is the significance of Gentiles calling Jesus the son of God after the chief priests mocked his claim to be the son of God?

How is the centurion a model for us?

It turns out that Jesus wasn’t totally alone all this time.  Who was there (verses 55-56)?

What does this tell you about the women who followed Jesus?

How can we be more like those women – perhaps often unseen, but faithful?

What does Jesus’s death tell you about him?

How does Jesus’s death affect how you want to live your life?

How does Jesus’s death affect how you want to approach your own death?

Take a step back and consider this:

Although God the Father did not abandon Jesus on the cross because of our sins (see God Did Not Abandon Jesus on the Cross), humans sometimes experience the feeling of abandonment.  Because Jesus expressed that feeling at one point while he was hanging on the cross, we know that we are not alone if we sometimes feel like God has abandoned us.  He understands.

Have you ever felt abandoned by God?  How did you deal with it?  (Or how do wish you had dealt with it?)

What do you think Jesus says to you in those times?

How does Jesus’s victory despite feelings of abandonment affect how you can approach difficult times in your own life?