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Matthew 26-27
! Introduction
I’d like to tell you the story of this picture.
One year the youth group held an Easter Sunrise service.
They did it on the edge of the Pembina Valley on the property of one of the youth members, near the site of the Oak Valley Passion Play.
The youth sponsor went there a few days before and striped the branches off this tree and cut off the top of the tree and put it across to make it look like a cross.
They held their service at the foot of the cross and didn’t think any more about the cross they had made.
Later that summer, one of the other youth parents was walking in the area and saw a most amazing thing.
From a tree that looked like it was dead and had been destroyed, branches had begun to grow and leaves had come out.
The tree was not dead, but alive.
A picture was taken because it was such a wonderful symbol of the life that comes from the death of Jesus.
Often we think that with a death comes the end of a story, the end of hope.
Certainly when a loved one dies, we understand that as the end of our relationship with them.
Often, however, death is not the end of hope.
When Martin Luther King Jr. died, the vision of freedom for black people did not die with him.
How much more it is true that the death of Jesus was not the end, but in fact the beginning of hope!
!
I. Death Means No Hope.
When Jesus was arrested, tried and hung on a cross, it appeared that hope died.
If we could enter into the lives of those who watched these things happen, we could perhaps gain some sense of the ending that was being enacted.
There were the religious leaders who could hardly wait for him to die and knew that this would be the end of a trouble maker.
There were the soldiers who had no particular interest either way, they were just doing a job.
They had seen crucifixion before and knew that it was the end for anyone hanging there.
There were the disciples and the women who sorrowed deeply because against all expectations, Jesus was about to die and with him their hope died.
All of them knew one thing, when he died, as he surely would die, that would be the end - the end of his life, the end of his message and the end of hope.
!! A. The Disciples
For 3 years the disciples had put their hope in Jesus.
At first it might have been a tentative hope, but as they saw the miracles he did and heard his teaching, they slowly gained an appreciation for who he was and what he was about.
At one point in the ministry, Jesus asked them if they too wanted to desert him as so many had.
Peter answered (John 6:68,69), ““Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
But now at his arrest and crucifixion, everything suddenly changed.
In Matthew 26:31, Jesus had announced that they would all fall away on account of what was about to happen.
They all vowed to remain faithful.
I wonder if this vow was based on a confidence which they held after seeing all the things that Jesus had done, that he would now do some great thing and everything would be OK?
Yet when Jesus was arrested, we read in 26;56, “…all the disciples deserted him and fled.”
When he was arrested, suddenly they gave up.
This was not going as they had hoped.
Suddenly all hope was gone.
Peter who was the most vocal about remaining faithful was singled out.
Matthew tells us the story about his denial of Jesus.
Three times, when given the opportunity to speak for Jesus, he denied knowing Him.
Although he followed at a distance, he was filled with great fear.
For him as for all the disciples, hope was gone.
!! B. Judas
Judas not only denied Jesus, but betrayed him.
He came to Jesus and handed him over to them by his kiss.
Why did he do so?
Earlier than the other disciples, he had given up hope.
Somehow he had decided that Jesus was not who he seemed to be.
One interpretation suggests that Judas betrayed Jesus in order to force Jesus to show his power.
He was looking for a power Messiah and by precipitating his arrest, he may have been trying to get Jesus to show his power.
When he didn’t, but was about to die, Judas was sorry that he had betrayed him to death and hanged himself because now there was no hope.
Before the arrest and death of Jesus and certainly in it, he totally gave up hope.
!! C. Clothes Distributed
One of the difficult thing that a person has to do after a loved one has died is to clean up the things that belonged to that person.
I can’t imagine the pain involved in cleaning up the clothes of someone you have loved.
As you do this, the realization is fully in your face that this person will not need these things anymore.
They will not wear them any more and so they must be cleaned up and given away.
Can you imagine what it must have been like for Jesus and for those who were standing around the cross when they saw the soldiers dividing up the clothes of Jesus?
Every Jewish man wore five articles of clothing: shoes, a turban, a belt, an inner garment and an outer cloak.
According to John 19:23,24, there were four soldiers there and they divided the clothes into four piles, but the fifth piece, the inner garment was not divided because it was a seamless piece and so they cast lots for it.
The implication of that is so powerful - Jesus would not be needing his clothes any more!
!! D. Mockery
The death of hope is also demonstrated in the mockery which took place.
Matthew records different people who mocked Jesus.
In verse 39, it was those who were standing by who “hurled insults at him.”
The content of their mockery was that they used Jesus own words against him.
“You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself!
Come down from the cross.”
Verse 41-43 tells us that the chief priests mocked him in a similar fashion.
“He saved others, but he can’t save himself…Let God rescue him now if he wants.”
Even the robbers, who were in the same situation as Jesus, heaped their insults on him according to verse 44.
Their words suggest that he like they will die and be no more.
Their mockery suggests the hopelessness of Jesus’ situation.
They mock that he said that he could overcome, but hanging on the cross he certainly did not look like it.
He was about to die and there was no hope.
!! E. Elijah
As the end approaches, we read in 27:46 that Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The implication is that even God had forsaken him.
How much more hopeless does it get than that?!
Those standing by misinterpreted his comment.
There are OT prophecies of Elijah coming down to prepare the way for Messiah.
Malachi 4:5 says, “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.”
In this comment, their mockery was to grasp at one more straw.
He couldn’t save himself, God was obviously not going to save him, perhaps Elijah would come and save him and so they called out, “Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”
Just before he died, this statement is one last grasp at hope.
But…Elijah did not come and the very next verse says, “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.”
From a human perspective, from the perspective of the life experience of the people standing around the cross and from the perspective of all of our life experience, death is the end, it is the loss of hope.
When my father got cancer, I remember having the hope that God could yet heal him, but when he died, that hope was gone.
Death is the end - the end of life, the end of hope.
! II.
Death Brings Hope
But was the death of Jesus really the end of hope?
Jesus could have prevented the arrest, walked away from the trial, jumped off the cross or had Elijah come down and rescue him.
But Jesus died because only in death was he able to bring the beginning of hope.
!! A. Signs Of Hope
Embedded within this story are several signs that indicate that his death was not the death of hope but that something much greater was going on.
!!! 1. Jesus Knew He Would Die
Twelve times in Matthew Jesus had predicted that he would die.
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