WHEN HEAVEN WENT SILENT!
Matthew
27:45-61
Bruce
Springsteen's Father cast a long and mostly dark shadow over his life, said
Michael Hainey in Esquire. Springsteen admits that his entire career has
largely been a reaction to his attempt to free himself from Doug Springsteen, a
hard-drinking, blue-collar New Jerseyite who bounced from job to job.
"My
mother was kind and compassionate and very considerate of others'
feelings," Springsteen says. "My Father looked at all those things as
weaknesses. He was very dismissive of who I was." His Father dominated the
family home, radiating menace as he sat in the kitchen's darkness, drinking and
brooding. Later in life, he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.
After
Springsteen became famous and wealthy, his Father said to him, "You've
been very good to us. And I wasn't very good to you." When his Father died
at age 73, Springsteen stayed behind after the graveside funeral, taking a
shovel to finish the burial with his own hands. "I wanted that connection,"
he says. "It meant a lot to me."[1]
No
matter who you are, like Bruce Springsteen, we all have a deep yearning for a
father's connection. Fathers have tremendous influence in shaping their
children's inner person; some positively through love and others negatively
through anger, abuse, or abandonment. Some grow up losing their fathers either very
early or later in life; whenever it may be, not having a father who loves and
supports leaves a deep hole in our hearts. Who can fill that hole?
Are
you experiencing the pain of abandonment? Tonight, we will look at Jesus, who
knew all about the pain of abandonment. When he needed the support of his
Heavenly Father, he found himself in a moment where Heaven Went Silent! Matthew
27:45-61.
All
four gospel writers recorded the Crucifixion. This was what John the beloved
said, John 19:35-36, "The man who saw it has given testimony, and his
testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that
you also may believe." These things happened so that the scripture would
be fulfilled." Jesus fulfilled, conservatively speaking, over 300 prophecies
in his lifetime, including the Crucifixion. We will explore these spectacular
events.
I. The Final Moments of the Crucifixion of
Christ:
Before
Jesus was put on the Cross, he endured severe torture, which included flogging,
placement of a crown of thorns, beating on the head, pulling of his beard,
spitting on his face, and ridicule by soldiers. At the time of nailing to the Cross,
he was disfigured. We read in Isaiah 53:2-3, "He had no beauty or majesty
to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He
was despised and rejected, like one from whom people hide their faces."
You
can only imagine the physical and emotional pain of rejection by the crowds and
the abandonment by his close disciples, except for a few, Christ endured up to
this point. As if the Sun couldn't see the agony of the Son of God, it turned
its face away by making the whole land dark from 9:00 A.M until 3:00 P.M. About
three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eli, Eli,
lema sbachthani? (which means "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?")
Here, Jesus was expressing His feelings of abandonment. As Jesus endured
that weight of sin, He cried out in agony. Unlike before, there was no response
from God, as though Heaven went silent. What would that feel like when Heaven
apparently goes silent?
II. When Heaven Went Silent
Though several scriptures indicate that the
place we call Heaven is above the earth, there are no specific scriptures detailing
its exact location. So, simply speaking, Heaven is where God is. When we say
that Heaven went silent, in a way, we are saying that God went Silent. Several
people in the OT experienced God's silence, which can last for a short period
or for hundreds of years. Either way, God's silence can be unbearable, and humanity
goes through anguish. Several
Psalms indicate people's angst at what appears to be God's silence.
Psalm
13:1 "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide
your face from me?" Psalm
28:1: "To you, Lord, I call; you are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to
me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who go down to the
pit." Ps 44:23:
"Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us
forever!" ESV
Psalm
83:1: "O God, do not remain silent; do not turn a deaf ear, do not stand
aloof, O God."
Here is a Psalm that directly ties
to Jesus' pain of abandonment by the Father on the Cross. Psalm 22:1, "My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so
far from my cries of anguish?" Have you ever felt as though God is silent,
millions of miles away, and uninvolved in your situation? God may be silent at
times, but that doesn't mean He is far from you; Infact, He is closer to the
brokenhearted.
Jesus
understands your pain of abandonment. He knew how it feels when God turns His
face from us, so he cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
Strangely, God the Father, after hearing Jesus' cry, didn't step in and rescue
Him. It was for our good that he didn't step in otherwise; we wouldn't have
received salvation. So, with another Loud cry, Jesus gave up his spirit. What
happened afterward were miracles and the fulfillment of scriptures.
III. The Way Into God's Presence Is
Open To all
Certain events that occurred immediately after
Jesus' death were pure miracles, and one of them fulfilled an ancient prophecy.
Let's explore: 1. Earthquake and Rock Splitting: These signs in the OT often
indicated the awesome power of God's presence. 2. The temple Curtain was torn
from top to bottom. According to Hebrews 9:1-9, a curtain separates the rest of
the temple and the people from the Holy of Holies, where God dwelt. Only the
high priest was allowed once a year to enter the Most Holy Place to offer
sacrifices for the people's sins.
According
to tradition, "the Curtain was about 60 feet high and four inches thick."[2]
The tearing of the Curtain indicates that Jesus' death on the Cross was a
sufficient atonement for our sins. God removed the dividing wall of hostility
between Jews and Gentiles. (Eph 2:14). Through Christ's blood, the way into
God's presence is open to all people. The fact that it tore from top to bottom
showed that it was not done by any human being but by a powerful act of God.
3. The bodies of the saints were raised.
Nothing more is said about these people except that, after Jesus' resurrection,
they appeared to many; this shows that they were given glorified bodies and,
after appearing to people, may have ascended to glory. This miracle was a
foretaste of the resurrection of the dead saints when Christ returns. I Thess
4:16.
4. A convincing proclamation of the
Centurion. Throughout Jesus' ministry, his divinity was challenged by the devil
himself and doubted by the Pharisees, the High Priest, and those who came to
witness the Crucifixion. In Mark 15:39, we read, "The Centurion, who stood
there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, 'Surely this man was the Son
of God! This proclamation puts an end to the speculations regarding whether
Christ really died on the Cross or someone else in His place, as some of our Muslim
friends think.
5. In death, Jesus shared a rich man's
tomb. Humanly speaking, though Jesus was poor, he had some rich and prominent
friends. One of them was Joseph of Arimathea. He was a member of the Sanhedrin
who himself became a disciple of Christ. But a secret disciple because he
feared the Jewish leaders. This tells us that even today, there might be secret
believers of Christ among Jews, Muslims, and Hindus, as they might be afraid of
their religious leaders.
Joseph and Nicodemus, another prominent
Jewish leader who met Jesus secretly (Jn 19:39), came to Pilate, took the body
of Jesus, and buried him in Joseph's new tomb. (Matt 27:60), thus
fulfilling exactly the prophecy of
Isaiah 53:9, "He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich
in his death." Joseph rolled a large stone in front of the tomb's entrance
and left. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the
tomb.
What a spectacular and tragic Friday
that was when Christ died on the Cross? Heaven went silent for a moment, and
the prophecies were fulfilled, and Jesus was buried in a tomb. The story of Good
Friday doesn’t end in a closed tomb but in an Open Grave!
