Ep. 140: The Death of Jesus
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MATTHEW 27:45-56, MARK 15:33-41, LUKE 23:44-49, JOHN 19:28-30
Now at last all that concerned the earthward aspect of his Mission, so far as it had to be done on the cross, was ended. He had prayed for those who had nailed him to it, in ignorance of what they did; he had given the comfort of assurance to the penitent thief, who had owned his Glory and he had made the last provision of love for those nearest to him. In a sense that which touched his Human nature had been fully met. He had done with the Human aspect of his Work and with earth.
For three hours had the Saviour hung on the cross. It was midday. And now the sun was covered in darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour. No purpose can be served by attempting to trace the source of this darkness. It could not have been an eclipse, since it was the time of the full moon; nor can we place reliance on the later reports on this subject by certain writers. It seems natural to regard the occurrence of the event as supernatural, while the event itself might have been brought about by natural causes; and among these, we must call special attention to the earthquake in which this darkness terminated.
The language seems to imply that this darkness extended, not only over the land of Israel but also over the inhabited earth. The expression must, of course, not be pressed to its full literality, but explained as meaning that it extended far beyond Judea and to other lands. The three hours’ darkness was a time when Jesus, also, entered into darkness; Body, Soul and Spirit. Into this fathomless depth of the mystery of his sufferings, we dare not enter. It was of the Body; yet not of the Body only, but of physical life. And it was of the Soul and Spirit; yet not of them alone, but in their conscious relation to man and to God. And it was not of the Human only in Christ but also in its unbreakable connection with the Divine.
We allow Edersheim to describe what happened next:
‘The increasing, nameless agonies of the Crucifixion were deepening into the bitterness of death. All nature shrinks from death and there is a physical horror of the separation between body and soul which, as a purely natural phenomenon, is in every instance only overcome and that only by a higher principle. In those dark hours there was the sense of forsakenness from man and his own isolation from man; so, also, had the intense silence of God, the withdrawal of God, the sense of his God-forsakenness and absolute loneliness.
We dare not here speak of punitive suffering, but of forsakenness and loneliness. Yet another element must be taken into account. Christ on the Cross suffered for man; he offered himself a sacrifice; he died for our sins, that, as death was the wages of sin, so he died as the Representative of man. He obtained for man ‘eternal redemption’, having given his Life ‘a ransom for many.’ For, men were redeemed with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot and Christ gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity.
This sacrifice, vicarious, expiatory, and redemptive character of his Death, if it does not explain to us, yet helps us to understand, Christ’s sense of God-forsakenness in the supreme moment of the Cross; if one might so word it, the passive character of his activeness through the active character of his passiveness. It was this combination of the Old Testament idea of sacrifice and of the Old Testament ideal of willing suffering as the Servant of Jehovah, now fulfilled in Christ, which found its fullest expression in the language of Psalm 22.
It was fitting that the willing suffering of the true Sacrifice should now find vent in its opening words; ‘my God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ - Eli, Eli, lema sabachthanei? These words, cried with a loud voice at the close of the period of extreme agony, marked the climax and the end of this suffering of Christ, of which the utmost event was the withdrawal of God and the felt loneliness of the Sufferer.’
It can scarcely have been a minute or two from the time that the cry from the twenty-second Psalm marked the high point of his agony. The words ‘I thirst’ emphasised the human aspect of the suffering, indicating that the other and more terrible aspect of sin-bearing and God-forsakenness had passed.
To us, therefore, this seems the beginning of the end. He now could and did yield himself to the mere physical wants of his Body. One of the soldiers, moved by sympathy, now ran to offer some slight refreshment to the sufferer by filling a sponge with the rough wine of the soldiers and putting it to his lips, having first fastened it to the stem of the caper (hyssop), which is said to grow to the height of even two or three feet.
The two last ‘sayings’ of the Saviour now followed in rapid succession; first, that with a loud voice, which expressed it, that the work given him to do, as far as concerned his Passion, was finished and then, that in the words of Psalm 31:5, in which he commended his Spirit into the Hands of the Father.
Then he bowed the head and gave up the Spirit. And now a shudder ran through Nature, as its Sun had set. As the first token, it records the rending of the Temple veil in two from the top down to the bottom; as the second, the quaking of the earth, the rending of the rocks and the opening of the graves. Although most writers have regarded this as indicating the strictly chronological succession, there is nothing in the text to bind us to such a conclusion. Thus, while the rending of the veil is recorded first, as being the most significant token to Israel, it may have been connected to the earthquake, although this alone might scarcely account for the tearing of so heavy a veil from the top to the bottom.
On those who stood under the cross and near it, did all that was witnessed make the deepest and most lasting impression. Among them, we specially mark the Centurion under whose command the soldiers had been. Many a scene of horror must he have witnessed in those sad times of the crucifixion, but none like this. Only one conclusion could force itself on his mind. It was that which, we cannot doubt, had made its impression on his heart and conscience. Jesus was not what the Jews, his infuriated enemies, had described him. He was what he professed to be, what his bearing on the cross and his death marked him to be; ‘righteous,’ and hence, ‘the Son of God.’ From this there was only a step to personal allegiance to him and, as previously suggested, we may possibly owe to him some of those details which Luke alone has preserved.
This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £12 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)