Pandemic Ponderings Ep. 3, The Cross & the Pandemic

Hello again, everyone. Pastor Tim here with the third episode of my Pandemic Ponderings. Today is Good Friday, and it's the first Good Friday we all have experienced in the midst of a pandemic. Well, actually, that's not true.

The First Good Friday as a Global Pandemic of Sin

The squad of Roman soldiers in Jerusalem on the first Good Friday lifted up Jesus' cross at a time when the world faced a global pandemic of universal proportions. No one could escape its reach. Quarantine was useless against it, and social distancing was just as ineffective.

Every human being and every creature had fallen to the devastating effects of this disease. It began ages before that day in Jerusalem, in a garden, when Adam and Eve fell to the cunning suggestions of Satan in the guise of a serpent.

At that point, the contagion of sin, with its corrupting effects, spread from the representatives of humankind to all of creation. This present pandemic, this COVID -19, does not even begin to compare to the reach and devastation of that original pandemic, which still runs rampant through the entire world.

Right now, we are all waiting for a turning point, the point when we leave behind these days of self-isolation and social distancing and begin to live life as it should be lived. That dark day in Jerusalem proved also to be the turning point in that great, awful, original pandemic of sin.

Jesus' death was the doorway from one age to another. It signaled the final breath of an old era and the first breath of something new. Let's go back to that day and see those final moments. Matthew describes those moments this way.

Matthew’s Account of the Crucifixion and the Cry of Dereliction

Now, from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lemah sebachthanai, that is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And some of the bystanders hearing it said, this man is calling Elijah. And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the other said, wait, let's see whether Elijah will come to save him.

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice. And yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were open.

And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, truly, this was the son of God.

There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

Darkness, Judgment, and Jesus Forsaken by the Father

Our text here depicts the final moments of the old era and the first few moments of the new. Darkness descends on the land from noon until three o 'clock in the afternoon, just as God brought darkness upon the land of Egypt because Pharaoh had rejected God's message.

So the darkness of judgment descends on the land of God's own people. The son of God had presented himself to the people of God and they rejected him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him, writes the apostle John.

At the beginning of Jesus' ministry, he is singled out with open heavens, descending spirit and spoken voice, but now, at the end, he is singled out again with the heavens dark and closed. Here is God's judgment on his son, and out of that darkness, Jesus raises his voice.

He cries out in desolation, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? All through this gospel, Matthew records Jesus addressing God in the most intimate of terms as my father, but now that familiar address is absent.

Jesus' loneliness is now complete. From his agony in Gethsemane through his trials and even now, he has been without human support, but at least he had the comfort of the Father's presence. At Gethsemane, he questioned the will of the Father, but at least he had the presence of his father, but now he no longer has the presence of God.

That too is gone as his father turns away from the son. Jesus experienced hell as he suffered the curse of God, as the sins of God's people were heaped on him and punished there. The Apostle Paul, writing years later, looking back at this very event, said, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

That cry of desolation, that cry of Jesus reveals the horror of the world's sin and the cost of our salvation. Even as he suffers the wrath of God, the misunderstanding and the mocking from Jesus' human counterparts continue.

Mocking, the Veil Torn, and Access to God Through Jesus

Some wine vinegar cut with water is offered to Jesus. This is the wine that was used by soldiers and laborers, and the soldiers there probably had some. It may have been an act of kindness, but the response of the Jewish bystanders was anything but kind.

Stop giving him something to drink. Let's see if Elijah will indeed rescue him. So these mockers stand there thinking that Jesus is calling out for Elijah to rescue him, or they think that Jesus is so deluded in his messianic pretensions that even now all he can think of is Elijah proving that he is Messiah.

The last words Jesus hears before he dies are words of ridicule and mocking. At last, Jesus cries out one more time and dies. Good Friday is usually a day of weeping, and it should be because this day reveals the depth of our sin.

Our sin is so deep that it required the very death of the Son of God at the hands of mocking, dismissive, hardened sinners. There is a place for weeping, for make no mistake about it, if you were there, you too would have mocked and humiliated the Savior.

And yet it is called Good Friday. That's because at the moment of Jesus' death, victory begins to dawn. It is the turning point, the beginning of a new era. Those who are in the temple courtyard across the way from Golgotha suddenly hear that heavy veil, which separated the holy place from the holy of holies, tear from top to bottom.

When that veil ripped, God was saying, there is now immediate access to me through Jesus. Jesus is now the temple, the meeting place between God and man. Through this one man's obedience, the sacrificial system is fulfilled and so canceled.

And out of the darkness of that day came free access to God. Here is the victory of grace. At the moment of Jesus' death, there was an earthquake that split rocks and opened tombs. The sentence reads in our Bibles that they came out of the tombs after the resurrection.

Matthew does that in order to show the two main points of Jesus' work. His death defeats sin and evil and opens up access to God in a new way. And his resurrection promises the final resurrection of all his people.

It's as if Matthew can't wait for the resurrection to make that point. So he puts it here for now. When all this transpires, the soldiers who formed the execution in guard detail exclaim, surely he was the son of God.

The darkness, Jesus' cry of dereliction, the earthquake, all convinced them that this is no ordinary death. Jesus immediately produces conversions and in the most unlikely place, just like at the beginning of this gospel with the Gentile magi worshiping Jesus.

So now at the end, as the new era dawns, Gentiles once more confess Jesus as opposed to the mocking of the Jewish bystanders. These Gentile soldiers confess Christ. The moment the veil ripped, the pagan world started coming to faith.

Certain women were also there to the bitter end. Those who were not highly regarded in Jewish society. It is interesting that the disciples are nowhere to be found. That it was the women, those who supported the ministry of Jesus who remained there to the end.

They were the last at the cross and the first at the tomb. But then God uses the lowly and the despised of this world to shame the wise and the strong. And in the beginning of this new era, these women show what being a disciple of Jesus means.

One Christian writer put it this way. The Christian's main vocational responsibility is to be there, fidelity, faithfulness. The 12 were conspicuous by their absence, but there were some faithful women standing a respectful distance away watching everything.

The quintessence of Christian discipleship is simply being there, showing up, not calling in sick, reporting for duty,.

Fidelity.

In this gospel, the accolade heard by those pleasing the Lord is well done, good, and faithful servant. Discipleship is what this new era is about. The faithful following of the Lord Jesus. The old era is the history of an unfaithful people.

The new era dawns with the story of committed, faithful disciples of Jesus. The victory of faith begins. You see, Good Friday is the turning point. At the cross, in the worst hours of that awful pandemic, at the farthest point of its reach, Jesus conquered sin.

You should weep at the horrific cure for the disease of sin, but you should also rejoice at the victory won over the worst pandemic you will ever see. May God bless you on this Good Friday as you contemplate and meditate on what Jesus has done at the cross.