Matthew 27 - Tuesday 10th September

Today’s reading is Matthew 27

Tom writes:

Jesus is forsaken. The cup of wrath has seeped into every pore of his being and his body and soul are done. Creation doesn’t really know what to do. Like school kids running around madly at a fire alarm, creation runs in multiple directions all at once. Some parts earthquake towards the pre-Eden chaos of darkness and destruction. Other parts resurrect into new life and start running around Jerusalem. The end of something and the beginning of something. The Abomination of Desolation and the Son of Man entering his glory. The Kingdom Come. The Kingdom Not Yet Come. And amid it all, the curtain rips. Matthew’s gospel began with prophecies that Jesus would save the people from their sins (1:21) and that he would be God with us (1:23). Even though he never explicitly returns to those quotes, Matthew masterfully shows how the death of Jesus is the hope of the Old Testament reaching magnetic and mystifying fulfilment. The curtain rips. The curtain was the centrepiece of sin-management under the Law of Moses. And, indeed the curtain represented the curtain that ran through all of creation; the thin separation between the world of God and the world of the earth that materialised after Genesis 3. The curtain showed how people could shout through a wall to God to ask for his forgiveness; and he would hear them, but that really being saved from sins was not for that age. The curtain acted like a barrier to the breath of God billowing onto people’s souls and undoing their decline into death. Equally the curtain never really let the people be with their God.

In one of the craziest ironies of the Old Testament, the curtain suggested that a bit of cloth might be sufficient to enable a covenant people to come close to their covenant God, without quite touching Him. Like a coquettish dance of the veils, the temple gave Israel a taste of the intimacy that it really wanted, but with sufficient distance to prevent any meaningful coming together from actually taking place. And then the curtain ripped. That rip was like the dance of the veils ending and the audience being told; “now you can take that lady as your bride”. That rip was like God’s hand reaching out through the paper divide, to drip his divine delicacies on self-destructive hearts and decaying souls. It was like the desolation of decaying creation and the glory of Coming Kingdom rushed in opposite directions, smashed into one another and dragged down the veil as they collapsed like a heap on the floor. Now people could truly have hearts healed from inclinations towards sin. Now people could really enjoy the embrace of Emmanuel. All because Jesus himself was willing to give up his soul.

Question for reflection

At the cross some betrayed, some mocked, some just watched. What do you want to do with the act of atonement that enabled you to be with God?