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The first great sign that happened on the Friday we call "Good," was the strange darkness that occurred from the sixth Jewish hour (12 noon) until the ninth hour (3 pm). The darkness fell when the sun was at its zenith. Astronomers tell us that this could not have been a mere natural solar eclipse. Eclipses don't take place when the moon is about full. The answer is what the Scriptures simply tell us: this "darkness" was a God given miraculous sign. The God that can shake the earth and split the rocks can also darken and obscure the sun. Matthew records: "all the earth" and not simply all the Jewish regions. We believe it was a general darkness that covered the entire half of the planet which would normally have had full light.

Was nature too suffering with Jesus? Was creation groaning again and shutting its "eyelids" over the light of its eyes? We need not personify the sun. The darkness signified judgment. Darkness and judgment go together. The judgment was not one that would take place at some distant "eschaton" at the Second Advent, but rather a judgment that was occurring on that very Friday afternoon. God's Friday. The judgment, your judgment took place on that scarlet cross [ + ] ; on, in, and through that Body and Blood. The darkness and the agonized cry go together: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani." His cry at that ninth hour brought to a climax this sign of judgment. He had endured hell, our hell, for three hours in darkness, His expiatory suffering was near an end. In a loud and strong voice He cried for all to hear. His words were the same words He had once given to David by the Holy Spirit in Psalm 22 [v.l]. Prophecy fulfilled.

It was not outer physical agony nor inner mental distress that "caused" Jesus to so cry out. Men have often suffered both and yet have felt deep inner comfort of God's abiding presence. The cry did not mean that Jesus thought His Father had simply left Him by Himself to the cruel Romans and their torture-tree. The lament is not that Jesus' divine nature had left Him as He suffered, but rather that the Person of the Father had condemned Him, as your sin! But Jesus did not die, right then and there, immediately; and when He did die a short time later He was not forsaken of God, for He commended His Spirit into His Father's hands.

But during those three black hours Jesus was made a curse for you [Gal. 3. 13]. With His dying powers Christ called to the Father Who was no longer strengthening and helping Him; Jesus no longer saw in Him the Father, but rather the Righteous Judge, for a wall of separation had risen between them, namely the world's sin, your sin, and its curse as they asphyxiated the Lamb. Jesus thirsted for God, but there was no drinking of comfort at that point. Jesus tasted only wrath. The Son cried to God, but God made no reply to Him. But even in abandonment Jesus still clinged to God. Oh what a price for your Redemption. During those hours your penalty was paid; and after that had been done, God again turned to Jesus.

Jesus' cry was heard from some distance. The mocking crowd perverted the first two words of Jesus' lament and disregarded the rest. They well knew that "Eli, Eli" meant "My God, My God," for the Hebrew for Elijah is an entirely different word. Yet, they maliciously made a joke out of Jesus' cry. They again, were metaphorically "spitting" on Jesus even as He was drinking the bitter cup of their sins...for them.

Jesus felt Himself sinking and knew that His death was at hand. He did not intend to slowly sink into unconsciousness but to die with a loud shout of triumph. He asked for a drink to moisten His parched lips that He might better be able to speak. A soldier fetched some sour wine. A sponge fixed to a hyssop reed was used.

Saint John alone reports the next cry of "It is finished." Saint Luke alone reports the last "Father into Thy hands." The Evangelist Matthew simply wrote: "And Jesus, having cried again with a great voice, let go the Spirit." But all agree on the mighty shout of Jesus with which He died. His last words were spoken as a victor Whose triumph was won. The Lord died but we are told that He also gave to God His Spirit. The spirit is the inanimate part of one which contains the ego and is open to a higher world; able to receive impressions from the Spirit of God. Jesus body, hung lifeless on the cross. The separation of spirit from the body occurred in Christ as it occurs in us. But even at death the Word of God, the Logos, the Eternal Son, did not become divested of His assumed Human Nature. The Spirit of Jesus went into the Father's hands, into Paradise with the repentant thief, into the glory the Son had from eternity, the heavenly mansions of God and His Sabaoth: Heaven.

With Jesus' dead and bruised lips silent. God spoke in a language of His own. The signs which Matthew records all occurred simultaneously the instant Jesus died. The inner curtain which hung between the Holy and the Holy of Holies in the Herodian Sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two. It was "rent" from above to below as if an unseen hand severed it by starting at the top. Thus ripped, the Holy of Holies was exposed. The curtain was torn at the same time the priests would have been busy with the evening sacrifice. Many eyes saw what had happened. This sign is easily understood. Only once a year the high priest alone dared to pass inside this curtain. On the great Day of Atonement he would carry in the blood for the cleansing of the nation. But in Herod's sanctuary, the Holy of Holies was empty, for the Ark of the Covenant that had stood there in Solomon's Temple had been destroyed, or at the least, taken away by God. So on Good Friday when the curtain was torn God was proclaiming that the "ministry" of the Jewish high priest had come to an end. Caiphas and his minions were no longer needed because the Divine High Priest, Jesus, had come and entered into the Holy of Holies of heaven itself with His own atoning blood.

There was also an earthquake and a rending of rocks. Such rending of rock is both an Old and New testament sign indicating the presence of God; the presence of the New Testament god in His might and greatness for all who believe, and as the wrathful Judge for all who disbelieve.

The third sign was most incredible. Many dead saints arose from the tombs and appeared to people in Jerusalem. The significance of this mighty mass resurrection miracle is that Jesus' death conquered death. Those risen saints proved His great victory. Death could no longer keep them in their graves. They were all of you, only a bit ahead of time. What an assurance this event was to the fact that you also shall rise.

All of the heathen Romans guarding the three crosses were quite affected by all that had happened. They were all greatly frightened, including no less than a Centurion who was in command. And it was a religious fear. The Centurion and his men knew how Jesus had been brought to the cross. They had observed His truly "Lamb-like" conduct through the whole ordeal. They had witnessed the mockery of the Jews and their own initial slurs. But with the death, with the loud cry "Father," the earthquake and rending rocks... a climactic change was worked in the heart of Longinus (the traditional name of the Centurion). He had come to faith. His confession is strong and true. Whatever the Jews had said, he now saw the divine Sonship of Jesus.

Some of the Lord's friends also witnessed His death. There were the women, and there was Saint John. A trio of Mary's: the Blessed Ever Virgin, the Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James and Joseph, silently bespeaks the blessed Trinity itself. The woman Salome was also there. They had all followed Him all the way from Galilee to His last journey to Jerusalem, and then in this terrible tragedy their love conquered fear. With their own hearts bleeding, they had watched their Lord, one had watched her boy, die.

Even as the "signs" which occurred at Jesus' death were wonderful, so too was the burial of His body. It was a fulfillment of Isaiah 53.9 "And He made His grave... with the rich in His death." All of His friends were helpless and unprepared at that point. It must have appeared that there was nothing left but to watch the soldiers rip Him off the tree and toss His corpse into a pit with the other two dead bodies. God took care of His Son's body. Help suddenly appeared in the form of Joseph of Arimathaea. Matthew records only two details: his wealth and his discipleship; one into the service of the other. This man who had been fearful and cowardly did an amazing thing in intruding both upon the Centurion's duties and upon Pilate himself. The Romans quite generally allowed the relatives and the friends of men who had been executed to bury their bodies. Joseph returned to Golgotha with wrapping linens. We don't know the details, the grisly mechanics of getting Jesus off the cross, but we know that under Josephs' active and masterful charge the difficult job was done. The gravesite was Joseph's own newly-hewed tomb in the solid rock cliffside. A "new tomb," where no decay or odor of death had as yet entered, was a fitting place for the body of Jesus which no corruption or decomposition dared to touch (Acts 2.27). When all had been done and the great stone wheeled in its groove sealed the tomb completely, Joseph and his companions went away. Only the Magdalene and the other Mary lingered on outside the tomb, loathe to leave until the shadow's fell.

The shadows fell. It was dark. It was quiet.

Jesus rested in His tomb. Presently He would arise.

In vain are all the foolish proceedings of His enemies.