Faith Formation: Matthew the Gospel of God With Us. Matthew 27:51-54

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, "Truly this man was God's Son!" Matthew 27:51-54

Signs and wonders characterize momentous occurrences. In the Hebrew scriptures disruptions to the order and goodness of creation like darkness, strange signs in the heavenly bodies, destructive storms signified the withdrawal of God from the world and God's people. God withdraws when people forget or reject the way of God, faith in God, and love of neighbor. Whether these things actually happened was not the point. Rather it was a poetic way of describing the return of chaos and disorder as a perception of God's withdrawal from the world. "For my people are foolish; they do not know me; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil but do not know how to do good. I looked on the earth, and it was complete chaos, and to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked to the mountains, and they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked , and there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger." Jeremiah 4:22-28 Matthew described the death of Christ in terms of God's withdrawal from the world accompanied by these kinds of signs.

The tearing of the Temple curtain has come to signify many things. It echoes the opening or tearing open of the heavens at Jesus baptism. Mark wrote, "And just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him." Mark 1:10 Some hear in it the idea that God was no longer confined to the Holy of Holies in the interior of the Temple, but was now on the loose. God was no longer bound exclusively to the Chosen People, and was now God for Gentiles too, for all people. David Fredrickson relates the tearing of the curtain to the rending of the heavens, "nature's grief," or the withdrawal and lament of God shown in the disturbances of earth and sky. Josephus, a Jewish "historian" roughly contemporary with Jesus, described the curtain as a tapestry of creation in all its glory and wonder. "Before these [golden doors] hung a veil of equal length, of Babylonian tapestry, with embroidery of blue and fine linen, of scarlet also and purple, wrought with marvelous skill. Nor was the mixture of materials without its mystic meaning: it typified the universe. For the scarlet seemed emblematic of fire, the fine linen of the earth, the blue of the air, and the purple of the sea; the comparison in two cases being suggested by their color, and in that of the fine linen and purple by their origin, as the one is produced by the earth and the other by the sea. On this tapestry was portrayed a panorama of the heavens, the signs of the Zodiac excepted." In the ancient world, rending or tearing one's garment was an expression of mourning. The tearing of the curtain expressed the grief of all creation and even of God who was clothed in it.

The things said about the dead rising are awkward and confusing. Nothing is related elsewhere about joyful reunions, or the witnesses of these resurrected souls, or perhaps the haunting of Jesus persecutors. The timeline of events is also odd. The tombs were open and the dead raised, but it seems they refrained from exiting the tombs until after Jesus had risen from the dead. There are some things told by the writers of the Gospels which no amount of interpretation will enlighten.

After all these amazing things "the centurion and those with him," were as shaken up as the heavens and the earth. They would not be the only soldiers shaken up by the death and resurrection of Jesus. They were terrified. The recognized that Jesus was perhaps something more than the other rebels and slaves whose they they had witnessed over and over again. Being in the presence of holiness might seem like a wonderful thing, but those in the Gospels who experienced it often showed terror. At the transfiguration, in the presence of shining cloud and the voice Peter, James and John "fell to the ground and were overcome with fear." The Gospel of Mark had the women who went to the tomb on the first day of the week fleeing from the tomb, "for terror and amazement had seized them." Mark 16:8 The night of Jesus birth when angels, not quite God, filled the sky with glory, the shepherds also "were terrified." Whether the centurion's comment, "Truly this man was God's Son!" (which can also be translated, "this was a Son of God," meaning a divine being in line with their own beliefs about the gods) was a statement of conversion of faith, or an expression of awe in the face of strange and terrifying events is uncertain. Certainly, those who heard Matthew's Gospel read to them may have heard it as an exclamation point of faith and affirmation of Jesus saving death. The centurion spoke and either way the faith and truth of what he said has echoed through all the generations of the church.

Keep the faith. Say your prayers. Love like Jesus

Pastor Tim Bauer