Matthew 27, a visual study: the remorse of Judas, the trial before Pilate, the crucifixion, the death of Jesus, and his burial, from The Lampstand Project.
Why have you forsaken me?
Morning comes, and with it the machinery of an execution: a remorseful traitor, a weak governor washing his hands, a crowd choosing a murderer, a crown of thorns, and a hill called the Skull, where the Son of God cries out into the darkness and breathes his last.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"Matthew 27:46 ESV
This is the chapter the whole Gospel has been walking toward, and it is almost unbearable to read slowly. Matthew does not look away, and neither should we. Innocence is condemned, mercy is mocked, and the one who fed thousands and stilled storms hangs helpless while the world he made jeers at him. And yet at the very moment of greatest darkness, the curtain tears, the earth shakes, and a hardened soldier says the truest words in the book. The death that looks like total defeat is doing something underneath that no one watching can yet see.
The hill called the Skull.
Five movements through the chapter. Tap any numbered marker to read its scene below.
Tap any numbered marker to read its scene
The silver returned.
When morning comes, Judas sees that Jesus is condemned and is seized with remorse. He brings the thirty pieces of silver back to the priests: I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. They will not take it back; what is that to us, they say. See to it yourself.
He throws the silver into the temple and goes and hangs himself. The priests, too scrupulous to put blood money in the treasury, use it to buy a potter's field to bury strangers in. Even the betrayer knows he condemned an innocent man. Everyone in the story knows. They do it anyway.
"...thirty pieces of silver... and I threw them into the house of the LORD, to the potter."
Pilate and Barabbas.
Pilate questions him and finds no case, and marvels that Jesus answers nothing to the charges. He tries to release him, offering the crowd a choice between Jesus and Barabbas, a notorious prisoner. Even his own wife warns him, have nothing to do with this righteous man.
But the crowd, stirred up by the priests, demands Barabbas, and cries, let him be crucified. So Pilate takes water and washes his hands before them: I am innocent of this man's blood. As if water could rinse off a decision. He hands over the innocent to keep the peace, and history remembers exactly whose choice it was.
"...like a lamb that is led to the slaughter... so he opened not his mouth."
The crown of thorns.
The soldiers strip him, drape him in scarlet, and twist together a crown of thorns to press onto his head. They kneel in mockery, hail, King of the Jews, and spit on him and strike him. Then they lead him out to a place called Golgotha, the place of a skull, and crucify him there.
Over his head they fix the charge, this is Jesus, the King of the Jews, and they divide his clothes by casting lots. Passersby and priests alike taunt him: he saved others, he cannot save himself; let him come down, and we will believe. He could have. He stays, because coming down would have saved no one but himself.
"...they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots."
At noon, when the sun should be at its height, the light fails, and for three hours the world goes dark. It is as if creation itself cannot bear to watch, or cannot bear what its Maker is bearing. Out of that darkness comes the cry, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, the opening line of an ancient psalm, and the loneliest words ever spoken. The one who was always with the Father tastes, for us, what it is to be forsaken, so that none of us, in our own darkness, would ever have to be forsaken again.
He yielded his spirit.
After the cry, Jesus calls out again with a loud voice and yields up his spirit. And at that moment the curtain of the temple is torn in two, from top to bottom, the heavy veil that walled off the holiest place, ripped open by no human hand. The earth shakes, the rocks split, tombs are opened.
The centurion and those with him, who have killed men before and felt nothing, are filled with awe: truly this was the Son of God. The first confession of faith at the foot of the cross comes from a Roman executioner. The veil is torn because the way in is now open; the thing that kept us out has been opened by his death.
"...they have pierced my hands and feet."
The sealed tomb.
As evening falls, a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple, asks Pilate for the body. He wraps it in clean linen and lays it in his own new tomb, cut in the rock, and rolls a great stone across the entrance. The women who followed him sit watching, opposite the tomb.
The next day the priests, remembering Jesus said he would rise, ask Pilate for a guard, lest the disciples steal the body and claim a resurrection. So they seal the stone and post soldiers. They take every precaution against the very thing that is about to happen anyway. The tomb is shut. It is the last word, everyone believes, and they are wrong.
"And they made his grave... with a rich man in his death."
Looking up at the cross.
The genealogy looked back. The geography looked out. The river looked up. The wilderness looked ahead. The mountain looked inward. Chapter six looked beyond. Chapter seven looked down. Chapter eight looked closer. Chapter nine looked around. Chapter ten looked outward. Chapter eleven looked to him. Chapter twelve looked across. Chapter thirteen looked beneath. Chapter fourteen looked into the dark. Chapter fifteen looked past the surface. Chapter sixteen looked him in the face. Chapter seventeen looked into the light. Chapter eighteen looked among us. Chapter nineteen looked at what we hold. Chapter twenty looked at the wage. Chapter twenty-one looked for fruit. Chapter twenty-two looked at love. Chapter twenty-three looked at the whitewash. Chapter twenty-four looked for his coming. Chapter twenty-five looked at the least of these. Chapter twenty-six looked into the cup. And chapter twenty-seven looks up at the cross, at the place where the road has been leading since the genealogy, and sees, in what looks like the end of everything, the very thing that opens the way to God.
Every thread the Gospel has been weaving comes together on this hill. The King is enthroned with thorns; the one who forgave sins is condemned; the temple's veil, the barrier between God and us, is torn from top to bottom by a death, not a ritual. The darkness and the forsaken cry are real, and we must not rush past them, because he went into that darkness so we would never be alone in ours. The tomb is sealed and guarded, and the watching world is sure it is over. But the curtain is already torn. The way is already open. The third day is already coming.
"Truly this was the Son of God!"Matthew 27:54 ESV
All scripture quoted from the English Standard Version. A study from The Lampstand Project.