The coming week is the most significant week in the whole year for Christians. This week we remember and celebrate the events which changed the world for ever and brought the church into being. In the events of Holy Week and Easter we see God directly at work in the world and in the lives of all people. In St Matthew's account of the crucifixion which we read today he describes it as a literally earth shaking event. The sky is darkened and the rocks are split. Heaven and earth are disturbed and troubled. For St Matthew the events of this week are the fulfilment of God's creation and the fulfilment of thousands of years of biblical prophecy. At every stage of Jesus' last week Matthew uses the words of scripture to show that this is the moment that all the prophets foretold.
Not only are these events the fulfilment of the past, but they are the promise of the future. Matthew describes how the tombs were opened and the bodies of the dead were raised. He wants us to understand that Jesus' crucifixion affects all humanity from the beginning of the world to the end of history. It is a turning point in the history of the world. Jesus' death on the cross stands outside the reach of time. It affects the living and the dead, the people of Jesus' time and us today. In his account of the Passion, Matthew describes Jesus as the faithful servant of God, who, according to the prophet Isaiah, will suffer and die. This suffering servant will carry the griefs and sorrows of all people, all the pain and anguish of the world will be laid on his shoulders and he will be rejected, betrayed, beaten and mocked. And so it happened. In Mathew's account there is no pity for Jesus. From his agony in the garden of Gethsemane, his betrayal by Judas and Peter, his trial before Caiaphas and Pilate to his crucifixion, there is not a kind word said to him. Even the criminals crucified with him mocked him. It is only in Luke's gospel that one of the criminals shows any faith in Jesus, and it is only in John's gospel that the women gathered at the foot of the cross. According to Matthew, Jesus was abandoned by everyone, the disciples, who fled; the women, who stood at a distance; and even by God. Jesus has carried the weight of the sin of the world to the cross, and the last words that Matthew records are, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And yet Matthew clearly understood that Jesus' death was an event of cosmic importance. At the moment of Jesus' death, records Matthew, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. This curtain was an enormous tapestry which hung in front of the holy of holies, the innermost room of the temple, the place which symbolised the presence of God. Nobody was allowed to go into this holy of holies, except the high Priest, on the Day of Atonement. And now, says Matthew, God has torn the curtain open, from top to bottom, and the way to God is made open for all people. This is how it is written in the letter to the Hebrews. "We have complete freedom to go into the most holy place by means of the death of Jesus. He opened for us a new way, a living way, through the curtain, through his own body." Matthew's picture of Jesus is of a pioneer, who has opened the way into heaven by means of his death. It was Jesus' faithfulness, his willingness to love God unconditionally, that made him able to bear the sins of the world and made him able to open the way to heaven. As the old hymn says, "He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in." St Paul calls Jesus the "pioneer and perfector of our faith" the one who makes it possible for us to follow. The letter to the Hebrews continues, "since we have a great high priest" that is, Jesus, "set over the household of God, let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, with hearts that have been made clean from a guilty conscience and bodies washed with pure water." This week, then, we celebrate our new relationship with God, a relationship of trust and freedom, a relationship which goes beyond our earthly lives and beyond our earthly understanding. This week we celebrate because Jesus, by his death, has brought us into the household and love of God. Paul says, "I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." This is our salvation and this is what we are celebrating. This week, the church, acknowledging the world and life changing effect of Jesus Christ, remembers his passion death and resurrection, meeting to celebrate the last Supper on Mundy Thursday, his trial and crucifixion on Good Friday, and his mighty resurrection on Easter Day. We are invited to join our sisters and brothers in the faith to give thanks for our salvation. Let us join them gladly.