When an organization or business wants to draw people to a certain event, they have all kinds of ways to get peoples’ attention. They may use posters or billboards or perhaps send out a mass mailing. They may use newspapers, radio, television, telephone or the Internet. They may go door-to-door, handing out leaflets and flyers. There are any numbers of ways that they can make you stop, look and listen to what they are saying.
God, of course, has other ways. During these weeks of Lent, we are looking at many of the different ways that God drew people to His Son, Jesus Christ, and especially to His death on the cross for the sins of the world on that Good Friday. In past weeks we’ve looked at the miraculous darkness and the miraculous tearing of the Temple curtain. And tonight we turn our attention to these words from Matthew 27: “And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook.”
During the years of Jesus’ ministry, the Jewish religious leaders became more and more jealous of Him, and their hatred of Him grew to a fever pitch. After all, Jesus had called them hypocrites and he criticized their lifestyle. He had interfered with the way that they ran the Temple, and he infuriated them even more by referring to the Temple as His “Father’s house.” Not once but twice he had thrown the moneychangers out of the Temple. From their perspective, Jesus was a rabble-rouser, a troublemaker – and even worse, the people liked Him. The people were actually listening to Him and following Him. They cheered Him when he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. This Jesus was very much in their way. Something needed to be done.
So they made plans to get rid of Jesus, to shut Him up permanently. The Jewish leaders, blinded by their hatred and jealousy, foolishly believed that if they got rid of Jesus, then that would be the end of Him and His followers would soon forget all about Him. And since they hadn’t been able to silence Jesus any other way, the only solution to get rid of Him was to kill Him.
In Matthew chapter 26 we read about their plot: “When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, ‘You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.’ Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him.”
Which leads to the betrayal by Judas Iscariot, the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane under the cloak of darkness, the mock trial held illegally in the middle of the night, Pilate’s delivering of Jesus over to be crucified, and the crucifixion itself. Everything seemed – at first – to be going exactly as planned. Jesus didn’t even put up a fight – he never tried to defend Himself in any way – and all of those supposedly loyal disciples and followers were so afraid that they pretty much disappeared from the scene. I’m sure that the Scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees must have felt very good about themselves. Soon Jesus would be silenced – would be dead, gone and forgotten – and out of the way for once and for all.
But God had other plans. At noon the skies miraculously went dark. When Jesus died at 3:00 p.m., all sorts of strange things happened – all kinds of miracles took place. The Temple curtain was ripped in two just like a rotted scrap of cloth. Rocks split open. Graves were opened. And as Matthew says: “And the earth shook.”
We’ve heard a lot about earthquakes recently. The nation of Japan is still just beginning to recover from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami which killed thousands and caused billions and billions of dollars of damage. We occasionally feel earthquakes here in central Illinois, but these are small and almost insignificant compared to major earthquakes like the one in Japan and the one only weeks before in New Zealand or last year in Haiti. But we’ve seen the videos, and we’ve seen what it is like to be right on the middle of an intense earthquake. You don’t have to be a geologist or an expert in earthquakes to know that the tremors that emanate from an earthquake can be felt for hundreds, even thousands of miles. The Good Friday earthquake would most certainly been felt by the people in Jerusalem as well as people who lived in neighboring towns and villages. It may very well have been felt in neighboring countries. If the Jewish leaders thought that they could keep a lid on what they were doing, they were sadly mistaken.
What complicated matters for them was that God kept on performing miracles following Jesus’ death. On Easter morning it was the miracle of the resurrection. The death of Jesus totally demoralized the Disciples and those who followed Jesus; they mourned, they hid, they feared that they would be murdered, too. They saw their leader – their teacher – their Messiah – die just like any other man and be placed in a tomb just like any other dead man. But with the resurrection, everything changed. As Jesus had told the Disciples before His crucifixion: “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from this earth, will draw all people to Myself.”
Even after the resurrection and Jesus’ ascension into heaven, the miracles continued and people were drawn to Jesus in ever-growing numbers. On the 50th day after the resurrection, the followers of Jesus witnessed the miracles of Pentecost: the wind-like sound that attracted the attention of the pilgrims who were in Jerusalem; the flames of fire that rested on the heads of the Disciples; the ability to speak in languages which they had never learned. Moved by the Holy Spirit, Peter preached a sermon that convicted people of their sins, called them to repentance, and directed them to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and salvation. On that one day, 3,000 people were drawn to their Savior. On the next day God, through Peter and John, healed a man who had been lame from birth, and another 5,000 were drawn by the Holy Spirit to faith in Jesus.
When you read the Book of Acts you read of one instance after another when the Holy Spirit continued to draw people to Christ. A Pharisee and Jesus-hater by the name of Saul was notorious for arresting and persecuting Christians – until he, too, was brought to faith and became the great missionary to the gentiles. Saul’s name was changed to Paul, and though him the Holy Spirit drew countless others to faith in Jesus.
Today we call ourselves “Lutherans” because 500 years ago Martin Luther was drawn to Christ and was used by God to draw others to a reformation, a renewal of the Church in which God’s Word would once again be rightly taught and His Sacraments be rightly administered. Less than 200 years ago, faithful men like C.F.W. Walther moved from Germany and created our beloved Missouri Synod so that Lutherans in the United States could be fed with Word and Sacraments and so that others might be drawn to Christ. Less than 100 years ago, a handful of faithful Lutheran families – including the ancestors of some of you – were led by the Holy Spirit to form a small congregation here in Pana, Illinois. Tonight we biological and spiritual descendents of those believers gather in this beautiful Church Sanctuary, where the members and guests of St. Paul Lutheran Church regularly and faithfully hear God’s Word and receive His Sacraments.
The earthquake that began on that Good Friday is still shaking the world, is still calling attention to the death – and the resurrection – of God’s beloved Son. God displayed His power in the earthquake. God displayed His mercy, love and forgiveness in the crucifixion of His Son. The God of power, mercy, love and forgiveness cares for you. And there can be no greater miracle than that.
This sermon is freely adapted from a series entitled “The Miracles of Lent,” published by Concordia Publishing House.
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