The Crucifixion by @texyouthsummit chaplain @chetcollins7 Matthew 27: 22-66 Friday morning around 9 AM, while thousands filled Jerusalem preparing for the Sabbath and festivities, the lamb of God was being crucified for the sins of the world on the outside of the city, on a lonely hill called Golgotha. Some of his disciples were hiding for fear, women that had followed Jesus stood afar off, and Roman soldiers mocked him and gambled for his robe at his feet. For the next several hours, Jesus endured the agonizing suffering of the cross, a death that ultimately leads to asphyxiation. Prior to the crucifixion, He had already been brutally beaten—receiving the lashes of a scourging whip that tore His flesh open. His beard had been plucked, and a crown of thorns had been pressed into His head. As He was mocked and humiliated, Isaiah had prophesied that His appearance would be so marred that He would be unrecognizable ( Isa 52:14). For many hours Jesus suffered; Suddenly an eerie darkness covered all the the land for three hours. An earthquake shook the ground and split rocks in two. In the midst of that darkness and suffering, Jesus cried out in Aramaic, words recorded in Matthew: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”  In that moment, He bore not only physical agony, but also the weight of humanity’s sin. As the sinless Son of God, He experienced the depth of human suffering and the separation that sin brings. Then, after declaring, “It is finished,” Jesus cried out again and gave up his spirit and died. At that very moment, the veil in the temple—the thick curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple—was torn from top to bottom. This signified that through His death, Jesus became the once-for-all sacrifice, opening the way for all people to have access to God through Him (Heb. 10:19, 20). Those who witnessed these events were deeply shaken. The Roman centurion, who was overseeing the crucifixion along with the soldiers under his command, observed  the darkness, the earthquake, and all that had taken place. In response, they feared greatly and said, “Truly this was the Son of God” (Matthew 27:54). And then, in a remarkable and often overlooked detail, Matthew records that after Jesus’ resurrection, the tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints—likely Old Testament believers—arose and went into the holy city of Jerusalem appearing to many (Matt 27:52, 53). All of these events surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection point to the central truth: the resurrection confirms the validity of everything Jesus accomplished on the cross. His death was not the end, but the fulfillment of His mission—to bear our sins, to provide righteousness, and to open the way for eternal life with God.