Introduction

Some deaths are described as “natural.” But this is like saying that darkness is wholesome. Christ’s death reminds us that it's not death that is natural. It’s natural when the Son obeys the Father and it’s unnatural when servants kill Kings. Some things called natural are heavily artificial. To call death natural is to invent our own servitude. Death is because of an abyss of the eternal darkness in which we deserve to fall. Holy Week is when Christ marches toward the darkness and accepts death with deliberate defiance. Three days later Christ climbed out of the abyss to write his perennial poetry. This is why men pursue love as self-sacrifice and then mark it out in particular spaces, for instance, in how a husband loves his wife.

And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:37-39).

Three things happen in the above verses.

First, Jesus dies (vs. 37)

Jesus’ death reverberates back through the centuries to the first horrible moment in human history, the sinful rebellion of Adam and Eve. God created the first man and woman to know, enjoy, and commune with him forever. But when they sinned and ate of the tree, they separated themselves from God, away from his presence. That’s why God put them out of the Garden. Man was separated from the holy God. The agonies of life in the fallen world stem from this separation. And this is why God the Son came to earth, to live the life we couldn’t and die the death we deserved. Christ’s death puts “natural” back to the factory settings.

Second, the curtain of the temple is torn in two (vs. 38)

This was the curtain in front of the Holy of Holies that separated the unholy people from the holy God. There were two curtains in the temple. One separated the courtyard and the Holy Place. The other was inside the holy place and blocked off the innermost shrine, which is known as the holy of holies. Mark doesn’t indicate which curtain was torn. But the author of Hebrews sheds some light on the subject. Hebrews 9:3 says, “Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place.” The author of Hebrews goes on to explain how Christ entered the most holy place to purchase salvation for his people. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh” (Hebrews 10:19-20).

For the curtain to be ripped is for the people to gain access to God. In other words, with Jesus’ death, the old religious order comes to an end. The curtain is torn from top to bottom, which means no human being could have torn it. This is a divine rip. A divine maneuver. A divine retort of judgment against the Jewish people and their leaders. The temple is torn in two to illuminate the significance of the death of Jesus as the thing that brings down the old order of the Jewish priesthood and establishes the new order of the New Covenant of Christ’s priesthood, where salvation is mediated by the shed blood of the Son of God. Just a few verses earlier, the passersby mocked Jesus’ claim that he would destroy the temple (Mk. 15:29). The torn curtain is a sign that new life—a new order—will come from the destroyed temple of Jesus’ body and that by his death he is opening the way into the presence of God.

Third, the centurion believes (vs. 39)

A Gentile, of all people, experienced the effect of the barrier between God and man ripped open. Because of Christ, the centurion walked into the presence of Christ into a relationship with God. The centurion, who oversees Jesus’ execution, is the first to rightly identify that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. What is it that convinces him that Jesus is who he said he was? Perhaps it is Jesus’ final cry (vs. 37). Perhaps it is the darkness (vs. 33). In the Bible darkness signifies the punishment of evil (Isaiah 13:10-11; Joel 2:10). Perhaps it is the curtain of the temple torn in two (vs. 38). Whatever the reason, the centurion is convinced he has killed the Son of God.

Throughout the gospel of Mark, no human can explicitly identify Jesus Christ as the Son of God until this moment. Jesus Christ is identified as the Son of God by the divine voice from heaven (1:11; 9:7) and by the demons (3:11; 5:7). But until the centurion makes this confession, no human in the book of Mark identifies Jesus as the Son of God. Why? Because it is impossible to understand the full identity of Jesus Christ without understanding his death. The centurion is the first to stand before the cross with faith.

Conclusion

When the mingled strands of modern life appear raving mad, it begins to seem that not just death but sin is normal, that Satan is uninterrupted, and that the traveler is stuck in a dark tunnel. When life’s long stretches are blank nights and bare walls, and when the next interval is colorless chaos, you must remember that Christ adorns the neglected; His light is coming, ready to break forth, and ready to make vitality normal again.

Join us Friday, April 18 at 5:30 pm for our Good Friday Tenebrae service. The service of Tenebrae, meaning “darkness” or “shadows,” has been practiced by the church since medieval times. Once a service for the monastic community, Tenebrae later became an important part of the worship of the common folk during Holy Week. We join Christians of many generations throughout the world in using the liturgy of Tenebrae. Tenebrae is a prolonged meditation on Christ’s suffering. The readings trace the story of Christ’s passion, the music portrays his pathos, and the power of silence and darkness insinuate the drama of this momentous event.

Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of the books The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.