Good Friday 2026

Good Friday invites us to slow down.

It invites us to pause and stand at the foot of the cross.

Not to rush past it, not to soften it, but to see clearly.

In these verses, we are told that we are not just told that Jesus died.

We are shown what his death means.

This scene of Jesus on the cross, it's heavy, it's dark, and it's sacred.

And if we listen carefully, we'll hear what God is telling us through it.

Now let's walk through this passage together and consider three different movements.

First, the darkness, second, the death of Jesus, and third, the response that it all merits.

So Matthew tells us in verse 45 that from noon until about three in the afternoon, darkness came over all the land.

Now, this is not a passing cloud or some kind of natural eclipse.

This is a sign.

In Scripture, darkness often signals judgment.

The kind of judgment seen in the plagues of Egypt or the kind of darkness that the prophets spoke of.

But here, the darkness is not falling on Egypt or Babylon.

It's falling on Calvary.

And at the center of that darkness hangs Jesus.

And we hear his cry, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

These words, which Jesus quotes directly from Psalm 22, reveal the mental and the spiritual torment of the cup Jesus accepted when he was in Gethsemane.

Notice here how Jesus, for the first time in Matthew's gospel, he doesn't refer to God as his father.

This is because the relationship that Jesus had always known with his father, it was now broken.

To give his life as a ransom for many for the forgiveness of sins, Jesus must for the moment be separated from his father.

This is the cost of sin.

We often treat sin lightly.

We rename it, excuse it, we manage it.

But here at the cross, we see the true reality of what sin does.

It brings darkness, it brings separation, and it brings suffering.

And Jesus, he steps into this darkness for us.

Jesus isn't crying out because of his own guilt, because he has none.

He's crying out because he has taken our guilt upon himself.

Now, as we move on in the story, Matthew tells us that Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

At this moment, Jesus died.

But notice the language that's used here.

He yielded up his spirit.

Jesus' death was not noble or peaceful.

Jesus didn't simply fade away quietly.

Instead, Jesus was in full possession of his senses.

He was in full control.

And this is how we know that this was a willing sacrifice.

And then at that very moment, at the moment of Jesus' death, something extraordinary happens.

The curtain of the temple is torn in two from top to bottom.

And this is the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies, the place where God's presence dwelled from the rest of the people.

Only the high priest could enter, and only once a year, and only with the sacrificial blood.

But now the curtain is torn.

And notice how the curtain was torn from the top to the bottom.

God is so clearly the one doing the work here.

And this isn't just a dramatic detail.

This isn't something that's just glossed over.

No, instead, this is a declaration that the barrier between God and humanity has been removed.

Access to the Father has been opened.

And at the same time, the earth shakes, the rocks split, and tombs are opened.

Even creation responds to Jesus' death in this moment.

The death of Jesus, it's not a quiet moment that's tucked away in history.

It's a cosmic event.

Everything has been affected.

The cross, even in this moment, it's not defeat.

It may look like weakness, but it is the power of God at work.

It is where justice and mercy meet.

It is where sin is paid for and grace is made available to us.

Because of the cross, we no longer approach God through rituals or through intermediaries.

We come through Christ.

The way is open.

And now we turn in the story to the people watching.

We have a Roman centurion, a hardened soldier who would have spent his whole life fighting for Rome.

And he's likely accustomed to executions.

This isn't the first one that he's seen.

And he sees everything that has just happened: the darkness, the earthquake, the way in which Jesus died, and he responds with a confession: truly, this was the Son of God.

And this is truly remarkable that a Gentile, an outsider, recognizes what many insiders refused to see.

And at the same time, we're told about the women who were there, watching from a distance.

These are faithful followers.

They had not abandoned Jesus.

They stayed and they witnessed.

In every direction, people were responding to the cross in different ways.

Some mocked, some misunderstood, some confessed, and some remained faithful.

And that is still true for us today.

The cross on Good Friday, it confronts each and every one of us.

It does not allow neutrality.

You cannot simply observe it as history or admire it as a symbol.

It calls for a response.

Will you dismiss it?

Or will you confess like the centurion that Jesus is in fact the Son of God and stand like the women as faithful witnesses to what has happened?

Good Friday, it's not just remembering that Jesus died.

It's not just looking back and seeing a death that happened in history.

It's about understanding why he died and what it means.

In the darkness that day, we see the weight of sin.

In Jesus' death, we see the way to God opened.

And in the witness, we see the call to respond.

So the question isn't simply what happened at the cross.

The question on Good Friday is this what will you do with it?

Today we stand at the foot of the cross, and it truly changes everything.

Amen.