The crucifixion is here. His time has finally come and Matthew gives us a striking account of the obtuse religious leadership's destructive path colliding with the purity and perfection of the Suffering Servant. The qualities of God in their fullness are before the people, but they go to every length possible to suppress and exchange the truth for a lie. Time and again, during this chapter we will see the people fail to surrender to the truth, even though their own testimony makes clear they see and recognize the truth before them.
First we have the cheif priests and the elders who are determined to put Jesus to death, yet they are careful not to put the thirty pieces of silver into the treasury because it is, "the price of blood" (v. 6). They recognize the money as defiled while apparently failing to acknowledge what they themselves have done with innocent blood. How quickly religious zeal and conviction can become the very mechanism one uses to suppress the truth.
Having determined in their spiritual blindness that Jesus was deserving of death, the Jewish leadership now faced a problem: the authority to carry out His execution belonged to Rome. So they bound Jesus, delivered Him to Pilate, and effectively placed His death warrant in the hands of the Roman governor.
Pilate is conflicted. He sees the ruse unfolding before him. Matthew even tells us that he knew "because of envy they had handed Him over" (v. 18). Jesus' innocence and His righteousness was clear to Pilate and Pilate's wife. Yet he find himself caught between the truth he feels on the inside and the pressure of the mob he feels on the outside. So he places two men before the crowd: Jesus and Barabbas.
The older manuscripts preserve something striking that many English translations obscure; Barabbas' first name was also Jesus. His name literally translates to "son of the father." One Jesus, a guilty man who deserves death, and one Jesus, the innocent Son of the Father who does not. The guilty man walks free because the innocent man takes his place. Matthew doesn't stop to unpack all of the theology. He simply gives us the picture.
The Roman soldiers continue to display the paradox. They mock Jesus as a king by clothing Him in scarlet, placing a crown of thorns on His head, and by putting a reed in His hand as a scepter. But the symbols intended to ridicule His kingship inadvertently proclaim it. The thorns recall the curse of Genesis 3, while the scepter represents rightful royal authority to bring judgement. The true King is crowned with the curse that belongs to Adam, the curse that belongs to us. The true King is beaten with His own rightful authority to judge. Jesus is becoming a curse just as Paul would late write when he said, Christ "redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13).
And then, while the crucifixion is taking place and Jesus "yielded up His spirit" the "veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split" (v. 51). Matthew doesn't insert every theological implication, but Hebrews does: "He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:11-12). The barrier that once guarded access to God's presence has been removed.
The chapter ends with Jesus sealed inside a tomb while His enemies stand outside, trying to do everything in their human power to prevent the claim of His resurrection from arising. They secure the tomb, they seal the stone, they post guards, and in all this effort, they only serve to reinforce the evidence of Jesus' supernatural resurrection. In their deep concern and efforts to prevent the disciples from fabricating a resurrection story, they ultimately become unwitting testimony to the resurrection itself. They went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that no human being could interfere with Jesus and in doing so, made it clear to all mankind that the resurrection was in fact an act of God.
Matthew is displaying for us in this Chapter that the Gospel is not simply the story of how Jesus died. It is the story of the curse being borne, judgement being absorbed, the way into God's presence being opened, and the Messiah conquering death through death itself. The final and last paradox of Matthew's account is made clear to the reader: death itself became the weapon of Satan's defeat. The one who held the power of death was conquered through the death of Christ.