The Six Signs at the Death of Christ Jesus
The death of Jesus was so significant to the Father's plan of redemption for man that He desired to give and record several supernatural signs and evidences which would clearly manifest its importance. The Scripture writers were led by the Spirit to record these signs for all generation to authenticate, magnify, call attention to, and interpret the death of Jesus Christ.
1. The Darkness and Silence at Noon
We understand the first sign of Darkness and Silence at Noon in relation to the meaning of such passages as the following:
John 1:1-5, 6-8, 9-14.
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood[1] it.
6There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.[2]
10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13children born not of natural descent,[3] nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,[4] who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
See also John 12:35-36;[35Then Jesus told them, "You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going. 36Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons of light." When he had finished speaking, Jesus left and hid himself from them.] Luke 2:32; Psalm 91:6; and especially Rev 21: 23. [10And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. 11It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. 23The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.]
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We see that Christ is the Light for mankind. His life is the Light of man. He, as Light, shines in the darkness of this world, though the world does not understand it.John the Baptist was a witness to that Light. To all that recognized Christ as the true Light, God gave the right to become His very own children by new birth. At the death of Jesus, Christ is the only Light in the world. All else has become dark and silent. Also, Christ experienced the darkness of man's alienation and sin, saying, "Father, why have You forsaken me?" See also Amos 8:3-13:
9 "In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD ,
"I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
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2. The Tearing of the Temple Curtain
We understand the second sign, the Tearing or Rending of the Temple Veil, to signify the access which Jesus, by His death, provided for us into the Holy of Holies. That is to say, because of His death and later resurrection, we now can enjoy the intimacy of sons of God without condemnation.
See Romans 8: 1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,[1] 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature,[2] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.[3] And so he condemned sin in sinful man,[4] 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
Also see Hebrews 6: 19-20: 19We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, 20where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.
3. The Earthquake
At the death of Jesus, uneasy nature -the very earth which he created- reacted convulsively to the shock of it's supreme founder's death. The earth rocked; the ground split open and all Jerusalem was shaken to it's foundations. This is what caused the Temple to shake and the veil rent. A sign from the Father that the earth would never be the same again. It had been shaken to it's foundations by the life and death of the Savior. All the earth would now be split between the sons of God -the children of Light- and the sons of iniquity. A permanent division was established upon the earth.
4. The Garden Tomb
About a century ago, a 2,000-year-old tomb was discovered near this cliff called Skull Hill. Since the days when Constantinople legalized Christianity, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was erected to honor the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, it has been assumed that it was built over the correct location of where it happened. But interesting parallels between the garden tomb at Skull Hill and the descriptions in the Bible make one wonder if this might be the actual location. In any case, this garden tomb gives us a good idea of what the actual burial place of Jesus truly looked like.
In Jerusalem for a visit in 1884, General Charles Gordon spied a prominent rocky crag which looked to him like it could be the "place of the skull" mentioned in the Bible as where Jesus was crucified.
Around the corner Gordon identified an ancient tomb and putting the two together he located the hill of crucifixion and the nearby burial place.
In John 19, it says; 38Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. 39He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventyfive pounds.[d] 40Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
| "This was the garden of Joseph of Asimathea. He intended it for a place of quiet, set apart from the city, where he could do business and attend meetings of the Sanhedrin. Before that it was a Canaanite homestead. One of the cisterns was dug long before the time of Christ," he replied.
"How sure can we be that this is really the place where Jesus was buried?" I asked.
"I have been the Keeper of the Garden Tomb for a number of years," he replied. "And I have had plenty to time to study the events that happened here at the time of Jesus' crucifixion and burial. You have seen the large figure of the skull formed by nature in the side of the hill called "Golgotha, the place of the skull", as described in the Bible:
"And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, A place of a skull ... they crucified him. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his blood, suffered without the gate. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made the curse for us; for it is written cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree."
Jesus was crucified just outside the Gate, the Damascus Gate, a place often used for executions. It is said that St. Stephen was stoned to death there, for his faith. The Apostle John plainly states, 'At the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, not yet used for burial. There, because the tomb was near at hand and it was the eve of the Jewish Sabbath, they laid Jesus.' This is what the Bible says and it fits the locality of this tomb, which was closeby the site of the crucifixion.
"There are other reasons which you can find within the sepulchre itself. Only one loculus was finished of the three within the sepulchre. The other two were left unfinished and have remained so to this day. The tomb was covered with the debris of centuries, hidden for almost 1900 hundred years. General Gordon of England, stopping here on his way from China, studied the terrain, comparing it with the Bible. He saw the figure of the skull in the rock of the hill and decided the tomb must be nearby.
He went back to London, raised $6,000 and bought the land. The Garden Tomb Association (London) was formed with the stated purpose 'That the Garden and Tomb be kept sacred as a quiet spot and preserved, on the one hand from desecration and, on the other hand, from superstitious uses.'
That is why I am here as the Keeper.
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5. The Folded Clothes
John 20:4-8: "And the two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter, and came to the tomb first; and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. Simon Peter therefore also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he beheld the linen wrappings lying there, and the face–cloth, which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb entered then also, and he saw and believed."
While they may not believe that Jesus is risen, they are certainly concerned that his body is missing. Peter (apparently with John, according to John 20:3-6) runs to the sepulchre:
"Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened." (24:12)
When he gets to the tomb, he goes inside and bends over the shelf on which Jesus' body had been placed. "Bending over" is the Greek verb parakupto, "bend over," but here it has the added meaning of "to bend over for the purpose of looking, with focus on satisfying one's curiosity, take a look."[12]
What he sees in the new tomb is troubling -- "the strips of linen (Greek othonion) lying by themselves." "Strips of linen" (NIV) or "linen clothes" (KJV) is the Greek noun othonion, "(linen) cloth, cloth wrapping." There is some debate between the translation of strips of linen (NIV) or larger cloth wrappings.[13] The word is also used John's Gospel:
"Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped (Greek deo) it, with the spices, in (strips of) linen (othonion). This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs." (John 19:40)
"He [John] bent over and looked in at the (strips of) linen (othonion) lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen (othonion) lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen (othonion)." (John 20:5-7)
One other passage in John regarding the raising of Lazarus gives us some idea of burial customs in Palestine at that time:
"The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen (Greek keiria), and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, 'Take off the grave clothes and let him go.' " (John 11:44). 
Here's one explanation of the burial practices:
"The corpse would have been placed on a strip of linen, wide and long enough to envelop it completely. The feet would be placed at one end, and the cloth would then be drawn over the head to the feet, the feet would be bound at the ankles, and the arms secured to the body with linen bandages...."[14]
Commentators just don't agree on the details. But one point is significant. Luke mentions "strips of linen lying by themselves" (Luke 24:12) and John tells of "the strips of linen lying there" (John 20:6) -- not scattered about the tomb but lying together. The Church Father Chrysostom observed, "If anyone had removed the body, he would not have stripped it first, nor would he have taken the trouble to remove and roll up the napkin and put it in a place by itself."[15] As Peter surveys the scene, it becomes pretty clear that the body wasn't stolen.
Some believe that Jesus' risen body passed through his burial clothes, so that the myrrh-soaked grave wrappings[16] may have resembled a butterfly's chrysalis after the insect has unfolded its wings and taken flight, the shell remaining but the body gone. We just don't know.
In any event, something remarkable has taken place, but Peter can't quite fathom what it is. Not yet. He goes away "wondering to himself what had happened" (24:12b). "Wondering" is the Greek verb thaumazo, "to be extraordinarily impressed or disturbed by something, admire, wonder at."[17] He is amazed, but not yet believing that Jesus is raised from the dead, as the women already do.
Play: Thine Be the Glory
6. The Opened Graves of the Holy Ones
The reaction of the earth to the death of Christ and the rending of the Temple curtain are all one simultaneous event. The opening of the graves of the holy ones who had died from the beginning of time and their spiritual appearance in Jerusalem is one with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave. It is no surprise that the holy ones who had died before the coming of Christ - believing in the Messiah and Savior - would rise with him to new life in heaven.