ould. It
turned out to be calm; and, accordingly, the pilot, standing on the
prow of the vessel, shouted out the words; whereupon the air was
filled, not with an echo, but the loud groaning of a great multitude
mingled with surprise.[5] The pilot was called before the Emperor
Tiberius, who strictly enquired into the truth of the incident.

Such was the meaning of the rending of the veil on its dark side: it
denoted that the reign of the gods was over and that Jerusalem was no
longer to be the place where men ought to worship. But it had at the
same time a bright side; and this was the side for the sake of which
the incident was treasured by the friends of Jesus. It meant, as St.
Paul says, that the wall between Jew and Gentile had been broken down.
It meant, as is set forth in the noble argument of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, that the system of ceremonies and intermediaries by which
under the Old Testament the worshipper might approach God and yet was
kept at a distance from Him had been swept away. The heart of God is
now fully revealed, and it is a heart of love; and, at the same time,
the heart of man, liberated by the sacrifice of Christ from the
conscience of sin, as it could never be by the offering of bulls and
goats, can joyfully venture into the divine presence and go out and in
with the freedom of a child. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to
enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way,
which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil--that is to say, His
flesh--and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near
with a true heart in full assurance of faith." [6]

II.

The second sign was the resurrection of certain of the dead--"The
graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and
came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy
city and appeared unto many."

Whether or not the rending of the veil in the temple was connected with
the earthquake, there is no doubt that this second sign was. The
graves in Palestine were caves in the rocks, the mouths of which were
closed with great stones. Some of these stones were shaken from their
places by the earthquake; and the bodies themselves, which lay on
shelves or stood upright in niches, may have been disturbed. But in
some of them a greater disturbance occurred: besides the external
shaking there took place within them a motion of the life-giving breath
of God.