Death and resurrection

In chapters 26-28 Matthew presents Jesus not merely as the suffering prophet, but as the embodiment of the suffering city, bereft of inhabitants. As a result, the final chapters show that Jesus experiences the exile and restoration of Israel herself in His death and resurrection. The disciples, particularly Peter, play an important role in these chapters; they flee from Jesus, leaving Him wholly isolated before the combined forces of the Jewish Sanhedrin and the Roman Pilate (cf. 26:56; 26:58-75). Jesus is subjected to the Gentile power, as Israel was to the Babylonians, and on the cross He cries out that He has been forsaken even by His God (27:46). As NT Wright has argued on other grounds, on the cross Jesus suffers the curse of Israel’s, and humanity’s exile, in order to bear that curse away and return humanity to the presence of God.
(p36 Jesus as Israel: The Typological Structure of Matthew’s Gospel, Peter Leithart)