39
When entering an auditorium or a theater before a performance, we may be greeted by a massive wall of heavy fabric. Anticipation builds as we take our seats. What can be going on behind that curtain? We may hear rustling, even see feet moving around. We wait impatiently for the music to start, for someone to walk out in front of the curtain. We are ready for the show to begin. Ready to witness the event we have been waiting for.
In Jesus’s day, a great curtain separated worshipers from the priests in the temple. The common people were never permitted to see what was behind that curtain. It was so sacred, that only the chosen few were allowed into the “holy of holies”.
But on the terrible day of His crucifixion, everything changed forever. As Mark writes of the end of Jesus’s earthly life, “And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed his last. Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” Mark 15:37-38. And at the same time , the first non-believer was convinced and converted. A Roman centurion standing nearby exclaimed, “Truly this Man was the Son of God!” Mark 15:39.
As Jesus died, in darkness, when God was turning His face away, the new Church was being born. No more was God housed behind a curtain in a temple. He was entering the hearts of those who watched, who believed.
Now that we, the believers are the sanctuary, and God lives inside us, no curtain is big enough, heavy enough, strong enough to keep us from Him. “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ.” Romans 8: 38-39.
All Bible references are from the New King James Version.
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