The Good News: The Holy Place

I am often amazed how often we get the best news at the least expected times and often at moments that we don't think anything will cheer us up. I remember early in our marriage when Jess an I were struggling with finances and I was getting ready to start collage and we were living on love because there wasn't anything in the bank. I was talking to Jess about how important I thought it was for us to come up with money to get a computer so I could do my course work at home and she was more concerned about how we were going to pay for the apartment we lived in. Priorities!

I remember many times feeling like a failure as a husband, as a father and as a man because I couldn't provide for all our needs. I must admit I was frustrated and overwhelmed. I was 20 and Jess was 18 and I was absolutely clueless. It was at that time that I got a phone call from my dad. He told me to get a pen and paper and write down a # so I did. Then I asked him what it was about. His response was brief, "This lady has some money for you from where I hurt my back when you were a kid." then he got off the phone. Well of course I called her and she worked for Social Security and indeed she had money for me. Almost $10,000 worth. This money allowed us to get a computer and was enough to help us supplement our income as I started my time in school.

The reason I share this is because when we look at Mark 15 and we read about the events that lead up to the death of Jesus and the event of the crucifixion we are confronted with the total depravity of man. Jesus was mocked, beaten, spit upon, flogged and nailed to a cross. The flogging was done by a scourge that would have had pieces of metal and bone in the leather thongs that would have dug into Jesus' flesh and ripped of strips of skin. The art of crucifixion (yes, to the Romans this was an art) is still to this day considered the most painful and brutal form of execution. A person who was crucified was stretched out in a manor that made it very difficult to breath. So if they wanted to breath they had to push themselves up on the nails that were driven through there feet until the pain was so intense that they would drop their weight onto the nails in their hands which was bad enough but the moment that they did that the could no longer breath. In a few moments their body would start fighting for air and push themselves up again. (And don't forget that with every movement they are scraping their raw and bleeding back across a rough wooden surface.) This would continue until either the person suffocated to death or the guards broke the legs of the person forcing them to suffocate.

It is at this moment when Jesus when Jesus breathed His last breath that we find one of the single greatest moments in all the history of man. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

The Good News:
To many people reading about this curtain, the image that first comes to mind is an image of intense morning - as well it should, but we can not miss the importance of this moment. We must understand the importance of this curtain. It was this curtain that was the entrance to the Holy of Hollies, the most sacred place. A place that only the High Priest could enter and then only once per year after being made ceremonially clean.

When this curtain was ripped in two from top to bottom God was announcing that there is no longer a barrier between man and God. By the death of Jesus all man kind is now able to walk boldly into the presence of the Almighty. The old system has been done away with a new covenant has come.

May you always remember that Jesus made a way for all men to be reconciled with the creator of all things. That by His death we to may die to our sinful nature and through His resurrection we are raised into a new life as a child of God.

John 1:9-13 says, "The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God."