Well, Father, I’m grateful that You know what is going on! We trust ourselves to Your eternal love and care. May we keep our eyes fixed on You. Amen.
Luke 23:44-49 (<<click here to read the passage)
After Karen and I had been dating for some time, I would occasionally stay at her home when school was not in session. My home was several hours away whereas she, being a local girl, commuted from about 15 minutes away.
I shared a room with her brother, Chuck, who was still in high school at the time. I didn’t stay there too often because Chuck would often yell out in his sleep and when he did that, I couldn’t get back to sleep.
One incident that took place when I wasn’t there – thankfully! In the middle of the night, he got to dreaming that he was trying to lay hold of a calf that had gotten loose! When all was said and done, he had pulled his curtains clean off the wall! Too much excitement for me!
That would have been startling for sure but that was nothing compared to what took place in the Temple in Jerusalem the hour Jesus breathed His last.
After 3 hours of darkness when the sun was obscured – that would have been a terribly scary occurrence all by itself! – and right before Jesus exclaimed, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!” …the veil [of the Holy of Holies] of the temple was torn in two [from top to bottom]. AMP
The word veil in our understanding in no way communicates what it was like. It was by no means a thin piece of cloth. Chuck Bumgardner, of the Orchard Keeper blog (<<click on the link to check out the entire post) put out these statistics according to the research he had done on this “veil”. Interestingly enough the Bible gives no specifics on the veil (the curtain) in Herod’s Temple but Bumgardner’s research took him to several sources of Jewish documentation of antiquity. Here are some of the interesting facts.
It took three hundred priests…to draw the veil (of the Temple) aside.
…the thickness of the veil was a handbreadth (that’s about 4 inches or so)
It was woven of seventy-two cords, and each cord consisted of twenty-four strands and was wrought in 72 squares
It was forty cubits long and twenty wide (Roughly 60 by 30 feet)
…it was made by eighty-two young girls, and they used to make two every year
and it took three hundred priests to immerse and cleanse it.
That was some curtain! Nothing could have torn it in two [from top to bottom] but the very hand of God!
So, what is the significance of it? Basically, in the Holy Place of the innermost part of the Temple, the curtain cordoned off the Holy of Holies. In this Holy of Holies one priest once every year would enter to present a sacrifice to the Lord for the sins of all the people. It was so sacred that according to Rabbinic tradition they tied a rope around his waist in the event he was struck dead for some offense while performing his duties, ensuring they could pull his body out!
That’s pretty serious stuff but upon Jesus’ death, the curtain no longer served a purpose. Since that day we all have access to God. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life for us all! No more curtain! Amen and amen!
Jan 13th, 2021, Wed, 8:00 pm
