Day 23: Going Out With a Bang

Jesus let out a loud cry and breathed his last. Then the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion, who was standing opposite him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” Mark 15:37–39

I’m not sure what was happening in the heart of God the Father when He heard that curtain rip, but the mama in me imagines that He was grinning from ear to ear! Remember, that drapery panel—which ancient rabbinic sources describe being as thick as a man’s hand, weighing several thousand pounds and taking three hundred people to move—was torn completely in half. It’s purpose? It separated the room called the “Holy of Holies” where the ark of the covenant was kept from the rest of the temple. Remember: “ark” is the Hebrew word for box, and so the “ark of the covenant” was—you guessed it—a box that held evidence of God’s covenant with His people—holy relics like the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments.

Why did these things have to be separated, you ask? The Holy of Holies is where God’s presence was. The rest of the temple is where everything else was. And only certain people at certain times under certain strict purification protocols could enter in the Holy of Holies without, you know, dying. You probably also remember that the ark of the covenant encompassed the “mercy seat” on which the high priest ceremonially sprinkled blood to atone for the sins of God’s people during the high holy day of Yom Kippur (Exod. 25:18–21).

So when the veil was torn, the radical rip effectively removed the separation! Because Jesus paid the toll of death for sin, God’s presence was now accessible! That’s right, when that fancy fabric came crashing down it symbolically removed the separation between us and God’s mercy! I also appreciate that Mark clarifies the curtain was torn from top to bottom (v. 38) implying that God’s the One who initiated the rip.

And it was torn in two from top to bottom at the ninth hour, which means the divine “alteration” of that massive curtain—scholars approximate that it was sixty feet long and thirty feet wide—caused an enormous crash at three o’clock in the afternoon. Why does that matter? Because that was right about the time the temple priests were standing directly in front of it, dutifully going through the motions of religion. To say those poor guys had to be a little startled by all the commotion is like saying a bear is a little hungry when it wakes up from hibernation. One can’t help but wonder if the revival that swept through the temple priesthood soon thereafter (Acts 6:7) was tied to this divinely inspired disturbance!

The curtain call (pun intended) of this whole Good Friday drama takes place when the centurion proclaimed the oh-so-obvious: “Truly this man was the Son of God!” At which point, I like to picture our heavenly Father laughing out load while saying to Himself, “You THINK?”

• When has there been a figurative veil-tearing moment in your life when you felt like a barrier between you and God was removed?
• When did you first understand the core of the Gospel message—that Christ’s work on the cross is what ripped down the barrier between you and God, giving you full access to the Father?
• Who in your life might need to hear that God’s presence is now available to them through Christ? Who do you see nearby in your life who still feels a “veil” between them and God, needing to hear that this veil has actually been torn down?