Imagine your driverless ride-share vehicle drops you off at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. There’s a long line, but you decide it’s worth the wait. Eventually, you climb the front steps and stand between the Ionic columns. Finally, you’re through the front doors, and a few minutes later, you’re shaking hands with the leader of the free world.
No appointment needed.
Of course, this scenario is ludicrous today, but meeting the president was once a reality for regular people. From 1801 to 1932, the White House opened its doors to the public every year on January 1. It was known as the New Year’s Reception at the White House. Everyone, from the common citizen to the highest-ranking diplomat, was welcome. Thousands of people waited in lines that snaked around the block before President Hoover canceled the tradition in 1932.
Today, appointments are crucial in all aspects of our common life. Doctors, barbers, and the DMV all require appointments. I don’t leave the dentist without booking my next appointment. When I recently bought new tires at Costco, I had to make an appointment five days later for their installation. Appointments are necessary for order, efficiency, time-management, and peace of mind. Without them, chaos would reign.
My favorite appointment involved a famous college football coach. It was the early 1990s, and I was a sports information director traveling with the Long Beach State women’s basketball team to the University of Colorado. The Colorado football coach at the time was Bill McCartney, who was successful and well-known for his Christian faith. Weeks before the trip, I phoned his office and set up a meeting with him. I’m not sure why I did this. And other than being super nervous, I don’t recall anything from the appointment, besides receiving his blessing of prayer before I left.
All of this brings us to Good Friday, and three very important words in the Bible: Torn in two.
In ancient Israel, appointments were needed to seek atonement for sins. It wasn’t just the average farmer or merchant who booked the appointment; it was the high priest, who was like the head pastor for the nation. After the Israelites hightailed it out of Egypt and began a 40-year lap around the desert, God set up a system of sacrifices, holidays, and rituals.
God instructed the Israelites to set up a mobile temple, which was called the tabernacle. It featured two important rooms: the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. Separating these two rooms was a curtain. Priests could regularly minister in the Holy Place, but only the high priest entered the Most Holy Place, and only once a year, into the immediate presence of God. Behind the curtain, the Most Holy Place was considered the earthly dwelling place of God’s presence. The curtain was a barrier between God and humans, separating God from where humans dwelt. It symbolized the separation between a holy God and a sinful people because sin renders humans unfit for the presence of God.
The day on which the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place was called the Day of Atonement (known now as Yom Kippur). On that day, he would offer sacrifices for the sins of the people. It was a day of repentance, purification, and reconciliation with God. A goat was sacrificed, and its blood was sprinkled on the altar for the sins of all the people. However, the fact that sin offerings were needed annually showed that sin could not be truly atoned for by mere animal sacrifices.
Fast-forward some 300 years, and Israel is now an established nation. King Solomon built a temple—a gigantic, permanent replacement for the tabernacle. In his temple, the curtain was enormous, roughly the size of a vertical tennis court. It was 60 feet long, 30 feet wide, and four inches thick. It took 300 priests to manipulate it on cleaning day.
Another 1,000 or so years later, Jesus is hanging on a cross on Good Friday. At the moment of his death, after uttering the words “It is finished” and after giving up his spirit, the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom.
It wasn’t ripped from bottom to top. Nobody snipped the center of the curtain and pulled it apart with an accomplice. It took the mighty hand of God himself to tear it. Something that wasn’t possible by human strength was done by God alone.
Clearly, the spiritual implications are significant. God ended the need for temple sacrifices. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice, and his death and resurrection offer us a forgiveness that is assured and permanent. No longer are we separated from God by our sin. Now, a new, unparalleled access to the Father is available to all people. Jesus himself becomes the new high priest. Jesus is the permanently accessible new temple in whom all are reconciled to God.
Even though the curtain was vertical, our separation was also horizontal. Equally important, the curtain’s removal is about God entering our hearts and our world as Immanuel, God with us. It’s about God elevating us as his children to a level footing with Jesus himself. Our status has changed from structured rituals to an intimate relationship.
Because our sins no longer separate us, we don’t enter God’s presence as a common citizen having to wait in line to meet the president or a nervous sports information director waiting to see a famous football coach. We are now God’s holy, adopted, righteous children, able to climb into his lap and receive all the tenderness of his love and grace.
Without an appointment.
Happy Easter!
