It's Curtains for Sin

“And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split” (Mt 27:51).

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” It’s one of my favorite scenes “The Wizard of Oz.” One peak behind the drapes allows Dorothy and her friends to discover the great and powerful Oz is just a small-town con man named Professor Marvel. When the curtains are closed, you never real know what’s behind them. On Good Friday, Jesus didn’t just pull them open, He ripped them apart! The veil that separated God from His people for centuries is no more. Our rebellion and sin kept us from direct contact with our holy God. Once and for all, Jesus tears open our access to His Father. With His sacrifice on Calvary, it’s curtains for sin!

Nobody saw this coming in the past 12 hours. Nobody except the Trinity. Everything seems to go horribly wrong the night before. One of Jesus’ closest friends rats Him out to the religious bullies. Before you know it, His accusers drag the radical Rabbi/Carpenter through a series of kangaroo courts and trumped up charges. They pressure the local governor to not just torture the Man from Galilee but nail Him to a Roman cross for treason. Jesus’ followers scatter like cockroaches when authorities capture their Leader. They thought He was Messiah. As His limp and bloody corpse hangs on the cross, they’re sure it’s over. Access to God? You’ve got to be kidding. 

However something crazy happened the moment Jesus dies on Golgotha. You couldn’t hear it from Skull Hill, but the sound of tearing fabric echoes in the temple. “And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split” (Mt 27:51). These are the heavy drapes that separate the room called the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple. “The veil shall separate for you the Holy Place from the Most Holy” (Ex 26:33).

Inside the Holiest Place is the Ark of the Covenant. That’s the golden box that God instructed Moses and His chosen people to build as the handy carrying case for the Ten Commandments. The Ark was so much more than that. It also provided a location for the very special presence of the Living God among His people. It’s our holy-holy-holy God that makes the Holy of Holies so…well, holy. It’s so holy-holy-holy, that only the high priest can go behind the curtain, and that only happens once a year! The curtain is there for our protection. If anyone other than the high priest stumbles into the presence of our holy-holy-holy God, it won’t end well. It will be…um…curtains.

That’s what makes the ripping of the temple veil on Good Friday such a big deal. Matthew tells us that it “was torn in two” (v51). He uses the Greek verb schizo to describe the split. It means to tear, divide, or rip. The curtain isn’t opened. It isn’t raised. It is shredded! It is ripped! Nobody’s closing it ever again. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we’ll never need it anymore! The writer of Hebrews connects the temple veil from the Old Testament with the death of Christ on the cross. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh” (Heb 10:19-20). Jesus opens the curtain of access to God once and for all. And it’s never closing again.

Matt wants to make sure we know Who tore the temple drapes. It seems they ripped apart “from top to bottom” (v51). Biblical scholars estimate the veil to the Holy of Holies was about 60 feet tall. There’s no indication that temple janitors kept an extension ladder around that could be used to get that high. The only One who could tear apart this heavy curtain is God Himself. He does for us what we could never do. We could never dream of living a perfect life of total obedience that would allow us direct access to His holy presence. So Jesus did it for us. He lives the perfect life that we failed to live. He dies the death for our sin and rebellion that we should have died. And when He did, He shredded the drapes that kept us from an intimate relationship with God. And when He did, it was curtains for distance from God. It was curtains for our sin. It was curtains for death.