Matthew 27:50-51
Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split.
No doubt the onlookers waiting to see if Elijah would come to rescue Jesus were disappointed. For shortly after they offer Jesus sour wine he cries out one more time and then dies. It is such a short, even terse, description of the ending of Jesus’ life that I am always taken by surprise. Shouldn’t there be more fanfare, more ceremony, to the death of the rabbi who has been teaching and healing and preaching, the one who challenged civil and religious authorities and declared the coming kingdom of God, the one who some believed was God’s promised Messiah?
But whatever the expectations of the crowds watching then (or now), Jesus only cries aloud one more time and then dies. And that’s it.
Except that’s not it. Immediately the ramifications of Jesus’ life and death are felt. There is an earthquake, splitting rocks wide open, testifying that nature itself bears witness to the significance of Jesus’ death. And the curtain in the Temple is torn in two, representing the new way in which God would be active in the world.
The Jewish faith, you see, offered an interesting and complex picture of Israel’s relationship to God. It was, on many levels, quite intimate. God, after all, had chosen Israel from among the nations and promised not only to save Israel but to bless all the world through Israel. At the same time, faithful Israelites knew that God is also utterly and completely beyond us, that no one can see God and live.
The veil separating off the “holy of holies” – the innermost part of the Temple believed to bear God’s presence most fully – captured both of these dimensions. Once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter to represent the nation before God and to renew and restore the intimate relationship God had with God’s people. Yet precisely because God’s presence was so totally Other, the rest of the year no one entered this sacred place and even on Yom Kippur it was only the high priest.
So the tearing of the curtain would signal to the early Christians reading Matthew’s account – many of whom were Jewish – that there is no more separation between God and humanity and that of the two dimensions of our relationship with God – divine intimacy and holy awe – intimacy wins out. God is now active in and accessible to the world in a new way, available to all…anytime…anywhere.
Prayer: Dear God, you want nothing more than for us to know and share your love. Thank you for showing us that clearly in the death of Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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