Thought for the Day 31/03/21 - Is Easter the time to change the curtains?

Listen to the AUDIO here. (Click the link).

My mother always used to change the curtains at Easter.

The curtains were there in winter to keep out the cold from the single-glazed windows of my coal-fired valleys home.

It was a spring-cleaning thing, a freshening up thing after the long cold, dust generating heating season to take down and wash the winter curtains and replace them with lighter, brighter curtains for the summer. It cheered everyone up.

There was a seasonal preference in soft furnishings in our house ... and the change-over happened at Easter, at the decree of my traditionally authoritative Welsh Mam: ' I think we'll change the curtains', she'd. Everyone was galvanised into action and a well-practiced family enterprise sprang to life.

It wasn't actually the dawn of Pasradise, but it certainly perked everyone's spirits up!

And that first Easter, at the Jerusalem Temple, soft furnishing changes were also instituted ... by a far higher hand even than my Welsh Mam's!

'Paradise'

What if I used the word 'Paradise'. 

Did that bring up a mental image for you then?

Was it palm trees and sandy beaches?

Was it hiking in the high hills?

What do YOU think of as Paradise, and how to you think you might get access to it?

Of course, this all assumes you would want 'Paradise'. Some seem to want to stay exactly were they are ... but it's an dea that's stuck around for a LONG time, going back to the most ancient civilisations. 

Life on earth seems marred by the broken-ness of Creation, and as Milton long for Paradise Regained, so have most people from primeval times.

And our Verse for the Day sounds as if it's about soft furnishings, but it's actually about opening up Paradise.

So what's all this stuff about a veil?

Though the tearing of the veil is described in all three Synoptic Gospels in Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38 there in our verse & Luke 23:45 ... none of them stops to explain it!

Maybe the point was clear to the first century reader, but it's not so clear to us, so what are we going to make of it?

This veil, described first and most fully in descriptions of the tabernacle, was made of blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and finely twisted linen, with cherubim worked into it by a skilled craftsman (Exodus 26:31 & 36:35) 

It was hung to screen off the holy of holies (Exodus 26:33) and this veil served to separate the holy place from the holy of holies (Exodus 26:33) and shielded the hottest, holy spot of God's presence on earth, the place where once a year the atonement for the people's sins was made. (Exodus 26:34). 

The rabbis describe this veil as fairly forbidding ... saying that it was four inches thick!

Shutting off the hot-spot of God's presence on earth

Entry behind it was permitted only for a ritually pure priest, Aaron or a descendent, who would enter behind the curtain on the Day of Atonement. 

When Solomon had the Temple constructed , it says,

"He made the curtain of blue, purple and crimson yarn and fine linen, with cherubim worked into it.

                                                                                     2 Chronicles 3:14

Those are royal colours and there were Cherubim worked into it. These Cherubim are REALLY not Valentines Day 'cherubs'!

And we met them before in the Bible in connection with 'Paradise'.

You read about it right after the Fall, when mankind's rebellion against God first began.

"the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. 

He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever.’ 

So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 

After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden 

cherubim and 

a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life."

                                                                                                 Genesis 3:22-24

Those Cherubim on that veil in the Temple were there to guard the way to the red-hot hot-spot of the presence of the One Who becomes a dangerously holy God ... dangerous to sinful people whose sins aren't covered.

What happens in the Verse for the Day is that this guard set on the presence of God is removed, as the torn veil opens it out  ... and the Holiest hot-spot presence of God, decorated with art that evoked the Garden of Eden, was opened ... access to Paradise was being restored on the Cross.

Eden opened ... access to Paradise restored

The passive-voice construction “the curtain of the temple was torn” (Matthew 27:51) implies that God himself tore the veil. 

This is confirmed by the description of the damage: “from top to bottom.” 

Notice also the extent of the destruction ... it was totally torn: Scripture says “torn in two.”

The angelic guardians are disarmed, from top to bottom, and re-entry into the Paradise presence of God is again lay open again ... for the first time since the Fall.

The Point

As He atoned for sin ... paid its' price and therefore took away its penalty for all who would turn from sin to  trust and follow Him ... Jesus opened access to freely relating again to God, which is the feature that made Eden the original Paradise.

The Takeaway

In Eden humanity walked with God free from its labours in the cool of the day.

As Jesus dies on the Cross He pays the price of sin's separation from that soul-restoring presence of God.

And that is the central benefit for Christ's followers of His sacrifice.

Christian life is life lived consciously and in our experience in that restored presence of the Holy One.

Is that a reality we cherish and  practice, and if so, how do we show it?