“What do you mean you’re quitting? Your whole life has revolved around this place!”
Think about what salvation does to someone’s life. Maybe even yours. To put it simply: it changes things. Salvation in Christ has always done this. It makes what used to be essential less than an accessory.
“I don’t need this place anymore.”
“Why not? What could cause something to go from being a necessity in your life one day to just an option the next?”
Think back to the days leading up to Christ’s crucifixion. Being God, Jesus mapped out His steps very carefully. Some might even say He did so with a calculated measurement. None of His decisions were ever flippant but it almost felt like those last days of His life held even more purpose. And such a thought leads us to this moment in Jerusalem:
Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.'”
[Matthew 21:12-13]
The Temple that Jesus cleanses here was the center of the Jewish religion. Following the Tabernacle of the Exodus, the Temple was where the Hebrew people worshipped God. It was a special place indeed—originally envisioned by King David and built by King Solomon. Within its walls it housed the Table of Shewbread, the Ark of the Covenant, and the curtain that kept everyone out of the Holy of Holies besides the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. Because in that Temple’s sacred room, it welcomed the very presence of Almighty God.
This same curtain would be mentioned in the Holy Scrip just a few days after that incident in Matthew 21. To a Jewish audience, what happened on this day was no doubt disheartening and to many unbelievable:
And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split,
[Matthew 27:50-51]
The very curtain dividing the presence of God from the presence of man was torn.
But the Jews needed that curtain. It was essential in their minds.
Find a replacement.
Find a seamstress.
And hurry!
This curtain was necessary because the Holy of Holies housing the presence of God was necessary. The Temple had always held great purpose and, therefore, no one could mistake its ongoing importance even if Jesus did die, right?
Well, let’s rewind to that question asked towards the beginning: “What could cause something to go from being a necessity in your life one day to just an option the next?”
What does that question even mean?
Who’s being asked it?
And what does it matter?
Let’s answer those and hopefully all of this will come together.
That initial question might have been posed to a Levite or priest who understood that the Temple which for so long had served as a necessity for his people was suddenly no longer needed. In fact, it would be just a few decades after Christ’s death that it would be destroyed completely never to be rebuilt (at least not yet).[1]
Big deal? Not really. Besides its historical and architectural value, it no longer held any significance as far as God was concerned. And maybe a servant of the Temple during that time came to this realization and put in his resignation.
Because the place was no longer needed; Christ had changed things.
You see, the reason that veil was rent was because the presence of God would no longer be contained behind its shadow. His presence went from being with His chosen people in that room to within His adoring bride.
Fast-forward to today—Christ is still saving, still making a difference, and still changing things.
Before we accepted Him, there were places we would go that no one would dream we would ever give up. For my grandfather, it was on the water fishing every Sunday morning as I recall while my grandmother went to church. For others it may be a corner bar, a shadowy place, or maybe not a place at all but a thing. A thing that your whole life revolved around if your family and friends were asked. The thing that brought you purpose, identity, and fulfillment—or so you sought.
But then Christ came, and things changed. My grandfather sold his fishing boat and was in church every Sunday until his passing. And how can that be? What could cause something to go from the greatest necessity of his life to an unimportant option? The same thing that caused that Jewish priest to quit his post at the Temple—the Man on the cross makes the places we used to go no longer needed.
But like the other priests who would continue going through the motions at the Temple those 40 years after Christ’s death, the Enemy wants us to believe nothing has changed in our lives either. Yet, when you go back to that place you thought once needed it’s not the same, is it?
Good. That’s how it’s supposed to be.
For the veil of that place was torn in your heart also the day Christ came in to stay.
[1] https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/faq/destruction-second-temple-70-ce#:~:text=In%2070%20CE%20the%20Romans,a%20sacred%20site%20for%20Jews.
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