Lesson Two • The Veil
Devotion #1: Mission: Him-Possible
Karsen Theede
As humans, we have a fascination with the impossible. It is present in the movies we watch as our favorite characters do death-defying stunts that should not be possible. It is present in sports. We love the idea of an underdog or a Cinderella story where a team does the impossible, overcomes the odds, and wins the game. Even outside of media, we see the fascination. Architects constantly push the bounds of what can be designed and built. Car manufacturers year after year do what was once impossible in years past and make cars lighter, faster, and more economic. The more and more you think about it, the more you realize we love it when humans push the boundaries of what is possible. However, if we look at Scripture, we humans do not always love it when God blows what is possible out of the water.
Right now we are studying miracles at the cross as an Easter series. We are taking a look at five different miracles that took place while Jesus was on the cross of Calvary. The first week’s miracle was the darkness that fell over the land. The second miracle, and the one we are looking at today, is found in Matthew 27:51, “And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.”
This second miracle is the miracle of the veil (curtain). What makes this curtain so important? Two things are its size and what it was covering. Unlike the curtains we have in our houses, this one was a towering 30 feet high and 30 feet wide. To put that into perspective, that is about three stories high and it is said that it took 300 priests to hang the curtain. So, what calls for such a large curtain? The curtain that was split was the curtain that was covering the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies was where the Ark of the Covenant was kept and where the presence of God was. If someone were to enter, they had to be spiritually clean or they would die. The curtain was there to make sure that no one who was not spiritually clean entered the presence of God.
What was the miracle of the curtain? At the time Jesus took His last breath and yielded up His spirit, the three-story curtain was torn in half. In the first place, this was astounding that the curtain was even torn, but it was torn in half from top to bottom. No human could have done this. It was impossible, but not for God. After this physically impossible feat had happened, something else impossible happened: the Holy of Hollies opened, yet no one died. Now, anyone may enter God’s presence by way of Jesus’ blood. This impossible barrier separating us and God had been torn down by God and God alone. So remember, what is impossible for man is never out of the possibility of God.