Take the Curtains Down

“After hanging the curtain from the clasps, bring the Chest of The Testimony in behind the curtain. The curtain will separate the Holy Place from the Holy-of-Holies.” Exodus 26:33 (The Message)

Our first house was a tiny two bedroom shack in Sulphur, Oklahoma. But, as with all first-time homes, it was our palace. As small as it was, we never felt cramped. There were just the two of us; no babies so far. Plus, we had accumulated very little furniture to fill up the miniature floor plan.

Since we had rented apartments until this time, we have curtains at all. We both worked, but money was extremely tight, as it is for most couples in the first few years of marriage. An old printed sheet sufficed for our bedroom curtain. We barely used the second bedroom, so it went without window treatment.

It was important, though, for us to have curtains in our main bedroom, for obvious reasons. Primarily, we don’t to feel as if we are living in glass houses, so we cover our windows. We also want to prevent things from coming in through the window, like hot sunlight during a scorching summer.

God told Moses to be sure that there was a curtain dividing the “Holy Place” from the “Holy of Holies” in the Tabernacle. Primarily the place where God would meet with His people, the Holy of Holies signified the place where He actually dwelt. No one could enter, except for the High Priest, once a year, on the Day of Atonement.

If I had lived during Moses’ time, God would have seemed mysterious and separate from me. Although the Tabernacle made clear that God wanted to live among us as a group, there was still this huge and heavy curtain that always kept me from feeling I could personally know Him.

Like the curtains in my first home, people might assume some things that went on in our house, but they could never be quite sure. Neighbors would suppose we ate supper, perhaps about the same time they did. They might suppose we went to bed around 11 pm because that is when the house went dark. And they would be right to think a married couple lived there, seeing us go in and out of the house together. But, only Patti and I had keys to the house. Unless we invited others inside, we were the only ones who had any real knowledge about the furnishing, the décor, and the habits of our abode there.

So, with God hidden behind a curtain, it was difficult to think in terms of knowing Him. The curtain would always remind me that we were separated; the offerings, incense, lamps and holy bread that filled the Holy Place and outer court would have only added to the sense that God was entirely “Other”. He was not like me. He was what the Bible calls “Holy”.

 The curtain never allowed me to make the mistake of thinking I could conjure up any accurate or complete notion of His being. He was so far beyond my ability to fathom that, to know Him at all, it had to be based on what He decided to reveal about Himself. He would have to, in a sense, “draw back the curtain”. And so He did.

Jesus came, telling the same group of people that if they met Him, they had met the Father. He wanted them to know that He was the One who dwelt behind the curtain; that He was the occupant of the Holy of Holies. This would be a hard lesson to take in. God was unapproachable light, not a 30-something rabbi with a questionable background.

As much as the Tabernacle taught that God is “Other”, Christ showed that God is also “Us”. The very moment that Jesus gave His final breath on Calvary a rip began, top to bottom, in that curtain that once divided God and man. No longer must a High Priest enter only once a year; Jesus had done the final cleansing once and for all. The way to God was open, the curtain was torn down.

It is important to know that God is entirely “Other”. We want to make Him like us, to capture Him with a quick click on a camera phone so we can show Him off to all those “unbelievers”. But He will not allow us such juvenile assumptions. He will not be confined by our mental definitions.

He still must reveal Himself to us if we are to know Him at all. And that is exactly what He did in Jesus Christ His Son. We can know what God is like by “knowing” Jesus. We can look at His actions, let His teachings permeate our being and we will begin to know the Father in truth. Though God is entirely “unknowable”, He has chosen to be known through Jesus Christ.

We don’t need to peek behind the curtain, it has been torn down completely. Why wait to know Him. Call on Jesus, learn of Him in the gospels, and enjoy the God who has taken the curtains down.