No appointment needed.
Of course, today, this scenario is ludicrous, but meeting the president was once a reality. From 1801 to 1932 the White House opened its doors to the public every January 1st. It was known as the New Year’s Reception at the White House. Everyone from the common citizen to the highest-ranking diplomat was welcomed. Thousands of people waited in lines that snaked around the block before President Hoover canceled the tradition in 1932.
Today, appointments are crucial. Doctors, barbers, and especially the DMV all require appointments. I don’t leave the dentist without booking the next appointment. I recently bought new tires at Costco. After paying, I had to make an appointment five days later for installation. Appointments are necessary for order, efficiency, time-management, and peace of mind. Without them, chaos would reign.
My favorite appointment involved a famous college football coach. It was the early 90s and I was traveling with the Long Beach State women’s basketball team to the University of Colorado. The Colorado football coach at the time was Bill McCartney. He was massively successful and very well-known for his Christian faith. Weeks before the trip I phoned his office and set up a meeting with him. I’m not sure why I did this. And other than being super nervous, I don’t recall anything from the appointment, other than receiving his blessing of prayer before I left.
All of this brings us to Good Friday, and three very important words in the Bible:
Torn in two.
Once upon a time, in ancient Israel, appointments were needed to seek atonement for sins. And it wasn’t just the average farmer or merchant who booked the appointment, it was the high priest, who was like the head pastor for the nation. After the Israelites high-tailed it out of Egypt and began a 40-year lap around the desert, God set up a system of sacrifices, holidays, and rituals.
God instructed the Israelites to set up a mobile temple called the tabernacle. It featured two important rooms, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. Separating these two rooms was a curtain. Priests were allowed to regularly minister in the Holy Place but only the high priest could go in the Most Holy Place once a year into the immediate presence of God. Behind the curtain the Most Holy Place, was considered the earthly dwelling place of God’s presence. God was separate from where men dwelt. The curtain was a barrier between God and man. It symbolized the separation between a holy God and sinful man because sin renders man unfit for the presence of God.
The day in which the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place was called the Day of Atonement (known now as Yom Kippur). At this time, he would offer sacrifices for the sins of the people. It was day of repentance, purification, and reconciliation with God. A goat was sacrificed, and its blood was sprinkled on the altar for the sins of all the people. However, the fact that sin offerings were given annually showed that sin could not be truly atoned for by mere animal sacrifices.
Fast forward some 300 years and Israel is now an established nation. King Solomon built a temple; a gigantic, permanent replacement for the tabernacle. In his temple, the curtain was enormous, roughly the size of a vertical tennis court. It was 60 feet long, 30 feet wide, and four inches thick. It took 300 priests to manipulate it on cleaning day.
Move ahead another 1,000 or so years to Good Friday and Jesus hanging on a cross. At the moment of his death, after uttering the words, “It is finished,” and after giving up his spirit, the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom.
It wasn’t ripped from bottom to top. Nobody snipped the center of the curtain at the bottom and then pulled it apart with an accomplice. It took the mighty hand of God himself to rip it. Something that wasn’t possible by human strength was done by God alone.
Clearly the spiritual implications of this are staggering. God ended the need for temple sacrifices. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice, and his death earned a forgiveness that is assured and permanent. No longer do our sins separate us from God. Furthermore, because of this, there’s a new, unparalleled access for all people to the Father. Jesus himself is the new high priest. Jesus is the permanently accessible new temple in whom all are reconciled to God.
Even though the curtain was vertical, our separation was also horizontal. The curtain’s removal is not just about him symbolically allowing us into the Most Holy Place. It is equally important about God lowering himself positionally to be with us and entering our hearts and our world as Immanuel, … God with us. It’s about him elevating us as his children to be on level footing with Jesus himself. Our status has changed from structured rituals to intimate relationships.
Though we still sin, we are no longer unfit. And because our sins no longer separate us, we don’t enter his presence as a common citizen having to wait in line to meet the president, or a nervous sports information director waiting to see a famous football coach. We are now God’s holy, adopted, righteous children, able to climb into his lap and receive all the tenderness his love and grace offer.
We can go to God as the president’s son barging into the oval office or a coach’s daughter interrupting a pre-game meeting at the Rose Bowl.
Without an appointment.
Happy Easter!
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