DAY 77

IT IS ALWAYS DARKEST BEFORE DAWN

Deuteronomy 32, 33 & 34 and Mark 15:26 - 46

The electronic version of these chapters of Deuteronomy doesn’t let you see the prose of Moses’ final song and blessing. It is rather beautiful. Sadly he will die and not enter the Promise Land. The scene is dramatic. In chapter 27 God gave instructions to put half the people on one mountain and half on the other. With them in place the law was read and the blessings and curses proclaimed (that we have been reading) and with the stark contrast set as a on a stage, God says “choose between life or death” – the scene is amazing. With this done Moses ascends a mountain, proclaims his song and blesses them for the last time.

It may seem dark, but there is that old adage that it is always darkest before dawn. It is certainly dark in the Mark reading, “…and when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice…and the curtain of the Temple was rent in two…”

There is much in this reading, a number of prophecies were fulfilled, but I want to zero-in on one part: the Curtain of the Temple being torn in two. I know we have not gotten to the Temple yet, but we have spent hours reading about the Tent of Meeting. The Temple in some ways is a big (really big) Tent of Meeting. You may recall the Tent of Meeting had a place called the “Holy of Holies” where the Ark of the Covenant was kept (Exodus 26:33-34 – Day 31) and where Moses would meet with God. No one else could go into this area, except the priest under very specific stipulations (Leviticus 16:2-34 - Day 45). The stipulations were that the priest had to have the sin offerings completed – in other words no sin in the presence of God.  The point is that God, while He dwelt with His people in the desert, still could not be completely untied with them because of the sin. The problem of course was that before the priest left the Holy of Holies sin would have re-emerged in the people.

This separation was recreated in the Temple with a curtain some 60 feet long, 30 feet wide, of the thickness of the palm of the hand, and wrought in 72 squares. [Here is an online reference: http://cbumgardner.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/the-thickness-of-the-temple-veil/]

All this is to point out that the symbolic separation of God and humanity was rent in two, top to bottom. How can this be? Certainly after Jesus’ atoning death there would be more sin in the world? The answer is that Jesus is infinitely perfect; His death covers all sin. (cf. Hebrews 9:28 and 10:10).

I want to just pause and revisit the scene again. Its the ninth hour, the priest would be raising the knife to offer the Passover sacrifice (of course this was going to have to be done over and over). At the same hour the Son of God, the One who knew no sin, who bore no blemish, was offered for the sins of the world.  He was offered on a garbage heap, outside of town, between two thieves, in the darkness that had fallen over the whole earth. The curtain is torn in two and  He utters a loud cry. Mark doesn’t tell us what he said, but John does, “It is finished”. It is always darkest before dawn.

Consider taking a moment and offering a prayer of thanks: this is the essence of the Gospel, that Christ died for the sins of the world – mine and yours – so that we will never be separated from God.