6th Midweek Lenten Service
Hebrews 10:19-25
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! In the name of Jesus, dear friends in Christ, what makes you nervous? When you’re nervous about something you get a pit in your stomach, your hands get clammy, maybe you begin to shake, you can almost hear your heart beating in your chest, what is it that makes you nervous? Maybe it’s speaking in front of group of people, maybe it’s having a difficult conversation with someone you care about, maybe it’s doing something you don’t want to do, maybe it’s hearing a strange noise in the house at night. Being nervous can stem from a fear of being embarrassed or losing face or it can come from a fear of physical harm. Many of you know a couple of weeks ago I spun out while driving on the icy freeway and ended up in the ditch. If that’s happened to you, you know the feeling, I was very nervous driving on the icy roads for quite some time after that. What is it that makes you nervous?
I’m guessing that the high priest was pretty nervous when it came to serving in the tabernacle or the temple on the great day of Atonement. Why so? Because this is what God told Moses when He established the Great Day of Atonement, he said, “Tell your brother Aaron that he is not to come whenever he chooses into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die.” You see, if he or anyone dared to come into the Most Holy Place on their own whim, God said they would die. God was teaching something through that. It was the same teaching God gave to Adam and Eve after they sinned. Remember what happened? They had to leave the Garden of Eden, the place where they met with God, and God placed cherubim, angels, with flaming swords at the entrance so they could not go back there. Interestingly, God had cherubim sculpted on top of the ark of the covenant which symbolized God’s presence with the Israelites and there were cherubim also woven into the curtain that separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place. In all of these ways God was teaching the people: sin separates you from God. Sin makes us unworthy to enter God’s presence.
So, can you imagine the High Priest entering the Most Holy Place on the Great Day of Atonement? What if he messed up? What if he went in without a pure heart? What if he didn’t do everything the right way? Add to all of that- apparently they would tie a rope around the priest as they ministered in the Most Holy Place and the end of the rope extended outside the tabernacle. You might think, that’s odd. But there was a purpose. If the High Priest died while in there, they had a way to get his dead body out! Can you imagine? Do you think his heart was racing, his hands were clammy and he had a pit in his stomach?
Maybe we can imagine. I mean, the only one who knows more about you than you is God. He’s been there and he’s seen ever dark shameful sin you and I have ever committed. We may be able to hide them from everyone else in the world, but not God, He sees, He knows. We may be able to conceal shameful thoughts in our heads about other people, but we can’t conceal them from God. He knows. We may be able to even almost completely hide from our memory things that we’ve done, but God sees everything.
And to go into His presence? One day we’ll have to stand before this holy and perfect and righteous and just God? That’s terrifying. He could justly and rightly strike us down and be done with us forever. Everything else in all of life that might cause you to be nervous ought to pale in comparison to having to stand as a sinner before the holy and just God of all.
That’s what that curtain symbolized. But what happened to that curtain? What are we told here? “Since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us form a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” Do you see it? When Jesus cried out on the cross, when Jesus said, “It is finished,” that temple curtain, some 60 feet high and 15 feet wide and as thick as a man’s hand, was torn in two. God reached down and tore the dividing wall in two. Why so? Because as Jesus died on the cross, those sins that had separated us from God, those sins that fill us with shame and guilt, those sins that wreak havoc in our lives, those sins- all of them – were placed on Jesus, He suffered the separation from God, He suffered the abandonment from God that our sins deserved.
All for what purpose? So that we can draw near, so that we can have confidence going into God’s presence, so that we can have full assurance, so that we can be cleansed and forgiven. In the OT only priests were allowed in the Most Holy Place, but now, Jesus has made you a priest, you get to go in. And boldly.
Think of the thief on the cross, he deserved nothing but judgment and wrath, but by the work of the Holy Spirit he saw in Jesus His Savior and with the boldness of faith he said, “Remember, me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
I don’t know what makes you nervous today or what is troubling your heart. But know this, the temple curtain has been torn in two, there is no separation, Jesus has sprinkled with his blood and cleansed you. God is your dear Father. You can go to him- instead of worrying, you can go into the Most Holy Place and pray to the Father who hears you and answers you.
And one day The Day will arrive when Jesus returns and on that day you have no reason to be nervous because you know that because of Jesus He will bring you safely into the Most Holy Place, in his presence forever in heaven. Amen.