The Daily Guide. grow. pray. study. from The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States "God’s holiness veiled" for Thursday, 8 September 2016Exodus 26: (v) 31 “You are to make a curtain of blue, purple and scarlet yarn and finely woven linen. Make it with k’ruvim worked in, that have been crafted by a skilled artisan. 32 Hang it with gold hooks on four acacia-wood posts overlaid with gold and standing in four silver sockets. 33 Hang the curtain below the fasteners. Then bring the ark for the testimony inside the curtain; the curtain will be the divider for you between the Holy Place and the Especially Holy Place. 34 You are to put the ark-cover on the ark for the testimony in the Especially Holy Place.
35 “You are to put the table outside the curtain and the menorah opposite the table on the side of the tabernacle toward the south; put the table on the north side.
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Reflection Questions:
It may be hard to visualize the desert sanctuary just from the Biblical text. Click here to view a web page with photos of a full-size model of the sanctuary built in the desert in Israel. The Tabernacle vividly taught the Israelites to respect God’s holiness. Ordinary Israelites could only
enter the outer courtyard; only priests could go into the Tabernacle’s first room, known as “the holy place.” Beyond that, an elaborate veil separated “the holy from the holiest space.” Only the high priest could go behind that veil, and only once a year on the Day of Atonement. The chest or “Ark of the Covenant,” the central symbol of God’s presence, rested behind the veil.
• We live in a culture that largely rejects the idea of unapproachable authority and power. To us, the idea of the veil and the “holiest space” may seem like a barrier to hide God’s love. But the Israelites had just seen Egypt’s “gods” defeated by the plagues. They seemed, at times, to think of the LORD as just one more fallible, disposable god like Egypt’s (cf. Exodus 32:1-5). In what ways can the Tabernacle give us, as it did the Israelites, a useful reminder that we serve the great I AM, creator and sustainer of all that is?
• But by Jesus’ day, the idea that most people could not come to God directly had become spiritually damaging. When Jesus died, Mark 15:38 said that “the curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom,” a clear sign that in Jesus God had indeed “made his home” with all of us (cf. John 1:14). Hebrews 10:19-20 boldly affirmed, “We can enter the holy of holies by means of Jesus’ blood.” How does it matter to your spiritual walk that you do not need
professional go-betweens, but are free to go to God directly?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, as the great I AM, you came to tell us that you love us. Help me to rejoice and live in your loving presence, without losing a profound sense of your awesome power as my Creator as well as my Savior. Amen.
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Insights from Janelle Gregory
It may be hard to visualize the desert sanctuary just from the Biblical text. Click here to view a web page with photos of a full-size model of the sanctuary built in the desert in Israel. The Tabernacle vividly taught the Israelites to respect God’s holiness. Ordinary Israelites could only
enter the outer courtyard; only priests could go into the Tabernacle’s first room, known as “the holy place.” Beyond that, an elaborate veil separated “the holy from the holiest space.” Only the high priest could go behind that veil, and only once a year on the Day of Atonement. The chest or “Ark of the Covenant,” the central symbol of God’s presence, rested behind the veil.
• We live in a culture that largely rejects the idea of unapproachable authority and power. To us, the idea of the veil and the “holiest space” may seem like a barrier to hide God’s love. But the Israelites had just seen Egypt’s “gods” defeated by the plagues. They seemed, at times, to think of the LORD as just one more fallible, disposable god like Egypt’s (cf. Exodus 32:1-5). In what ways can the Tabernacle give us, as it did the Israelites, a useful reminder that we serve the great I AM, creator and sustainer of all that is?
• But by Jesus’ day, the idea that most people could not come to God directly had become spiritually damaging. When Jesus died, Mark 15:38 said that “the curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom,” a clear sign that in Jesus God had indeed “made his home” with all of us (cf. John 1:14). Hebrews 10:19-20 boldly affirmed, “We can enter the holy of holies by means of Jesus’ blood.” How does it matter to your spiritual walk that you do not need
professional go-betweens, but are free to go to God directly?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, as the great I AM, you came to tell us that you love us. Help me to rejoice and live in your loving presence, without losing a profound sense of your awesome power as my Creator as well as my Savior. Amen.
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Insights from Janelle Gregory
Janelle Gregory serves on the Resurrection staff as a Human Resources Specialist.As kids, didn’t it seem like everything was off limits? “Don’t touch the oven! You’ll get burned.” “Don’t touch the knife! You’ll get cut.” “Don’t touch that cleaner! It’s poisonous.” The world seemed to be one large dangerous snare, filled with perilous predicaments. We dreamed of making it to the age of six, but knew that was a far-fetched reach.
But as we grew up, we realized that not all that our parents warned us about was unsafe. It’s just that we were too young to understand how to touch without getting hurt. Our parents gave us limits until we were mature enough to learn how to handle them.
In much the same way, the Jewish faith was very young during the time of Moses. They didn’t have the maturity to understand how to interact with God. He wasn’t a statue or a person they could see. They had no scripture, they had not known Jesus, there were no traditions of the Church, and there was very little organization to their religious community. Until the faith matured, God was behind the veil and “off limits.”
But now, we do have a mature faith. Jesus’ arrival marked the beginning of a new era in this religion: one in which we all have direct access to God. And like the many things we were told not to touch as kids, we now have access to a lot of things that are genuinely useful, like scripture, church history and tradition, and even other mature believers. God is no longer behind a veil, intangible to us–but without making use of these new tools, we can put our own veil up between ourselves and Him. Make sure to take advantage of the teachings and knowledge our faith ancestors didn’t have. Without them, God can seem as distant as that holy place behind the veil was for the early Jews.
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It may be hard to visualize the desert sanctuary just from the Biblical text. Click here to view a web page with photos of a full-size model of the sanctuary built in the desert in Israel.-------
It may be hard to visualize the desert sanctuary just from the Biblical text. Click here to view a web page with photos of a full-size model of the sanctuary built in the desert in Israel.-------
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