At The Cross: The Torn Flesh Hebrews 10:19-20, Matthew 27:50-51 (Wednesday Lenten Reflection)

Have you ever been in one of those places that had floor to ceiling glass windows that were so clean that you couldn’t tell that they were there.  I mean, they are not even noticeable…you’re walking along, carrying on with your business, thinking you are leaving the building, then boom…you’ve face-planted into the window.  It is like there is an invisible barrier blocking your way.  Those invisible barriers are everywhere.

We encounter them everywhere…and I am not talking about glass walls.

We encounter those walls with regard to age.  When we are young, we are faced with the walls of sixteen, eighteen, and twenty one—each of those milestones marked by new opportunity that before, we could not experience.  When we grow older, those walls tend to come up in a different way.  There are walls in the workplace—being passed over for a job or a promotion because those hiring see us as too old…or our bodies won’t do all the things that our mind wants them to do because they are just getting worn out.

Maybe we’ve encountered the barrier of social status.  Maybe we’ve found ourselves in one of those situations where we find out it is not what we know, but who we know.  We fail to have the right connections, belong to the right clubs, or serve on the right counsels in town.  We don’t have the right family background…we come from the other side of the tracks.

For some the barrier is skin color.  The color of our skin, still in 2017, is a factor in how we are treated, how we are viewed, what is expected of us, or what we are viewed as capable of doing.

It is becoming more and more evident that language is a barrier.  For many of us, it is because we are mono-lingual despite the fact that we live in a nation composed of so many different cultures.  We find ourselves unable to communicate with someone whose native language is not English, and we are unable to understand what they are trying to communicate.  Yet that is not the only barrier.  Just yesterday I found myself at school sitting with a child who is hearing impaired.  He tried to the best of his ability to communicate with me using sign language…but the barrier was there, because the skills I had 30 years ago in sign language are gone.

For others physical disability reveals barriers.  Despite all the “accessibility” requirements and efforts, there are still places that folks with mobility issues can’t navigate from being able to walk down the beach to being able to gain access to our chancel, someone bound to a wheelchair faces a barrier.  Those with breathing issues find barriers in extreme temperatures or windy weather.

The sins of our past can provide barriers…from poor stewardship of the finances God has blessed us with leaving us with a bad credit rating to the conviction of drug use and drug dealing meaning that folks are unwilling to employ us.

The list could go on and on with barriers we encounter in this world because of who we are, because of what we have done…because of who others are, because of what others have done…

It shouldn’t surprise us, then, to know this has been an issue, even among God’s people, since the nation of Israel wandered through the wilderness.  The fact that humanity was plagued by sin prevented from being able to enter into God’s presence—for when humanity’s sinfulness would encounter God’s holiness, the result was the destruction of all that was not holy…the sin that consumed us, would leave us dead in the face of God’s radiant purity.

So terrifying was the risk of God’s people being destroyed in His Holy Presence because of their sinful nature that when, first the Tabernacle, and later the Temple was built, a space was designed called the “Holy of Holies.”  This was the place where God’s presence resided.  This is where the “Ark of the Covenant” was kept.  This is where the offerings to the Lord were made.  Only the priest designated for service who had undergone atonement and purification rituals could enter. The priest would pass behind the curtain and enter into the presence of God, representing the people…the people were never allowed to encounter the presence of God.

Until that day…until that day when flesh had been torn with the whips of scourging…that day when flesh had been torn by the thorns of a crown…that day when the flesh had been torn by splinters from the weight of the cross…that day when flesh had been torn by the shafts of spikes…that day when flesh was torn by a spear thrust into the side…that Day when Christ’s flesh was torn and He took a deep breath…and as He died the very foundation of the earth rattled, shaking the Temple and tearing the curtain, the barrier, that separated God’s presence from the world.

In the tearing of Christ’s flesh, the barrier between us and God was destroyed.  In his torn flesh, we find ourselves seen as holy by God…not by our own doing, but by the work of Jesus…his flesh torn for our sake.  In the tearing of Christ’s flesh, God has declared that He is not a barrier raiser or a wall builder, but one who takes down everything that separates us from Him and from one another.  For in the torn flesh of Christ not only are we welcomed into the very presence of God, but we are welcomed into the very presence of each other.  All those things that the world uses to separate us, all those things that are erected as barriers between one another, between us and others, are destroyed…

For in the torn flesh of Christ, we find God saying, “Come to Me…come into My Presence…Come confidently…Come boldly…Come…You are welcome…You are wanted….I desire to have you in My Presence…I desire to be present with you.”  

In the torn flesh of Jesus, we hear God saying, “You are no longer Jew or Greek, you are no longer slave or free, you are no longer male or female, you are no longer American or Asian, you are no longer black or white, you are no longer English-speaking or Hispanic-speaking, you are no longer rich or poor, you are no longer able-bodied or disabled, you are no longer educated or uneducated, you are no longer good citizen or ex-con…You are Mine…you are My sons…you are My daughters…you are My children…you are brother and sisters…you are family…My family…My Son’s flesh was torn that you might come to Me…that I might welcome you all into My presence…that the barriers of this world and the eternal realm might come crashing down…receive this gift…share this gift…tear down those things that world continues to erect to separate you from each other…for You are now My people…My chosen race…in whom and with whom I dwell.”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

1)      What barriers have you encountered in life?

a.      What have they prevented you from doing?

2)      What does it mean to you to be find yourself directly in the presence of God?

3)      What does it mean that the barriers that separate us from God coming down also means that the barriers that separate us from one another come crashing down?

4)      How are you going about the work of tearing down the barriers that separate people from one another?