God is holy meaning He is perfect in every way and cannot stand to be in the presence of something defiled or impure.
And He originally created mankind to be holy as well. In the beginning, God and man were in perfect communion.
When Adam and Eve explicitly disobeyed God’s command in the garden, they rebelled against His design for the world and all of mankind’s relationship with God was broken. This is why we feel the tension between what is and what should be.
Anything that goes against God’s design is called sin and sin puts a veil fell between God and humanity.
But God didn’t want to be separated from the one creature made in His very image and provided a way for relationship to be restored.
Before Jesus came to earth, people related to God through a sacrificial system and mediator priest. In their place of worship was a physical veil that separated the presence of God from men. The veil — 72 twisted braids of 24 threads each, 60ft high and 4inches thick! The high priest could only pass through the veil once a year on the Day of Atonement to offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people of Israel. And when he did enter, he had a rope tied around his leg in case he died in there they could pull him out without defiling the Holy of Holies.
This ritual went on for hundreds of years until Jesus changed everything. Being fully God and fully human, Jesus came to live in the brokenness of this world. He was tempted in every way we are, He experienced all the emotions we feel. That’s so comforting to me to know that Jesus knows what it is like to live in the brokenness.
Yet, unlike me and you, never once, did Jesus go against God’s design. Never once did He sin.
But despite His perfect life, the religious leaders of the day, put Him to death in a brutal crucifixion. When Jesus was on the cross He took all of the brokenness of this world onto Himself — all of your sin, all of my sin, all of the sin that’s been committed and will be committed. He offered himself as the perfect sacrifice in our place. And when he breathed His last breath on the cross, the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom. God and humanity no longer need to be separated.
Three days later, Jesus came back to life. He defeated death and brokenness. Forty days after that He ascended into Heaven and ten days after His ascension, He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in His people.
When we our surrender our hearts to God’s design and believe in Jesus’ death and resurrection, the presence of God comes to dwell IN US! The veil is removed and our bodies become temples of the Holy Spirit. We don’t need a person to be our mediator priest because our relationship with God has been restored through Jesus, the high priest!
I just think that is really cool. Every other religion is about what man has to do to get to God but Christianity is about what God did to come to us!
So I say all of this to extend an invitation. God wants to remove the veil between you and Him. Jesus is inviting you to trust Him and find abundant life amidst the brokenness on earth and eternal life after death. Will you accept His offer to be His priest and ambassador? Will you let Him empower you to follow His commands and be made holy as He is?
Genesis 3, John 14:6, John 10:9-10, Hebrews 8:1-2, Hebrews 10:19-22, 1 Peter 1:15-16, 1 Peter 2:9-10
Rebekah Diaddigo 