The people of Israel knew that the sacrifice availed for them when the High Priest showed up still alive from the other side of the veil. Such appearing happened for the world on the day of the Resurrection whose full joys we will celebrate fully next week.
On this day, young people whom Jesus made His own in their Baptism, will make their profession that He is theirs and they are His and that it will be that way, by God's grace, till death. They will promise above all to come frequently to this Table, where the feast of the Veil ripped open is celebrated weekly. They will joy to gather about the Table today and He will enter them with the promise of both forgiveness and the life that never ends. We will rejoice too as we join them in acclaiming the Lamb whose death has made us His own, whose blood has forever torn down the barrier between us sinners and the Holy Trinity, even our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father and the Spirit all glory, laud and honor forever!
Amen.
On the Passion (Gospel):
"And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom." No other detail of the Passion history opens up its meaning for us more than that little tidbit about the curtain.
The curtain separates. Divides. On the one side there are the sinners. On the other there is God the All Holy. And that curtain was an absolute barrier that no Jew ever forgot. Only the High Priest one day a year might go behind the curtain - and then not empty handed. He always carried blood. On that day, the Day of Atonement, he would splash the blood of a witless animal upon the altar as an atonement or "covering" for the sins of the people.
You have to have atonement. Sinners cannot live or breathe in the presence of the Holy One. His presence destroys them. Wipes them out. He wants us to have life, and the only life that is real life is living in communion with Him. But we've got one huge problem: when we sinners enter His presence, His very holiness wipes US out. Ga-zam! We're gonners.
The only way that Israel could live with such fearful holiness was the constant stream of blood, and then the blood that was carried once a year behind the curtain to be spilled upon the holy place. The never ending streams of blood reminded Israel that the only reason they were not dead sinners already was because God in mercy provided substitutes.
Yet, even with the blood, the priest didn't go behind that curtain without some precautions. He went with a rope around his foot. In case he didn't come out alive, in case the holiness of God struck him down, they could still PULL him out without danger to themselves. They knew that forgiveness had been secured only when the priest showed himself alive again, coming out from behind the curtain after pouring out the blood.
But we're getting ahead of the story. All of this pointed towards the last, final, pure and holy offering. Our Lord Jesus through His suffering and death entered not into some earthly temple that was only a picture of the real thing, but He went into the very holy of holies in heaven where the Blessed Trinity dwells in inexpressible joy and unbearable light.
He carried into that holy of holies His sacrifice, His body and His blood offered into death. Not some dumb animal that never knew what it was to live in the unbroken yes to God's will, but His real human body and blood that won their way through every trial and test and in which He still prayed: "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done." With THAT blood He entered into heaven. And He no sooner passed the veil into heaven itself with His blood, then there is a ripping sound. The temple curtain that separated the most holy place comes tumbling down. Ripped from the top - understand, where only God could reach it. And it is gone.
Do you see what it means? The barrier between the All Holy God who alone is life and all mankind is now history. Torn in two by the blood of Jesus offered even unto death and carried by Him into the REAL holy of holies in heaven.
Thus He secured forgiveness for you, for me, for all the world. We show it architecturally with this open arch. Lo, the altar stands before you, and between it and you there is no barrier, not anymore. The blood of Jesus covers your sin - all of it. All that would separate you from the Holy Trinity has been forgiven in the suffering and death of the Son of God. And so He beckons you to come to Him without fear. He has only eternal life to give you.
And the only sin that goes unforgiven is the one you will not allow Him to forgive, the one you insist on keeping as your own and dealing with yourself, instead of letting lie under the blood of Jesus.
On the day you were baptized He gave you the birthright to eat and drink from His altar His body and blood, with the promise that thereby your sins are forgiven, His eternal life enters you, and you and He are made one. His life becomes your life and into you goes the body and blood that do not and can never die again.
