In the recorded stories of Christ's crucifixion the ripping from top to bottom of the 60 foot curtain veil in the heart of the temple is more than a bit of a gust blowing through. This massive curtain was only to be ventured behind by the most devout and on very few select occasions - access was seriously restricted, and denied to 99.9% of people, but it was all part of Israel getting it's house in order with God and the limited access was understood and respected.
When Jesus breathed his last all kinds of wierd stuff happened - including this curtain tearing in two. The way was now blown wide open as a result of Christ's sacrificial death. Access into the presence of God was no longer for a select few on a particular date and time in a designated holy place. Intimacy with God - the seeking and granting of his gifts of forgiveness, grace, mercy, hope, justice, peace - came out of the confines of the temple and into a wounded world for real.
The story of Easter - of Jesus the Nazarene - is not just for a religious few that have got it all together - it's the stuff of revolution as the 'temple courts' are filled with the most unlikely. Bob Dylan picked up on a similar vein:
"Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an worse An for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe An we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing."
Bob Dylan - Chimes of Freedom, 1964
Freedom had a price. Freedom is a gift.
Luke 23:44-46
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