...rip down the curtains

When it was midday, dark overtook the land for hours.
At the next watch, Jesus cried out,
"My God, 
have even 
you
forsaken me?"
Then with a loud breath,
Jesus breathed his last.
And the curtain of the temple, 
the one dividing the Holy of Holies,
was ripped apart,
top to bottom.
---Mark 15:33-38 (para. laca)

The veil of the Temple was man's best effort to keep God and people separate from each other. It protected the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant, the supposed residing place of God's spirit, from contact with any of God's people, save for one priest, one day per year. God was, almost literally, kept in a box, behind a curtain, too holy and remote to be involved in the lives of God's people.

On God's Friday, with Jesus' submission to the powers that called for his death, that veil was torn in two from top to bottom, not  as if by human hands. Jesus, then, was God's best hope for tearing down forever the barrier between God's realm and ours, between God's existence and ours, between God's heart and ours. Jesus' 3:00 Friday was God once and for all refusing to be contained by human hands, or by boundaries human minds create.

It was time to rip down the curtains.