It is Finished: The Door is Torn

A Detail We Rush Past

Over the next few minutes, I want to ask you to slow down.

Good Friday is a day when we can feel the weight of the story pressing us forward.

We move through the betrayal, the trial, the walk to Golgotha, the nails, the hours of darkness, the cry from the cross - and then we reach the death of Jesus, and we stop. We grieve. And rightly so.

Then, I suspect, many of us want to move on.

We want to get on with the walk of witness, and then move on from the pain and grief of Good Friday and get back to our normal lives.

We seek to fill the silence.

We reach for our phones the moment we’re alone.

We put the television on, not to watch something in particular, but because we can’t bear the quiet.

We seek out entertainment.

We socialise so that we can forget about it all.

We might even get busy, so that we can feel productive rather than wasting time on grieving.

We even spiritualise it.

How many of us have said, It’s Friday, But Sunday’s Coming, not as a sign of hope, but as a way of hurrying past the darkness and grief of Good Friday, on to the much brighter celebration of Easter Sunday?

It’s in this rush for normality, in this avoidance of what happened on Good Friday, that we can miss important details.

So let’s agree to slow down this morning and notice a moment, buried in a single sentence in the Gospel accounts - something that most of us have registered and then moved past without fully stopping.

Because I don't think we've ever quite grasped just how enormous it is.

Here’s Matthew’s account of The Death of Jesus:

Matthew 27:45-56

Matthew 27:45–56 NLT

At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah. One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink. But the rest said, “Wait! Let’s see whether Elijah comes to save him.” Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit. At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart, and tombs opened. The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead. They left the cemetery after Jesus’ resurrection, went into the holy city of Jerusalem, and appeared to many people. The Roman officer and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, “This man truly was the Son of God!” And many women who had come from Galilee with Jesus to care for him were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary (the mother of James and Joseph), and the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee.

MESSAGE NOTES

Torn in Two

Matthew 27:51 NLT

At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart,

One sentence.

Most people give it a second, maybe nod, and move on to the earthquake and the opened tombs.

But I want us to stop here today.

I want us to sit with this one moment.

Because I believe that if we really understood what happened when that curtain tore, it would change the way we think about God, the way we think about ourselves, and the way we walk through every single day of our lives.

What Was This Curtain?

We call it a curtain.

And that word does it no justice at all.

The Jewish historian Josephus gives us a description of this thing, and it stops you in your tracks.

He tells us it was roughly 60 feet tall.

That's about the height of a six-storey building.

It was four inches thick - not a thin piece of fabric you could poke a finger through, but a densely woven, massive structure.

It was made from fine linen, dyed in blue, scarlet, and purple - the colours that ancient Jewish tradition associated with heaven, earth, and sea.

The whole created order, woven into a single hanging.

Some ancient sources suggest it took 300 priests just to move it.

This was not a curtain. This was a wall.

And it hung at the entrance to the Most Holy Place - the innermost room of the temple.

This was the room at the very centre of Jewish religious life.

The room where God's presence was said to dwell.

The room that contained the Ark of the Covenant.

The most sacred space in the entire world.

And it was closed.

Permanently.

To almost everyone.

There was just one exception.

Once a year, on the Day of Atonement - Yom Kippur - one man was permitted to pass through it.

One man.

The High Priest.

And even then, only after days of elaborate ritual purification.

He would bathe.

He would offer sacrifices.

He would change his garments multiple times.

He would carry incense so that the cloud of smoke would shield his eyes from the full glory of God's presence.

Because if he went in unprepared, the tradition was clear: he would die.

One man. Once a year. After all of that.

That was the access.

That was the door.

And it was firmly, permanently closed to everyone else.

To the ordinary Israelite, the Most Holy Place was simply unreachable.

Women, children, working men and women, the sick, the struggling, the sinful - all of them kept at a distance.

The curtain said, clearly and without apology: you cannot come in here.

That was the arrangement. For centuries.

Until that first Good Friday.

What the Book of Hebrews Tells Us

There is a verse in Hebrews that explains what happened on Good Friday, and it is one of the most breathtaking theological statements in the entire Bible.

I want us to read it slowly together:

Hebrews 10:19–20 NIV

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body,

Look at that verse again.

The curtain is his body.

When the writer of Hebrews tries to explain the meaning of the cross, he doesn't separate what happened at Calvary from what happened at the temple.

He says they are the same thing.

The veil and the flesh of Jesus are one.

When his body was torn on the cross, the curtain was torn in the temple.

Not two separate events happening at the same time.

One event - happening simultaneously in the body of Jesus on the hill outside Jerusalem, and in the stone walls of the temple inside the city.

Think about what that means.

The curtain tore from top to bottom.

Not from the bottom up, as if a human hand had grabbed the hem and ripped it.

Not that that was even possible if it was four inches thick.

But from the top down.

From heaven towards earth.

God himself, tearing the door open - from the inside.

Nobody did that to Jesus.

No soldier tore that curtain.

No earthquake pulled it apart from the ground.

God reached down from the top and tore it.

Because God was the one who wanted the door open.

Let that sink in for a moment.

The Price of Entry

But we can go back further too, to Leviticus chapter 16.

This is where God gave Moses the instructions for the Day of Atonement, and when you read it carefully, you see that God had been pointing toward this moment for a very long time.

The High Priest could only enter the Most Holy Place with blood.

The blood of a bull, offered as a sin offering for himself and his household.

The blood of a goat, offered for the people.

He would sprinkle the blood on the cover of the Ark of the Covenant, in the very presence of God.

And only then - only with blood - was the entry permissible.

Without blood, he would die.

Without blood, the door was shut.

The access was never free.

It always cost something.

Every single year, without exception, blood had to be shed before anyone could draw near.

And God was saying something through all of those centuries of Yom Kippur.

Every High Priest who walked through that curtain carrying the blood of an animal was acting out a picture, a shadow, a rehearsal for something that was coming.

God was saying, year after year after year: one day, the cost will be paid.

Once and for all.

And the door will stay open.

That day was Good Friday.

The blood of Jesus didn't just open the way for one person, on one day, with an annual expiry date.

It opened the way permanently, for every person, with no conditions attached.

Hebrews makes this absolutely clear: because of the blood of Jesus, we can boldly enter heaven's most holy place.

Not tentatively. Not apologetically. Boldly.

God spent centuries showing us how serious the barrier was.

And then he spent one Friday tearing it away forever.

The Completion of Psalm 22

There's one more thing I want us to reflect on today, because I think it's one of the most extraordinary things in the entire Bible.

Most of us know the opening line of Psalm 22. Jesus quotes it from the cross, in his darkest moment: "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"

We hear that as a cry of anguish.

And it is.

Jesus is in agony.

He is bearing the full weight of human sin, the full experience of separation from the Father.

It is a genuine, raw, terrible cry.

Don't minimise it.

But keep reading.

Don't stop at the opening line.

Read all the way through to the very end of that psalm.

Verse 31 closes with three words: He has done it.

Three words, in the Hebrew.

And when you look at the Greek equivalent of that phrase, it is the same word - the same word - that Jesus cries out from the cross in John 19:30.

It is finished.

The psalm was written by David, a thousand years before the crucifixion.

A thousand years.

And it moves through anguish, through suffering, through trust, through deliverance - and it arrives at its final line: He has done it.

Jesus wasn't only expressing his own anguish when he quoted that psalm from the cross.

He was completing it.

The whole psalm had been moving towards that final line for a millennium.

And on a Friday afternoon, just outside the gates of Jerusalem, Jesus brought it home.

He has done it. It is finished.

The debt is paid.

The barrier is gone.

The door is torn.

What Good Friday Is Really Saying to You

So here is what I want you to hear today.

The door is torn.

Not ajar.

Not slightly open for the spiritually experienced.

Not cracked for the people who've got their lives sorted.

Torn. Wide open. From top to bottom.

Which means God did it, not us.

You didn't have to earn your way through.

You didn't have to be a High Priest.

You don't have to be clean, or certain, or sorted.

Think about who was kept out before.

Working men and women.

People who'd made mistakes.

People who were sick.

People who were struggling.

People who couldn't afford the sacrifices.

People who'd been told, in a hundred different ways, that they weren't qualified to come close to God.

Good Friday says to every single one of them: the curtain is gone.

And it says the same to us.

How many of us are carrying something we feel we can't bring into God's presence?

A shame we haven't spoken out loud.

A failure we've been quietly dragging around for years.

A question we've never dared to ask because we weren't sure we were allowed to.

A part of our life we've kept sealed off, certain that God wouldn't want to see it, certain that it would disqualify us from his presence.

The curtain is gone.

You don't need to be the High Priest.

You don't need to go through a ritual.

You don't need to clean yourself up first, make yourself presentable, sort yourself out before you approach.

The writer of Hebrews says we can enter boldly.

Come as you are. Come now.

Come with the shame and the failure and the question and the fear.

The door is open. And it cost Jesus everything to open it.

That's what the cross is.

It's not just a symbol of sacrifice.

It's not just a religious emblem we wear around our necks.

It is the moment God tore the barrier down from the top, threw the door open, and said: come in.

An Invitation

This is the invitation of Good Friday.

Not a call to grief for its own sake, though grief is appropriate.

Not a call to guilt, though we do well to understand what our sin cost.

But a call to draw near.

Hebrews 10:22 NLT

let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

Right into his presence.

Not to the outer court.

Not to the edge.

All the way in.

Wherever you are today - whether you've walked with God for decades, or whether you aren't even sure what you believe - the invitation is the same.

The door is not partially open for some and closed for others.

It is torn wide open for everyone.

Is there something you've been holding back?

Something you've felt wasn't allowed in God's presence?

The curtain is gone. Walk through.

He has done it.

It is finished.

And if you've never stepped through that door before - if today is the day you're wondering whether God would actually want you, whether there's really a welcome for someone like you on the other side - then I want to tell you clearly: the curtain was torn for you.

The blood was poured out for you.

The door is open, and it has been open since that first Good Friday.

Walk through.

The Silence That Follows

And yet - we are not at Easter yet.

Because tomorrow is Holy Saturday.

The forgotten day. The silent day.

The disciples sat behind locked doors, convinced it was over.

The tomb was sealed with a Roman wax seal.

Soldiers stood guard outside.

Everything was quiet.

Everything felt finished - in the worst possible sense.

But here is what I want you to hold as you leave today. In the silence of the remainder of today and into Holy Saturday, God was not absent.

God was not defeated.

God was at work in ways that no one around that tomb could see or imagine.

The stone wasn't rolled away to let Jesus out.

He didn't need that.

It was rolled away for another reason entirely.

And what God was doing in the silence of that Saturday is more extraordinary than most of us have ever been taught.

But that's for tomorrow.

And if you want to spend some time reflecting on it, then listen or watch tomorrow’s Battle Drill Devotional.

For today, take some time to quietly sit with this: the door is torn.

Wide open.

From top to bottom.

God did it himself.

And it cost him everything.

Prayer

Let us pray.

Father, we don't have words adequate for today. So we bring you what we have - our gratitude, our grief, our wonder, and the things we've been holding back from you. Thank you that the curtain is gone. Thank you that the door is open. Thank you for the blood of Jesus that made it so. Help us to walk through - boldly, as your word invites us - and to live as people who know that nothing separates us from your presence any more. In Jesus' name. Amen.

In a moment, I'm going to invite you to do something very simple.

The mercy seat is here - open, as it always is.

But today, I want you to think of it as the torn curtain.

It's not a place for the sorted, the certain, or the spiritual elite.

It's a place for anyone who wants to walk through the door.

You might come today because you've never given your life to Jesus, and today something has stirred in you.

You're welcome.

You might come because you've been carrying something - a shame, a failure, a doubt - and you need to bring it into God's presence at last.

You're welcome.

You might come simply to say thank you - that the blood of Jesus has opened the way, and you don't want to pass by without responding.

You're welcome.

The door is open. Come as you are.

Video: So You Would Come | 4:00