The Story Behind the ‘Cut here’ T-Shirt

To start with, just a little bit of an intro… Guys, I really don’t want to make light of Jesus’s death on the cross, to detract from it or joke about it in a derogatory fashion, but I do believe in putting His sacrifice in the spotlight! We all respond to methods of teaching differently. Some of us need hard facts, others like to listen to convincing arguments and yet others are moved by a beautiful song. If the bold approach of this design will draw the attention of non-believers and believers alike, raise questions and if nothing else, at least just remind you of that phenomenal event and its phenomenal meaning, then I would have fulfilled my purpose.

And now for the real speech ; )

Matthew 27: 50-51 (WEB)

“Jesus cried again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit. Behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split.”

What a moment!

Jesus dies and to some it’s the most terrible, fearsome, saddest event imaginable. And it was tragic. The innocent Lamb, the Son of God, slain for the not-so-innocent to become blameless. But if you look beyond the doom and gloom, there’s a whole bunch of significance to be drawn here. From all the supernatural events directly following His death, today we’re specifically zooming in on the meaning behind the tearing of the curtain.

But let’s first rewind a little bit… Back in the days of the Old Testament, God’s people had to carry out specific rituals and sacrifices before they were able to enter the temple and worship Him. No man was permitted to pass through the temple veil into the Holy of Holies (where God’s presence dwelt) except for the high priest, who was allowed to enter once a year to make atonement for the nation’s sins. He himself had to fulfill a host of rituals in order to be clean enough to tread on Holy territory.

Not to confuse the temple curtain with your average household model, this specific veil was described as about 18 metres long, nine metres wide and as thick as a man’s hand. To clarify its magnitude – and shatter any profanity suggesting that it was cut in two by human hands – it took 300 priests to handle this veil!

Everything about the temple was made according to God’s specific instruction, stipulated to the cubit.

So the veil separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple, and therefore it wasn’t just a symbol of man’s sin separating us from God, but is was an actual divide.

It’s important to understand that God wasn’t playing the mean-old-master by demanding these tedious practises. I believe He was, as usual, merely looking out for man’s best interests. See, God is so holy, so pure, so the exact opposite of sin that He cannot be in its presence. We know that He hates sin, but that’s not the reason I’m going for here. When I read about God’s consuming fire and the dialogue between God and Moses about seeing His face at Mount Sinai (Exodus 33), it seems to me that God can’t be in the company of sin because it’s consumed in His presence. By implication, we as sinful beings would be destroyed in His presence.

Do you get why God hates sin? It’s not because He’s trying to spoil our fun or likes playing the puppet master. If puppets were what He wanted He wouldn’t have given us free will. God hates sin because it hurts us and separates us from Him. And He knows we’re spiritual infants, desperately dependent on our Father to survive. We think we’re all grown up because we’re living it up in these grown-up bodies, making seemingly grown-up choices from our battered souls, but in spirit we’ll all remain as children until we are able to see in full when we reach heaven.

Without God we have no way of protecting ourselves against the dark and wicked principalities, powers and rulers in high places that Ephesians 6:12 teaches us about. We can’t even see what it is we’re up against! Don’t answer if you’re Karate Kid, but for the rest of us, how well do you fight with a blindfold on?

The separation between man and God topped Satan’s agenda back at the fall in the garden. It’s easy to discern the source of our biggest blessings by looking at the object of Satan’s fiercest attacks. He’s forever trying to blow up our arsenal and he goes for the big guns first. Satan knew if he could succeed in separating us from our Father, we’d be his for the taking. Yes, Satan knew just as well as God that our strength, our ONLY strength lies in the Father, so if he could just keep us away from that Source… He was executing a classic rule of battle: Divide and conquer!

By swinging sin at us he ensures the chasm between man and God gapes even wider. Sin makes us feel unfit to face the flawless One, we know deep inside that we’re unworthy and like Adam and Eve, our instincts are to hide. So even if God’s way was unblocked, we would still run from His presence.

It sure looked like Satan had it all covered, flashing sin as his trump card at God and at us, jingling our prison keys in the other paw. But when God sacrificed His Son, he deployed the trump of all cards and blew Satan’s strategy to smithereens. A number of really big things were destroyed that day, all following the symbol of Jesus’s broken body like a row of dominoes. Next in line were the records of our sins that were torn into pieces and with it went the veil. Jesus paid our ransom in full and now, when we’re covered with His blood, God no longer sees our sins when He looks at us. And there’s no more need to hide, in fact our very salvation is rooted in His embrace. His blood is not just our ticket to freedom, but it’s also our strongest weapon. It’s the Divine covering that makes the agents of sin tremble in their tinies and run for cover! Satan had the battle, but God took the war – proving that love never fails!

It was out of love that Jesus committed Himself to the cross. With our sins stacked on His shoulders, God had no choice but to turn His back on His son (Mark 15:34). As the unblemished Lamb handed over the toll, the gates opened and Jesus became the way to the Father (John 14:6).

God’s management policy changed from authoritarian to open-door in the drop of a curtain! Yes, his door is wide open, in fact He’s waiting right outside the door to your heart! The temple veil doesn’t separate you from God anymore, but there is one thing that still has that power and that is your choice.

God wiped Satan’s trump card listing our sins straight from the table, yet that sneaky little snake still flashes it in front of our eyes, making sure to cover the expiry date. But now that we know the truth we have a choice – to believe our Father or the father of lies.

Today, will you choose to open that door to your heart and allow God in? He’s waiting right there with open arms of redemption. Not an accusing list of debts. Think of your freedom as a wrapped gift sitting outside your door. It’s yours already. Why, it even has your name on it! (Isaiah 49:16 implies that God’s children are engraved on His palms.) But to truly own it, you have to open it!

Prayer:

Father, thank You for sending your Son to take my place on the cross. Jesus, thank You for your sacrifice whereby I am no longer divided from my Father, but forever re-united. Today, I stand with the keys to Your presence in my hands and I choose to unlock my heart so You can enter. Thank You for the covering of Jesus’s blood that makes You see past my sins. Help me to remain in Your love by resisting the lure of sin that aims to lead me away from You and into the woods of destruction. Thank You for your open-door policy and that the choice to be in Your presence is mine for as long as I have breath in my lungs. In Jesus’s name. Amen

View this product

If you have any questions on what you’ve read here, you’re welcome to chat to me on info@bread-crumbs.co.za