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"...the vail shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy"
-Ex 26:33
That vail separated us: God holy on one side; man unholy in sin on the other. That vail separated, we must remember, God from us too. How lonely for all those centuries. This God who creates creatures with a will who can respond to Him in love; this God who knows perfect community within the mystery of His person as a trinity. How eager to have nothing between us, to have an intimacy --embracing us within such a communion/union as the Trinity enjoys, and yet, He is separated from us. Our sin, our rebellion, our stiff-necked pride.
We hide from Him in shame with fear and rail at Him in anger. Still God seeks us. That is the difference in Christianity--our God seeks us, not we, Him. Centuries pass. Jesus comes and lives among us. We reject Him and hang Him on a cross. But this cross is our God seeking us--this cross is our redemption, our payment for sin--Jesus, the Lamb of God, paying our penalty. Finally, nothing can separate us from Him now; nor, Him from us.
"Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom..."
-Matt 27:50,51
While still hanging on that cross, our Lover was so impatient to draw us into His bosom, that with His last gasps He reached over and tore the veil from top to bottom. No sooner has He proclaimed "It is finished" than He reached over and ripped that which separates us from Him, and Him from us.
Now I also imagined how frequently we are unwilling for that level of intimacy He purchased, desires, and offers us. We hang around in the holy place, but keep our glances averted from the most holy place. So many reasons why. One among them is that there is a small cost I think. Sometimes part of that cost is working through guilt and self-worth, sometimes sacrifices.
I am not at all speaking of some portion of intimacy with God that is ours to earn, only ours to respond to during this time, to enter into. Soon enough the veil of this life, the dark mirror through which we see Him, will also be fully rent as we each go to Him. He the forerunner, the firstfruits. I think how even our Lord cried with the feelings of loss others felt over Lazarus, as we do when facing the invitation for one of His heart's most precious to enter fully into the most holy place through the rent veil, where He awaits, eager. The Incense
Ask Him in prayer about the hands full of sweet, beaten down incense that He asked be brought inside the vail (Lev 16:12, 13.) The directions in scripture are so specific, this must be important to Him for us to understand. The incense was to be put onto the burning coals from the altar carried in a censer, laid at His feet as it were. Lifting over and surrounding the mercy seat that is us in Him, and He in us, is to be the enflamed fragrance of this finely beaten, sweet burning incense. It is here He says,
"...I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat."
-Lev 16:2
The cloud of this incense burning, lifting, swirling...
"But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God."
-Phil 4:18 |
We Can Bring Him Delight!
I don't know. I don't want to exalt any human role, yet (dare we begin to think?), yet it seems He invites us to bring something with us into that room with Him. Something that pleases Him greatly. Something beaten down into fine particles, something easily consumed in the fire from the altar, something that in that fire releases a sweet fragrance to His nostrils, something that lifts into the room and then, in that time and place, in that rich smoldering fragrance, there, He promises, there He will appear.
I think, I fear to be so bold to say out loud, that our Great Lover offers us through Himself to become something, no, to be made into something by His working, that can be offered on the coals of His altar that pleases Him greatly, that draws Him to us as we ourselves are drawn to Him. Can God so highly esteem such as we? Can He so honor us as to receive from us (though only He first does this in us, but it is yet through us). The Incense - Our Lives
Tell me brothers and sisters, how do you see the incense? Oh yes, there is much more, much richer images in that room, in His overwhelming presence where we dare not look up for fear we die. Share all of that you want! I love to hear of Him. But last night I was drawn to look at this incense we are to bring, and I fear to say I think it is ourselves.
Could He accept our poor offering of ourselves to this relationship with Him? Could these vessels be counted by Him of such value? Who is this Gracious One? He who appears in the cloud of the incense that is us poured on the fire of the altar in the golden censer adores us and desires us. Will we prepare ourselves as sacrifice, hands full of beaten down, ground into powder, lives, thrown onto the flame through which our lives become a rich incense He finds Himself appearing within. Costly, if you prefer this present world. God Appears Only in the Cloud of Incense
The other truth to the veil renting in two, it seems to me, is God bursting forth into our places. Pouring Himself into our niches and lives and the mundane of sweeping a floor, of wiping a dirty face, of filing something carefully becomes holy in Him. He rushes, now freed from confinement in the Holy of Holies, into every nook and cranny of our lives, greedily and freely joining in our everyday to make our experience together unbroken holiness, our lives a living sacrifice, our community a temple... Love, overpowering all things.
"The true proficiency of the soul consists not so much in deep thinking, or eloquent speaking, or beautiful writing; as in much and warm loving. Now, if you ask me in what way this much and warm love may be acquired, I answer, By resolving to do the will of God, and by watching to do His will as often as occasion offers. Those who truly love God love all good wherever they find it. They seek all good to all men. They commend all good, they always acknowledge and defend all good. They have no quarrels. They bear no envy. O Lord, give me more and more of this blessed love!"
-St Teresa of Avila
-Art Mealer |