The Sound of Grace and My Sister Tillie Tuls

Recently someone said to me:  I wonder what Grace sounds like.  I had never imagined that Grace might have a sound until that conversation.  But it does, you know.

"You shall make a veil...and you shall hang the veil from the clasps.  Then you shall bring the

Ark of the Testimony in there, behind the veil.  The veil shall be a divider for you

between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place."  (Ex. 26)

Therefore, brothers, 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 veil, that is His Body..."  (Heb. 10)

In the Tabernacle in the wilderness and then later in the Temple in Jerusalem,  God had commanded His people there should be a veil separating the Most Holy Place (where He dwelt) from the Holy Place (where the priests ministered).   Only one day a year, the Day of Atonement, could the High Priest alone enter behind the veil into the Most Holy Place to sprinkle the mercy seat with the sacrificial blood.

The veil in the Temple of Jesus' day was made of blue, purple and scarlet yarn and twisted linen.  It was approximately 60 feet high, 30 feet wide and 4 inches thick.  It was said that horses tied to each side would not be able to pull the veil apart!  Yet we read that at the moment of Jesus' death - when He breathed His last - the veil was torn in two from top to bottom.  The writer of Hebrews tells us that now we can enter boldly into that Most Holy Place through the blood of Jesus:

"...by a new and living way which He consecrated for us

through the veil, that is His flesh."

The veil being torn in two when Jesus breathed His last is a picture of His flesh being torn for us so that now we have access to God through the sacrifice of His Son.  What a joyous and triumphant occasion for us!

But in pondering this ultimate sacrifice on our behalf, I began to wonder how it must have been for God the Father to view His Son's body being torn.  And I was reminded how a Jew in deep mourning would tear his garments.  Did you know that the Rabbis in Jesus' day referred to the Temple veil as the 'tunic of God'?  I just had a picture of God, in deep mourning and agony, crying out and ripping the veil in two as a Jewish father would rip his tunic over the death of a child.

What must it have sounded like in the heavens at that moment when Jesus died?  At that moment when God ripped the Temple veil - His tunic - in two?  How the howling lament of the Father must have thundered across the creation; so much so that it shook to its very foundations; that the sun was darkened, the earth quaked, the rocks split and the graves were opened!  What must His pain have been like to see the death of His Son on the Cross for the sins of the world?  This is the Sound of Grace.

In the Talmud it states that if one person is present when another 'breathes his last', that person must tear his tunic in mourning.  "One who stands near the dying, at the time when he breathes his last, he is duty bound to rend his tunic."  (Bava Meitza 25a)

Listen to these words from the Gospel of Mark on the death of our Lord:

"And Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed His last.

Then the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom."

Mark 14

This morning my sister-in-law Tillie will be removed from a ventilator that she has been on since suffering a massive stroke last week.  At some point she too will breathe her last.  And we will mourn.  But she will enter into the Most Holy Place.  And at that, we rejoice.  Thank you Jesus for making a new and living way for us through the veil, Your Body.