Game, Set, And Match

Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.   Ephesians 2:13

In the Temple, there were different levels of access, and Paul reminded the Gentile believers that they were about as far away from God as they could possibly get.

The structure of the Temple reminds me of the tennis championships at Wimbledon. When I lived in London, you could get into the grounds in late afternoon for about eight dollars, but that gave you access only to the outer courts. Usually that meant watching players few people had heard of.

I wanted to get to the center court, but for that you needed a different ticket, and they were very hard to find. I succeeded in getting on center court a few times, but I never once got into the locker rooms. They’re restricted to a very select group of people.

When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain shielding the Most Holy Place was torn in two—from top to bottom—as if God reached down from heaven and ripped it apart. But if that were all that had happened, it would be like inviting those on center court to visit the locker rooms. That would be marvelous for a privileged few, but it would only heighten the frustrations of those who were outside.

Paul reminds us that Christ has done more than tear the curtain: “He himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14, NIV). Paul is talking about the walls that separated the Gentiles from the Jews. But the dividing walls farther out were also demolished so that those who were far off could also come all the way into the presence of God.

Imagine a series of concentric walls. When Christ died on the cross, it was as if God took a bulldozer and plowed through all of them, creating a path from the farthest horizon right into the Most Holy Place. All the walls came down. All the divisions of privilege and race and gender came down, and equal access to God was opened up to all through Jesus Christ. Even if you’re far from God today, you may come. Christ has opened the way.

For further reading, see Ephesians 2