The Door Was Torn Wide Open
Good Friday Devotional - Battle Drill Daily Devotional
There’s a single sentence buried in the Good Friday accounts that most people notice, nod at, and move past. Matthew records it almost in passing: the moment Jesus died, the curtain in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
We call it a curtain. But according to the Jewish historian Josephus, this thing was roughly 60 feet tall and 4 inches thick. Some ancient sources say it took 300 priests to move it. It wasn’t a curtain - it was a wall. And it hung at the entrance to the Most Holy Place, the innermost room of the temple, where God’s presence was said to dwell.
One man. One day a year. After elaborate ritual purification. That was the only access.
Until Friday.
In Hebrews 10:19-20, the writer makes one of the most staggering theological statements in the entire New Testament. We can boldly enter the Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus - and then he says something that stops you in your tracks: the curtain is his body.
The tearing of the veil and the breaking of his flesh are not two separate events. They are one. God, tearing the door open from the inside.
And Psalm 22 - written a thousand years before the crucifixion - closes with three words: He has done it. The same thing Jesus cries from the cross in John 19: It is finished.
So here is what Good Friday is really saying.
The door is not ajar. It is not slightly open for the specially qualified. It is torn. Wide open. From top to bottom.
You don’t have to be a high priest. You don’t have to be sorted or clean or certain. If there’s something you’ve been holding back from God - a shame, a failure, a question you’ve never dared to ask - the curtain is gone. Walk through.
He has done it.
Watch today’s Good Friday devotional on YouTube - link below. And join me tomorrow for Holy Saturday - the forgotten day. What God was doing in the silence is more extraordinary than most of us have ever been taught.
Read this week’s devotionals here - https://open.substack.com/pub/battledrilldevotional/p/a-different-kind-of-holy-week-starting?r=643q6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true