CURTAIN!

The twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the most prominent symbol of the “Iron Curtain,” was celebrated this month. Following that momentous event, the former Soviet bloc began to crumble, changing, dramatically, the alignments in world politics. It was Churchill who first used the phrase “Iron Curtain,” in a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, MO, in March 1946:

“… an ‘iron curtain’ has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

Though the good man was criticized at that time for his seemingly warmongering comments, history proved him to be right. The Iron Curtain had split the world in two, as the ideological and physical boundary between the East and the West.

In 1999, the Bundestag (parliament) of the reunified Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, met in the 100+ year-old historic Reichstag building in Germany, towering pillars and all. It is now the official house of German government.

Of the many historically consequential events that have taken place in this century, the fall of the Iron Curtain ranks up there.

But the fall of a portentous curtain is not a unique event. An even more important—indeed, eternally important—curtain “fell” about 2,000 years ago.

And Jesus uttered a loud cry
and breathed His last.
And the veil of the Temple
was torn in two from top to bottom.
Mark 15:37–38

The tearing of the veil, humanly impossible (the outer curtain was about 75 feet in height), is described in the passive voice, hinting at a divine hand at work (the “divine passive”). The unusual nature of the rending—from top to bottom—is certainly corroborative of supernatural activity. The juxtaposition of this event with Jesus’ breathing his last presents the “fall” of that curtain as the consequence of the death of Jesus Christ. Something momentous had happened.

Not surprisingly, the Roman centurion in charge of the execution detail, acknowledges, immediately afterwards, …

“Truly He was the Son of God!”
Mark 15:39

The curtain had fallen. The curtain that separated sinners from a holy God.

But your iniquities have made
a separation between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden His face
from you so that He does not hear.
Isaiah 59:2

But now the price of sin had been paid.

He [Jesus Christ] Himself
bore our sins in His body on the cross,
so that we might die to sin
and live to righteousness;
for by His wounds you were healed.
1 Peter 2:24

Access to God was now open.

… for through Him we …
have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
Ephesians 2:18

Indeed, there has, is, and will be, only one way to the Father.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life;
no one comes to the Father
but through Me.”
John 14:6

The curtain has fallen! And all who believe in the saving work of Jesus Christ have gained access.

But now in Christ Jesus
you who formerly were far off
have been brought near
by the blood of Christ.
Ephesians 2:13

A curtain-fall with eternal ramifications, making possible access to God … for all those who believe.

Willkommen!