Seder 65: Exodus 26-27---Three Tabernacle Curtains

Israel's tabernacle in the wilderness included three dividing curtains that marked off different "zones" of sacred space:

• One curtain separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place inside the tabernacle (Ex 26:31-35).
• There was a second curtain at the entrance to the tent, dividing the courtyard from the Holy Place (Ex 26:36-37).
• There was a third curtain at the entrance of the courtyard, dividing the courtyard from the rest of the world (Ex 27:16).

Israelites who were ritually clean could enter the courtyard and offer sacrfices.  Priests could cross the second curtain and enter the tabernacle.  Only the high priest could cross the inner curtain and enter the Most Holy Place, and he could only do this once a year on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16).

The structure here mirrors what was going on at Mount Sinai while Moses was conferring with God at the top of the mountain.  Sacrifices were offered at an altar at the foot of the mountain (Ex 24:4-5).  Moses and Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and seventy elders went part way up the mountain to have a covenant meal in the presence of God (vv 9-11).  Then Moses alone went further up the mountain to receive revelation from God (vv 12-18).      

The tabernacle has often been described as a "portable Sinai," through which God would continue to be present among his people and provide continuing revelation to them.  

The various curtains were "embroidered with needlework" (Ex 26:36).  In a sermonette at Church of the Messiah on  July 24, 2021, Jack Starcher focused on the Hebrew word here, raqam, which connotes something being skillfully woven together.  In the section of Exodus detailing the tabernacle and its construction, this word is used seven more times---Ex 27:16; 28:39; 35:35; 36:37; 38:18,23; 39:29.

Jack explained that this word is used only one other time in the Hebrew Scriptures, in Psalm 139:15.  Here the psalmist prays, 

"My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth."

So the tabernacle curtains were woven together in the same way that God crafted the human body.  And as the tabernacle was designed for divine habitation, so were our bodies---see 1 Cor 3:16,17; 6:19.

There were curtains analogous to the tabernacle curtain in the first and second temples.  In a sermon on July 24, 2021, Kyle Kettering noted a teaching in the Talmud (b. Tamid 29b) that during the time of the second temple, two new inner curtains were made each year by a group of 82 maidens, and 300 priests immersed each of these for purification.  In those days, with the ark gone, there was nothing behind the curtain.  God's Shekinah had never come to the Second Temple.  

The Gospels record that at the time when Jesus died on the cross, the inner curtain ripped in two (Matt 27:51-54; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45).  A wealth of meaning has been attached to this symbolic event.  Kyle reflected on the interpretation of the torn curtain as a time marker.  The Messianic era had come, and people from all nations can approach God through Jesus, our high priest in the heavenly tabernacle (Heb 10:19-22).  

Seder 21: Gen 24---A Marriage Made in Heaven

 In Genesis 24 Abraham, at age about 140 (about 3 years after Sarah's death), sends his trusted servant on a long journey back to Abraham's homeland to find a bride for Isaac.  A woman willing to travel back with the servant and marry Isaac would have to be someone like Abraham (Gen 12:1-4), leaving family and homeland behind for a divine purpose.  

And indeed, this chapter emphasizes the parallels between Abraham and Rebekah, the woman brought back by the servant.  In particular, Rebekah exercises the kind of "radical hospitality" that characterized Abraham (vv 15-21).

The servant was convinced that God had chosen a special wife for Isaac, and he was determined to find that person with God's help.   He prayed for a very specific sign that would identify the right woman (vv 10-14).  And despite the servant's presumptuousness, God honored his prayer.  

Jack Starcher commented on this incident in a message at Church of the Messiah on Aug 8, 2020.  He noted God's commitment to working through his human "imagers" (Gen 1:28; 1 Cor 6:1-3).  He asserted that God has a "suggestion box" and invites us to use it.  If we pray according to his will, God will grant our request or do something even better.

Seder 13: Gen 15 and Ps 27---Waiting for God

Abram had traveled to the land of Canaan at God's direction, placing his life in the hands of the Creator of the Universe.  God had promised that Abram would be the father of a great nation, and Abram trusted in God's promise.  But he still had questions about how the promise would be carried out, especially because he and Sarai so far had been unable to have children.  In Gen 15:3, he pointed out,

"You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir."

God responded in verse 5,

"Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.  So shall your descendants be."

However, God didn't give Abram a detailed outline and timetable on the fulfillment of the promise.  So Abram faced the challenge of waiting to see how and when it would be carried out.

David, in Psalm 27:14, encourages readers,

"Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!"

In a short teaching at Church of the Messiah on June 13, 2020,   Jack Starcher noted that the word "wait" in Psalm 27:14 comes from a root meaning "to bind."  So another way to say "wait for the Lord" might be to say, "bind yourself to the Lord."  He reflected on what this kind of waiting might look like.  He said that it is not an entirely passive kind of waiting, but a faithful doing one's part while counting on God to see things through.

Hundreds of years later, Moses affirmed that the promise of Gen 15:5 indeed had been fulfilled:

"The Lord your God has multiplied you, so that today you are as numerous as the stars of heaven" (Deut 1:10).

Jack also traced the imagery of stars through the Bible.  In Psalm 147:4, we read, "He determines the number of the stars' he gives to all of them their names."  We can infer from this that God knew about each individual descendant of Abram, including the Messiah, who is called "the bright morning star" in Rev 22:16.