Entering the Holy of Holies

So I'm a bit of a Bible Geek... kind of. I know that there are plenty of people who know the Bible way more than me and I don't think that the kind of fact retention is actually spiritual but it's just the kind of guy I am. I mean I'm pretty close to the same way with Lord of the Rings but that doesn't mean that I actually like the book better than some thirteen year old kid who is reading it for the first time.

So I sometimes think about the Ark of the Covenant and the Temple of Solomon and just think it is cool. Cool, like a +5 Sword of Transformation cool. I think part of it started with Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (melting faces and what not) and as outrageous as the stuff in that movie depict what the Bible describes is so much more over the top if only because it is described in such a realist way. For example it is described how the High Priest (who is only allowed to enter once a year) has a rope tied to him so that if he is struck dead that the other priests can pull him out of the Holy of Holies without being struck down themselves. It is just cool in a very dorky D&D way.

When ever I read Old Testament stuff I always put myself in the shoes of the person messing up. I am almost always the masses of Israel falling into transgression that they should have known better, I am rarely the one bold Prophet who is willing to call people on it. So when I think about the Temple, and what it would have been like for the people of Israel I think it would have been terrifying... but still so captivating.

The Temple held the Ark of the Covenant which was a sign that God was with the people, inside of the Ark is a jar of mana (from when their ancestors wandered the wilderness), the staff of Aaron (the sign of the priesthood) and the freaking stones the ten commandments were broken on (Oh my freaking gosh!). To be an Israelite and know your history was to be terrified because your ancestors did not accept God's mana, they had rebelled against the priesthood and broke the commandments. To think about the Temple and the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant is to see the holiness of a real God and the real sinfulness inside of yourself. The only way I can imagine it could be stood was because once a year God allowed one person, the High Priest, to enter into the Holy of Holies and make a sacrifice of blood for all of the people.

In so many ways it sounds just like all of the same stuff that all of the people were doing religiously four thousand years ago, appease an angry god, blood of a goat, gold for the temple yada yada. But for me I am constantly putting myself in the story and so by the time there is a temple to worship at I have already heard God's promise of more children than the stars, I have seen how the Lord led that family into Egypt and I have seen how the Lord led that family out of Egpyt and in the wilderness and out of the wilderness into the Promised Land. I have seen all of it and the whole way through I have been messing up and every time the Israelites (I) have mess up in retrospect it seems so dumb.

"Why did they rebel against God? He just lead them out of Egypt!"
"Why did they rebel against God, again? They are just going to fall back into slavery!"

And so when I get to the time of Temple worship I can understand the fear of this layered temple where first anyone can come to pray, then the level only Jews can enter and then the level only Jewish men can enter and then the level only priests can enter and then the level only the High Priest, once a year, can enter, and I understand how much a person would want to enter the Holy of Holies but it would be so terrifying, so much bigger even than the High Priest. I can see both the fierceness and the beauty of the Lord God Almighty and feel both the aversion and attraction of even just the idea of holiness (to say nothing of the reality).

And then in my own life, every day I am a jumbled mess of sins and perversions and corruptions and hypocrisy. But I think about what it means to be a Christian and before bed I read a Psalm... except the Psalms are so often written from a righteous perspective that the only way I can believe them is if it were Jesus the one saying them. So I read the Psalm but am imagining what it would be like to be able to say the same. And then I often have the mental image of how the New Testament says that as a Christian I am the Temple and inside of me is the Holy of Holies with its gates and its layers which would prevent the least of sin to enter and the only way I can imagine it would be possible to enter is a blood sacrifice from the High Priest.

As a geek I know that the Indiana Jones response, close your eyes and hopefully God won't smite you, would be correct. But as a Christian I know that the sacrifice has been made and at any time I can enter the Holy of Holies and be in the presence of a God so holy I am tempted to capitalize even His adjectives.

It is like water for a thirsty soul and I just wish I could share it, that continues to be my wish.