Most mornings I begin my days at my small desk in my bedroom with similar rituals: space heater on, cup of coffee in hand, bundle up, and then pull back the curtains to a new day. I love the days when the sun is rising and all of the eastward view is on fire with the red dawn over the North Georgia mountains. Though I live within them, when I pull back those curtains, a whole new world opens up to me, a world of beauty or bleakness, of life or barrenness, of hope and light.

As I read the sacred Scriptures in Matthew’s Gospel chapter 27 recording the death and burial of Jesus this morning, I saw curtains being pulled back, and what beauty and light were on the other side of those curtains.

The first, Matthew records, at Jesus’s death, the temple veil was torn in two; this first curtain to be opened represents the hope and light, the dawning as it were, of reconciliation and fellowship with God again. This is the greatest of the open curtains! The sin that separated all of humanity from God was punished in Christ Jesus on the cross, and when man comes to Jesus in faith believing in Him for salvation, they can come into a personal fellowship with his Creator God.

The second curtain torn open was Matthew’s recording of the rocks being rent (same Greek word a the temple veil) apart. This tearing opens the view to the future shaking of this earthly kingdom that the writer of Hebrews speaks of in Hebrews 12:26-27 and that John sees in Revelation 20 as the old heaven and earth pass away. What a wonderful hope this window shows us: that there will be a “new heaven and new earth, for the former things are passed away,” the curse is no longer on our home, and we, the church, will live for eternity with Christ.

The last curtain to be torn is that of the graves of the saints. When Jesus rose, the graves were torn open and many of the saints came out. Of course, this is the wonderful dawn of hope over death that Isaiah prophecies in Isaiah 25:6-9:

6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. ⁷  And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. ⁸  He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. ⁹  It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. (Isaiah 25:6–9, ESV)

Paul refers to it again in 1 Corinthians 15:55-57, and David rejoices in Psalm 16: 9-10 that “his flesh dwells secure” because God will not abandon him to the grave. This is the window of hope that allows us see to the other side, that death will not be our end, but only our doorway to eternal life with Jesus.

Praise the Lord for these open curtains in the closing curtain of Christ’s first incarnation. As the writer of Hebrews has said in chapter 6, Christ, our forerunner (a small ship bearing an anchor into the harbor for the larger ship), has gone being the veil and made our salvation secure, but he does not leave us blindly looking to the future. When he went behind it, He tore it in two, and now, with the glorious light of the new day, we behold all things made new: new fellowship with our God, new heavens and new earth, and new life with Christ for ever. The awe and wonder of these scenes cause the coffee and the space heater to grow pale in worth this morning. O what glory awaits us, Saints!