Hope to Hallelujah

This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God's inner sanctuary. Hebrews 6:19 (NLT)

That tornado was something! It ripped through that Kansas farm uprooting everything in its path and carrying away a young girl helplessly caught up in its vortex of swirling mayhem. Her fear must have been consuming.

I know a little something about consuming fear.

I would imagine you might too.

You may have guessed it already, but the scene I described above is from my favorite movie when I was younger – The Wizard of Oz. I had no idea as a kid how relatable to the real world the themes in this make-believe world were!

Dorothy, the young girl carried away by the twister, was helpless to stop what was happening from happening. Once she arrived in Oz, she grew hopeless as she encountered challenge after arduous challenge (remember the flying monkeys !) trying to get back home to Uncle Henry and Auntie Em.

Finally, after she and her life-lessons friends arrive in Emerald City, they are giddy with certainty that their hope in the Wizard's ability to grant them what they each desired is about to be realized. Only it wasn't.

The Wizard, as it turns out, is just an ordinary man, albeit a conman, hiding behind a curtain to conceal his true identity.

All hope is lost for Dorothy and friends because of who was actually behind that curtain.

That's not true for us! Our hope is actually anchored to the One behind the curtain (Hebrews 6:19).

Scripture tells us that once a year the high priest would go behind the curtain (veil) in the tabernacle and enter into the Holy of Holies to make atonement for his own sin and those of his people. The Ark of the Covenant was kept there. It was the innermost and most sacred area of the wilderness temple (Moses) as well as the Jerusalem temple (Solomon).

Why is this so important to us now?

The Holy of Holies is where the presence of God dwelt. Only the high priest could enter there because of his position. The veil separating the Holy of Holies (where God dwelt) from the outer court (where man dwelt) signified the separation of man from God because of sin.

At the very moment Jesus died on Calvary the veil in the tabernacle was torn in two from top to bottom (Matthew 27:50-51), thus signifying the restoration of man to God through Jesus Christ our Great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14).

Jesus did once and for all what the high priest had to do yearly – sacrificed for our sins. He was the lamb without spot or blemish (1 Peter 1:19). The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). Because He is God's lamb, His sacrifice provides eternal redemption and forgiveness for all who believe in Him. The high priests were just as blemished and spotted as you and I. Their sacrifices followed the law. Jesus' sacrifice fulfilled it.

When we profess our belief in Jesus Christ, we anchor our hope to the One who stands in the presence of the Holy of Holies and intercedes for us daily, not yearly.

Jesus went behind the curtain into God's inner sanctuary and sacrificed Himself. Because our hope is anchored to Him, and Him alone, we too go beyond the curtain into God's inner sanctuary.

This "strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls" –our hope – not only "leads us through the curtain into God's inner sanctuary", it leads us in life as we continue to trust God in all the things that scare us, worry us, and seem likely to devour us. Because the One to whom our hope is anchored is constant and unchanging, our hope itself is constant and unchanging.

It is ours even when the world seems to be spinning madly out of control, and tragedy and devastation are happening in our own back yard. It is ours when grief and anxiety wrap their tentacles around us, gripping us to the point of difficulty breathing. It is ours in the darkness where we may feel abandoned or betrayed. This constant unchanging hope is ours as the evil that besieges us inches closer and closer to our own front door.

It is ours until Jesus returns.

Oh friends, on that day our hope becomes a hallelujah!

Dorothy and her yellow brick road companions were told not to pay any attention to the man behind the curtain.

We musn't heed that directive. We should very much pay attention to the One behind the curtain. And we should live our lives as people who have been invited, through the blood of Jesus Christ, beyond the veil into the very presence of God.

Tell your friends.