Hebrews 10:19-22 “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”

Have you ever toured the White House? I once went as a chaperone for my daughter’s class. It was a bit of a disappointment. You get to walk through some hallways, a dining room, and a room for receiving guests. Then you are back out the door–no trip to the Oval Office; no peak at the living quarters or the Lincoln bedroom. These are exclusive locations limited to the President’s family, staff, special guests and visiting dignitaries.

Have you ever watched the Master’s Golf Tournament on television? In order to play on the course, you either have to be a professional golfer invited to the tournament, or one of only 300 members of the club who can join only by special invitation and pay tens of thousands of dollars in dues to belong. Otherwise, you are out of luck. It’s an exclusive place.

Perhaps no place on earth was ever as exclusive as the innermost room in the temple in Jerusalem, the “Holy of holies” or “Most Holy Place.” Three hundred and sixty-four days a year no one was in that room but God. It was his throne room on earth, the place where he promised to be present with the nation of Israel to hear their prayers and bless them. No one had the idea that the Lord was somehow contained by that room, or confined to that room. Everyone understood that God filled the universe. Still, he had chosen this perfect thirty-foot cube as the place where his grace and power would be present for Israel.

The remaining one day in the year the High Priest entered that room to sprinkle the blood of sacrifices on the ark of the covenant–first for himself, then for the people. He was the only one who could do this. The rest of the world’s population was required to stay on the other side of the curtain that separated this room from the rest of the temple.

This was intended as an elaborate and extended object lesson. It teaches us that our sins disqualify us to be in God’s presence. The man who lives in the White House is no better than I am. Neither are the members of Augusta National Golf Club. But the difference between me and the God who lived in the Most Holy Place is so great that it defies illustration.

“Who may stand in God’s holy place?” David once asked in a psalm. “He who has clean hands and a pure heart” he answers. But our hands are filthy, and not just because of all the germy surfaces we touch. These hands hit and hurt when they should help and heal. They take and keep when they should give and share. They reach and grasp for what they should reject and avoid. And that’s just the hands. The heart? That is polluted with desires that would mingle our spiritual sewage and toxic waste with God’s pristine and perfect stream of gifts and blessings. The heart prefers the sewage.

Until we have some grasp of the extent of the sin that disqualifies us from God’s presence at all, we won’t appreciate the privilege Jesus our Great High Priest has given: “confidence to enter the Most Holy Place.”  

The Most Holy Place in the Jerusalem temple, where God lived with his people and blessed them, ceased to exist when that temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. It has never been rebuilt. But that is not a problem.

Why find God in a building, a little room, sort of an outpost for God’s presence, when Jesus has given us direct access to the throne room in heaven? That is the real “Most Holy Place.” We enter this throne room in spirit. By faith we find everything the Jewish high priests found in the temple and more. We stand in the presence of the one and only God. He loves us as his very own people. He promises to answer every request we make. He empowers us to live meaningful lives full of value and purpose. He transforms even our deaths into a doorway to life that never ends.

Like the high priests of old, we come into the Most Holy Place carrying the blood of a sacrifice. But it is not a goat that died to get us in. It is the blood of Jesus himself. His death pays for the sins that should otherwise exclude us.

Like the priests of old we step through a curtain separating our world from God’s. But it is not made of cloth. It is Jesus’ own body, God made flesh, where our two worlds meet. And in Jesus this “curtain” no longer emphasizes separation, but entrance. He is the way through, the way in. He gives us access to the most exclusive place and privileges in the universe.