From the 1920s right up to the 50s was a sort of “golden age” of novelty buildings. People built gas stations in the shape of dinosaurs, and diners inside giant teapots, and motels in oversized concrete teepees. If you want to see a few of the survivors, drive across the state on Route 30. Up above Ligonier, there’s a restaurant shaped like a paddle-wheel steamer, perched like Noah’s Ark on the mountainside. Out east, there’s a house in the form of a thirty-foot boot. Sometimes the connection between form and function is a little hard to figure out. I mean, do dinosaurs need gas? Is gas made from dinosaurs? I don’t get that one. But sometimes it’s obvious. Where there’s a giant ice cream cone, there’s bound to be ice cream. These places weren’t just unique. The building itself told you something about what was supposed to go on there.
Not any more. Take away the signs, take away the corporate logos, and you’d be hard pressed to tell a steakhouse from a warehouse from a Wal-Mart. One steel and concrete box is just like another. Even churches. A few years ago, Sarah and I got lost trying to visit her cousin’s church in New Jersey. We drove right past it at least three times, but didn’t notice it. I thought it was a mall. Practical? Yes. But honestly, pretty dull.
In some ways, the Tabernacle, this portable temple that Moses built, has more in common with those teapot diners than it does with modern, steel-box churches. It wasn’t just some old tent, a handy place to keep the Ark of the Covenant when it rained. It symbolized the presence of God with his people. Everything about it – its shape, its decoration, the arrangement of the altar and lampstand and all of the bits and pieces – was dictated by God and intended by him to serve as a sign to Israel. It was a kind of three-dimensional map of salvation. And more importantly for us, everything about it pointed to the ultimate salvation of all the people of God, through his Son Jesus Christ.
The best way to explain what I mean by that is to walk you through the Tabernacle itself, as if you had been there. So what I want you to do right now is to put this church out of your mind – some of you did that 20 minutes ago – and try to imagine that you’re out there in the desert south of Beersheba, at the center of a tent city of half a million people, standing before the dwelling place of God on earth, the Tabernacle, built by Moses. What do you see?
Well, at first, not much, beyond a wall of white linen, flapping softly in the breeze. Thick linen curtains hang by sterling silver hooks from polished wooden poles, a solid barricade 150 feet long by 75 feet wide. There are no windows. There’s no back door. No hint of what might be going on inside, apart from the shuffling of feet and the smoke drifting slowly downwind. As you make your way around to the east side, you see the only way in: a gap in the wall, covered by a swirling tapestry of blue and purple and scarlet.
Now, we have to do a little more imagining here, because if we don’t, this is as far as almost all of you are going to get. You see, no one goes through that entrance unless he’s a born Israelite, a blood descendant of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. That’s just the way it works. So for our purposes, let’s say you are, and push that curtain aside, stepping into the dust of the inner courtyard.
The first thing you see, about twenty yards in, is a crowd of priests, dressed in their turbans and robes, with their backs toward you. In front of them, you see where the smoke was coming from. It’s an oversized bronze table, and it smells of roasted grain and overcooked meat. The grain offering is someone’s way of saying thanks, a sign of gratitude for what the Lord has done. There’s a chance that the meat is as well. But more likely it’s a sin offering, a sign of guilt.
The priest, with his arms raised to heaven, shouts out to the Lord, asking him to accept the blood of this animal in atonement – that is, in payment – for sin. It may be that he’s praying for one man’s sin in particular. It may be that he’s praying for the sins of the nation of Israel. But it also may be that he’s praying for his own sins. You see, until he makes that offering, that priest can’t go a step further. No one can stand in the presence of God with his sins still upon his head.
The next thing to catch your eye, off in the middle distance, through the haze of the altar smoke, is the glint of polished bronze. It’s an enormous bowl of water. Every so often, a priest bends over it, splashing water on his arms and legs and face, scrubbing and praying at the same time. They have to be pure to enter into the presence of God.
Beyond the bronze basin you see a large rectangular tent, covered with red leather and supported by gold poles. This is the Tent of Meeting itself. Unless you’re a priest, this is as far as you go. Again, there are no windows. The only light inside, in the Holy Place, comes from the menorah, the gold lampstand with its seven lamps. On the right is a gold-plated table, with twelve loaves of bread on it. This is the showbread. The priests eat it as a reminder that God himself is the source of Israel’s food, and everything she has. Near the center of the tent stands another altar, much smaller than the one outside. This is where the priests burn incense. The smoke symbolizes the prayers of Israel going up to God.
On the far wall, in the flickering light, you can just make out a dark veil. Embroidered on it are six-winged angels, cherubim. Behind it is the Holy of Holies, the room that contains the Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of the presence of God with Israel. There, above the ark, on the mercy seat, is where Moses spoke with God. There, once a year, the high priest entered, to pray for forgiveness for the sins of Israel. But you never see it. The veil is closed.
That’s the tabernacle. Like I said, it’s not just any tent. It wasn’t built that way to be pretty, or to impress people. It was built that way, by God’s command, to send a message – really, a few important messages.
The first is this: There’s only one way to the Lord. That was physically true in the Tabernacle, but it’s also spiritually true. Jesus warned that the path to eternal life is narrow. And he was absolutely adamant that he is that path. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” he said. “No one comes to the Father, except by me.” (Jn. 14:6)
And by the way: while that path may be narrow, it’s open to anyone. In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female. (Gal. 3:28)
The second message is that blood is required. The priest had to make sacrifices for his own sin before he could even set foot in the Holy Place. The Bible is very clear about this. All have sinned. The result of our sin is death – physical death, and spiritual death. Blood is life. Consequently, as it says in Hebrews, there is no remission of sin without the shedding of blood.
If that’s true, what hope do we have of standing in the presence of God? Only Christ. “In him,” it says in Ephesians 2:7, “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.
The third message sent by God in the design of the Tabernacle is that purity is required. The priests washed with water before going into the presence of God. And you? “You,” it says in 1 Cor. 6:11, “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
The fourth message here is that in the darkness, there’s only one sure source of light. That seven-branched lampstand illuminated the Holy Place and pointed the way toward the Holy of Holies. Likewise, the Bible describes itself as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. In the book of Revelation, the Holy Spirit is actually symbolized by a menorah like this one. And Jesus himself said, “I am the Light of the World.”
It’s easy to get lost in the darkness when we wander away from the light. And despite what you’ve been told, there is no other source. We see only by the light of the one who is light, through his Word, and by his Spirit.
The fifth message we get from the design of the Tabernacle here is that you have to remember where you came from. The showbread on the table in the Holy Place, was a symbol of life. It was a reminder that the lives of God’s people were in his hand, and that he would supply their need, physically and spiritually. And what does Christ say to us? “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry.” (Jn. 6:35)
Which brings us to the veil. The message that it sends is simple, and terrifying: Sinful people cannot see the Lord. Period. So long as sin reigned, so long as the old law of disobedience and death followed its course, that veil stood as firm as a brick wall. But you remember what happened when Jesus died, don’t you? “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice,” it says in Matthew 27:50, “he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom…”
So long as our sins remain on our heads, none of the rest of this mattered. So long as we try to make our own way, to be good enough, that veil blocks our way. But when we quit relying on ourselves, and put our trust instead in the crucified Son of God, when we give our hearts to him and turn our lives over to him, the veil is ripped in two. The old separation is no more, and we’re ushered into the presence of the Father.
The Tabernacle wasn’t just a practical rain shelter for the Ark of the Covenant. It was a three-dimensional promise, pointing to his plan for the salvation of his people – a plan that was fulfilled, in the end, by Christ.
“When Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come,” it says in Hebrews 9:11, “then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands…) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, this securing an eternal redemption.” Amen.
