About CFC
Nothing is too small.
By Mandi Macdonald
7th February 2012 | Category: Join the Journey 2012
Key Verse
“Hang the curtain from the clasps and place the ark of the Testimony behind the curtain. The curtain will separate the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place.”
Main Content
Central Truth – God is interested in the details.
When I’m cooking I use measurements like ‘some’ and ‘a bit’, rather than grams or ounces. Even more frustrating for those around me is my ‘there, or there about’ approach to time keeping. I like to dream about the big picture but I lose interest in the specific steps needed to make the dream a reality. So I find it curious that God should have given such lengthy and precise instructions about the measurements, materials, decor and furnishing of the tabernacle.
Commentators are able to draw out the rich symbolism of these details, and how they relate to the life, death, resurrection and return of Jesus. For me the most precious and exciting of these symbols is that of the curtain that surrounded the Ark of the Covenant in the Most Holy Place, the curtain through which only the high priest, and never the people, could pass. This curtain was replicated in all subsequent temples and as Jesus died it tore in two, signifying the beginning of a new relationship between man and God, available to everyone.
On the other side of the curtain
The wonderful Leonard Cohen, now in his late 70’s, has just released a new album that is candid about his stage of life. The lyrics of one song anticipate ‘going home behind the curtain’. I’m very glad that I don’t have to wait until some future time to experience God’s presence. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, I live, here and now, on the other side of that ripped curtain.
While I love all their symbolism, what I appreciate most about these chapters in Exodus is the fact that God bothered to give these instructions, because it tells me that God is interested in the details.
I recently had the opportunity to look at Jupiter through a very powerful telescope. What I had only seen before as a pin point of light in the night sky, I was able to see in detail and it was beautiful – a very delicate shade of orange wrapped in frilly bands of white cloud. For whose benefit did God make Jupiter so pretty? Surely not for us since we’ve only recently discovered what it looks like; surely for His own pleasure because he is interested in the detail of His universe.
He cares
During a recent wakeful night when at 4am my mind was churning over things that seemed big to me, although small in the grand scheme of things – the builder’s bill, the car tax, my daughter still writing her numbers back to front - I was comforted by the fact that God, who cares about the design of countless billions of stars, who was also very particular about the colour and pattern of His curtains, is interested in the detail of my life - and none of those details is too small for Him to notice.
Consider:
Take time to look up and remember that God, who is interested in the details, knows how many stars there are in the sky, how many hairs there are on your head and what concerns you have in your heart.
Mandi Macdonald
