under the Big Top!

When I was in second grade my father took myself and my sister out of school one day to join our Mom and baby sister and go to the circus!!  Just getting out of school for a day was exciting in itself...but going to the Circus was a dream.  I was very familiar with the story of Dumbo and had clear images of the tent and the elephants and the clowns in my mind.  The name of the circus was "Christiani Brothers" and I don't know how I can still remember that except the day was so big in my experience to that point.  I remember walking up to the circus and seeing the actual tent.  It was enormous and we had to wait for a while to go in.  My imagination raced to consider all the excitement I was about to witness.  Just the anticipation was thrilling.  When we finally entered I was not disappointed as the three rings were in place, trapeze wires were strung above and the smell of animals mixed with cigarettes and cotton candy to tantalize me even more.  It was a great day!  The circus tent reminds me of the Tabernacle we have been reading about in the book of Exodus.  Imagine being part of the people of Israel.  God had given very specific and elaborate instructions for constructing His tent of worship.  These instructions called for the people to provide from their own possessions a lot of expensive goods: fabrics, gems, lumber, gold and for many skilled craftsman and artisans to contribute labor to fashion the Tabernacle with its furnishings, coverings and priestly garments.  But when all was finished the same people who had provided all the goods and labor to make the great tent could not go in.  The closest they could get was the gate that led inside.  At the gate they would give their plant and animal offerings to priests for sacrifice and then they would walk away.  How they must have wondered what the great tent was like on the inside!  Now that Jesus has paid for our sins with His own blood, as the perfect sacrifice, we can enter through the gate and behold the beauty of the inside of the tent.  We can go anywhere in the tent, including right up to the immediate presence of the Lord...with boldness.  I would have been so disappointed long ago if the closest I could get to the Circus was the outside of the tent.  We were not meant to live only in our imagination...but in the reality of experience and Jesus holds the ticket for all to enter!

Hebrews 9:²³ That is why the Tabernacle and everything in it, which were copies of things in heaven, had to be purified by the blood of animals. But the real things in heaven had to be purified with far better sacrifices than the blood of animals.

²⁴ For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven. He entered into heaven itself to appear now before God on our behalf. ²⁵ And he did not enter heaven to offer himself again and again, like the high priest here on earth who enters the Most Holy Place year after year with the blood of an animal.

Hebrews 10:¹⁹ And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven's Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. ²⁰ By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.

blessings,

Rob Smith