Behind the Curtain

 I woke up this morning thinking about The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis' masterpiece about 3 children who discover a secret door in the back of a wardrobe, and thereby enter a magical fantasy world.  And then I started thinking about The Wizard of Oz and another of my favorite books, The Secret Garden.

In all three of these wonderful stories, people -- children, that is, --- discover another world, a secret place of wonder, magic in a sense, and healing.  And then I realized the universal appeal of these stories.

All of us have a secret world behind the door of our everyday world --- a place behind the curtain of reality if you will.  There is a door in the far back of our minds beyond which only we can enter, unless in rare instances, we open the door and invite one or two others into our secret place.

In the Old Testament, David was given the pattern of the Temple that Solomon built.  The Temple was on a high and holy hill, to which all nations of the world were invited and welcomed (Is.2).  There was a court of the Gentiles, where all were welcomed, and beyond that, an inner court where only the Jews could enter.  This was their gathering place for sacrifice, praise, and worship.  The innermost court, the tabernacle (or Tent of Meeting), was reserved for the priests and it was separated from the inner court by a heavy curtain.  When the priests entered the Tent of Meeting, they washed with water before entering.

It occurred to me that at the Last Supper, knowing that the curtain to the Tent of Meeting would be torn in half the next day, Jesus washed His disciples with water and then said to them, "I no longer call you servants but now friends, because a servant does not know what his master is doing."  He was pulling back the curtain to His own rich interior life and inviting them in -- into His secret and personal relationship with the Father, into His own love for mankind, into the joy and peace of eternal life!  

If we remember what lay behind the secret door of our three stories, we find places of wonder, of discovery, of slow and certain healing, of peace, courage, strength, knowledge, and wisdom. ("If only I had a brain!" says the scarecrow.) 

 Jesus has invited each one of us into His own secret garden, behind the door, behind the curtain of our everyday lives.  It is a place of wonder, of mystery unfolded, of health, of wisdom and knowledge.  I often yearn to pull back the curtain of my own secret garden and invite others in, but it is often impossible to do so.  The "realities" of this world are more captivating to many than what lies beyond the curtain.  

In His death, Jesus was able to enter the Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting, with His Father, and He now invites us to enter with Him.  Washed, baptized into His death, we are "born again" into new men and women, born no longer of flesh but now of spirit.  We are able to see, comprehend, and enjoy spiritual realities -- the ones that lie just behind the curtain of our everyday lives. 

"If only I had a brain!"  "If only I had a heart!"  "If only I had courage!"  "If only I could find my way home!"  We've all been looking in the wrong place!  Jesus opens to us the door through the wardrobe, behind the curtain, and into the secret garden wherein lies everything we seek!