The Tearing of the Temple Curtain

Lately I have been thinking about the tearing of the temple curtain at Jesus' crucifixion.  In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, at the moment Jesus cries with a loud voice and breathes his last breath, the curtain of the temple is torn in two.  It is torn "from top to bottom" (Matt. 27:51, Mark 15:38), suggesting that God tears it.  In Luke's Gospel, the curtain is torn in two before Jesus cries with a loud voice "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46) and before he breathes his last breath.  Luke mentions the tearing of the curtain in the same sentence as a description of darkness covering the land.  John's Gospel does not mention the tearing of the temple curtain. 

Growing up, the way I understood the tearing of the curtain was that, as soon as Jesus died, God split the curtain in two, showing that God and humanity are no longer separated.  The curtain in the temple enclosed the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant, which signified God's presence, was once placed; only the high priest could enter that space once a year. With the curtain split, and with Jesus' death, now all people could have direct access to God.

When writer Peter Rollins spoke at ESR this week, he gave his interpretation of the curtain's split.  For him, the curtain represents a prohibition, whose very presence creates in us a desire for something to give us fulfillment.  But the things we desire lead to our death, as we learn from Adam and Eve.  Thus, Jesus' death and the split curtain reveal emptiness; God is not in the Holy of Holies, as we believed.  Instead, God is on the cross.  Looking into an empty temple directs our eyes back to the cross, which can fill us with remorse over our sin of killing an innocent man, our crucifying God, a sin we continue whenever we scapegoat other people, whenever we condemn strangers.

Here is a third interpretation of the torn veil.  The first place in the Bible in which clothing is torn is in Genesis 37.  Joseph's brothers are so jealous of him that they strip him of the robe his father Jacob had given him as a gift, throw him in a pit, and then sell him to a caravan of Ishmaelites.  When his brother Reuben looks in the pit and finds Joseph missing, he tears his clothes (Gen. 37:29).  The brothers then kill a goat and dip Joseph's robe in its blood, and show the robe to their father, Jacob.  When Jacob sees the robe, he tears his garments and mourns (37:34).

Just as he thinks Joseph was torn to pieces by a wild animal, Jacob tears his garments to pieces.  Tearing one's clothes thus signified grief; in this case, mourning over a loved one's violent, undeserved death.  Because the curtain of the temple clothed the presence of God, the tearing of the curtain can be understood as God mourning the death of God's son Jesus who, like Joseph, was stripped of his clothes.  Unlike Joseph, though, Jesus was killed.  Jesus' death so grieved God that, like Jacob, God tore God's garments and wept.