“You are to construct the tabernacle itself with ten curtains. You must make them of finely spun linen, and blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, with a design of cherubim worked into them.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When Washington, D.C. was designed, the goal was to create a capital city that would make a foreign visitor feel a sense of awe at the power of the nation whose capital looked like this. How a space looks affects both its function and its feel. If that weren’t the case, we wouldn’t have several whole television networks dedicated to home design and repair. If a space isn’t designed with its purpose in mind, we won’t ever quite feel comfortable doing whatever it is the space is for in it. God’s directions for the building the tabernacle and later the temple are almost mind-numbingly specific. Yet it only makes sense that there’s a reason for the specificity. Let’s talk about the tabernacle itself and what to think about this chapter that doesn’t make for very exciting reading.

I read and reread this chapter numerous times, but try as I might, I couldn’t find a good way to break it up into smaller units. This whole chapter needs to be read all at once. This is probably the largest single block of text I’ve ever tackled that wasn’t a sermon. But in spite of the length, if you go and read it all (and you should go and read it all), it’s all about one thing. God is giving Moses the step-by-step directions he needed for constructing the primary place where worship of Him would be happening for the Israelites.

From start to finish, what we find here is a sufficiently detailed set of instructions that we could build a copy of the tabernacle today. And while our version wouldn’t look exactly like theirs, it would be awfully close. For all the repetition of building this or that part on one side and then building the same thing on the other side, we can get a pretty good mental image of what walking into this space might have looked and felt like.

God was doing this intentionally. He wanted it to look a certain way. If nothing else, we see this in the once again repeated refrain that Moses is to direct the people in making all of this “according to the plan for it that you have been shown on the mountain.” When God called him to come up the mountain, one of the reasons was so that he could lead the people in building this structure.

Walking into this space would have been awe inspiring. Everywhere you looked, everything was covered in gold. The opulence would have been overwhelming. The light from the lampstand would have been reflected and magnified many times over. The inner and outer rooms would have left the worshiper feeling like he was drawing ever closer to the presence of God which was precisely the goal. The whole purpose of this space was to leave the worshiper marveling in awe and wonder at the God for whom this space was designed. If the space was this grand, the God in whose honor it was built must have been many times more so.

My own church is working toward building a new building. It’s not going to look much like this one at all, but it is going to be our new space for worship. In this, how it looks is really going to matter. In a conversation with our project lead the other day, I made sure to express how important it was that what would otherwise just be a large, empty room feel like a space for worship. I told him very clearly and watched him make a note of this that when people walked into the room, their first thought needed to be, “This is a sanctuary.” They need to feel like they are walking into a place designed with worship in mind. Everything about it should direct their thoughts toward a God who is good and glorious and worthy of worship. We aren’t going to mirror the opulence of the tabernacle by any stretch, but we are going to make sure it communicates worship by design.

Thinking about the tabernacle and more modern spaces of worship, though, there is one difference that should not be overlooked. I talked a second ago about the worshiper entering the space and marveling at God because of it. Worshiper was in the singular on purpose. I also said “he.” That was on purpose too. While many worshipers could enter the courtyard of the tabernacle, only the priests ever actually entered the tabernacle sanctuary that is being described in this chapter. And only the high priest ever entered the inner sanctuary where God’s presence actually appeared that was separated from the rest of the outer sanctuary by a curtain, and even that only happened once a year.

By contrast, when we build our new space for worship, everyone will be welcome to be in there. There won’t be any restrictions for who can or can’t come in. There won’t be any attire requirements (other than actually wearing clothes…we’ll probably be pretty strict on that one). It doesn’t matter if someone is a follower of Jesus or not. In fact, we’ll be happy to have as many people who don’t follow Jesus in the room as often as we can.

The difference here is for a couple of reasons. The first is that engaging with God’s presence isn’t something that is restricted to a single place like it was for Israel. We will be no more in God’s presence when we are gathered together in that room than we will be when we are somewhere else. God’s presence dwells in all of His followers through the Holy Spirit. He is where we are. Our having a space for worship isn’t about being able to get into His presence in a way we can’t otherwise experience. It is about having a space where we can gather and worship as a community.

The second reason for the difference is that we are no longer operating under the restrictions of the old covenant. That covenant was fulfilled and replaced by the new covenant established by Jesus’ sacrificial death and atoning resurrection. Under the new covenant, all of the layers of protection keeping people from getting too close to God lest they incur His wrath because of their sinfulness are gone. Jesus dealt with all of the sin of humanity on the cross. Upon His death, Matthew tells us that the huge veil that separated the holy place from the outer sanctuary was torn into from top to bottom signaling the end of the separation our sin demanded.

Now we can have access to God anywhere and anytime we like through Jesus. He is our way to get to God. He is your way to get to God. There isn’t any other way. And before you think that sounds restrictive, this way is open to everybody, and it’s guaranteed to get you there. You don’t need a particular place to go to connect with God. You can do it through Jesus whenever or wherever you please. The only real question is whether or not you will. You have access the Israelites couldn’t have imagined. Use it.

And before we go, here’s a virtual depiction of the tabernacle to give you a bit better a sense of what it might have looked like. As a matter of fact, I’m going to include two videos. These will treat the chapter in reverse order starting with the tabernacle itself which gets described in the second part of the chapter, and then moving to the covering that gets described in the first part of the chapter. Reversing the sections like this helps us visualize the whole thing from the inside out a bit more easily. Enjoy your Wednesday.