King Solomon built a magnificent temple on Mt Moriah - the temple mount, in Jerusalem.

At the heart of the temple was the Holy of Holies - a place so special nobody was allowed in except the high priest, and he was only allowed in on one day each year. In there his primary duty was to sprinkle blood of spotless sacrificial animals on the mercy seat. The mercy seat was the lid of the ark of the covenant. In Solomon's temple this Holy of Holies was like fairyland. For a start it contained giant gold plated models of angels (cherubim) about two and a half meters tall. More importantly there was a big rock sticking up from the bedrock which had been shaped to make a bed for the ark of the covenant. This gold plated ark had golden cherubim on it with wings stretched out across the so-called mercy seat. This mercy seat was the place from which the glory of God (the shekinah light) shone forth and the image and voice of God appeared. Entry to the Holy of Holies was spectacular with glittering gold and angels and a sense of God's presence in all directions. This temple was destroyed by the Babylonians.

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Later King Herod built a second temple in the same place. In his temple he made the Holy of Holies with walls of solid rock. The Holy of Holies had a giant curtain across its entrance. The curtain was approximately 27 meters high and 8 meters wide. 

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What does this have to do with Easter?

It is this. This Holy of Holies in Herod's temple was completely empty. There was no ark. There was no shekinah light. There were no gold plated anythings. The only thing at all was the rock which formed a bed for the ark in the old days. The only light was the light emitted by embers carried by the high priest. It was cold, gloomy and as uninspiring as a tomb. On the one day the high priest entered he could not sprinkle blood on the mercy seat because there wasn't one. What was he to do? This was a dilemma. There was only one option - to sprinkle blood on the rock bed (called the foundation rock) where the ark of the covenant once rested. 

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When Jesus had been hanging on the cross for about three hours, it was time for priests to start killing passover lambs in very large numbers, but darkness spread across the land and a split appeared in the centre of the curtain across the entrance to the Holy of Holies. Three hours later, Jesus breathed his last. There was an earthquake, the temple curtain split from top to bottom and the light of the day returned, illuminating the interior of the Holy of Holies.

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Let me put it this way. The curtain split revealing a replica of a rock tomb from which the precious body from which the shekinah light shone forth (ark of the covenant) and the two attendant angels had vanished. It was empty except for the rock bed soaked in stale blood of an innocent sacrifice. 

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Three days later women seeking to anoint the body of Jesus looked into his tomb. What did they see but a blood soaked rock bed in an empty rock hewn tomb. The person supposed to be lying on the rock bed (from whom the glory of God had been revealed) was gone.

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