The Night the Wall Came Down

Do you remember where you were the night the wall came down? I was at home in the first flat my wife and I had after getting married. I watched the news in disbelief as the Berlin wall crumbled and fell with joyous East German’s clambering over it to celebrate freedom.

Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s the ‘cold war’ was rarely off the news. Phrases like, ‘mutually assured destruction’ were well known and there was even the occasional TV advert about what to do in the event of a nuclear war! Somehow I remember thinking hiding behind the couch wouldn’t quite do it. Then on this November night in 1989 the wall fell, the cold war thawed out and a reasonably peaceful revolution swept Eastern Europe consigning European communism to the dustbin of history.

Watching the 20th anniversary coverage of this momentous event recently made me think of the night another wall was torn down. It was a night two thousand or so years ago and there was no TV to cover it, but on a hill as Jesus hung on a cross and bled and died to pay the price for the sins of his people and to bear the punishment for that sin a wall was torn down.

Across town in the temple there was a great wall of curtain. That sounds silly doesn’t it; a wall of curtain! But it was as thick as the span of a man’s hand and it hung in the temple separating the ‘holies of holies’ off from the rest of temple. Only one man could ever go beyond this curtain into the presence of God and he was the High Priest and he could only go beyond it into the presence of God once per year. It was like a big no entry sign; a big keep out sign. Sinful men and women separated from a holy God. But as Jesus died on the cross for sin; at the moment of his death, this wall of curtain was supernaturally torn down from top to bottom and the way into the presence of God open.

Jesus death on the cross smashed the wall of sin that separates us from a holy God and makes it possible that sinful people like us might have a relationship with the awesome God of the universe. Since then countless millions from every nation on the planet have celebrated the freedom that comes from faith in Christ.

About 18 months before the Berlin wall came down God convicted me of my sin. God showed me that going my own way would lead to my spending forever in hell. He showed me that ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’. He showed me that Jesus paid a price I could never pay. I remember praying to him and asking him to forgive me; to come into my life and to be my Lord and Saviour. And he smashed the wall of sin forever. I thank God for the night the wall came down.

Maybe you would like to use the comments section to tell of the night (or day) that the wall came down in your life.