Access Granted: How Close God Really Is

Access Granted: How Close God Really Is
There is a list. You may not call it that, but you know it exists. It is the invisible inventory of requirements that many of us carry around, the mental checklist of things we must get right before we can truly approach God. The right denomination. The right method of baptism. The right day of worship. The right theological position on any number of contested questions. The list is long, and it has been around for a very long time.

But what if the list was never the point? What if everything the list represented has already been dealt with, once and for all?

The Curtain and What It Meant
To understand what we have been given, it helps to understand what once stood between humanity and God. In the ancient temple, the presence of God was said to dwell in a chamber called the Holy of Holies. This sacred space was separated from the rest of the world by an enormous curtain, a veil woven so tightly that tradition holds two horses pulling in opposite directions could not tear it apart. It stood sixty feet high. It was not a symbolic barrier. It was a real one.

Only one person could pass through that curtain: the high priest. And even he could only enter once a year, on the Day of Atonement, after an extensive season of ceremonial preparation. He carried the blood of a sacrificed animal and the weight of an entire people's need for reconciliation with God. Tradition even tells us that a rope was tied to his leg, so that if something went wrong in that holy space, his body could be retrieved without anyone else having to enter. The consequences of getting it wrong were grave. The access was restricted, mediated, and fragile.

This was the world into which Jesus arrived.

The Moment Everything Changed
The Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the same stunning detail at the moment of Jesus' death. The curtain in the temple tore. Not from the bottom up, as it would have if human hands had done it. From top to bottom. A sixty-foot curtain, woven beyond human strength to destroy, split open in an instant.

The direction matters. Top to bottom tells us that no human being caused this. What had been closed was opened by something beyond human capability. The barrier between all of humanity and the presence of God was removed in a single, irreversible moment.

The book of Hebrews takes this image even further, describing the torn veil as now being the flesh of Christ himself. The thing that once kept us out has become the one who welcomes us in. And what we are welcomed into is not a courtroom of condemnation or a hall of judgment. We are welcomed, boldly and confidently, into what Hebrews describes as a throne of grace, where mercy is available to all who come (Hebrews 4:16).

Paresia: The Right to Speak
The Greek word used in this context is paresia. In the Greco-Roman world, it described the right of a citizen to stand in a public square and speak freely. Once you had the floor, no one could silence you. You had the right to say what you came to say.

This is the word used to describe our access to God. Not timid, apologetic, hoping-we-got-the-list-right access. Bold, confident, citizen-level access. The kind of access where you can say exactly what is on your heart, exactly what is weighing on your mind, and know that you will not be turned away.

This is the access that Jesus purchased. Not access for the spiritually elite. Not access for those who have every theological question answered correctly. Access for everyone, because the price has already been paid.

As Close as Your Next Breath
There is an ancient contemplative tradition that carries this truth even deeper. In the Hebrew language, the name of God is represented by four consonants: YHWH. Because ancient Hebrew contained no written vowels, some early desert monastics came to believe that this name was not a word to be spoken but a sound to be breathed. The inhale. The exhale. The very rhythm of human life, they believed, was a continuous, unconscious utterance of the name of God.

Under this understanding, the first sound a person makes when they are born is the name of God. The last breath they draw before death is the name of God. Every moment in between is an unbroken conversation with the divine, whether we are aware of it or not.

This is how close the access is. Not behind a curtain. Not mediated through a priest. Not contingent on getting the list exactly right. As close as the breath in your lungs right now.

Breathing With Intention
What this tradition gave rise to is the practice of breath prayer, the simple, powerful discipline of adding intention to what we are already doing. With every inhale, we draw in what we need from God. With every exhale, we release what is keeping us from him.

Inhale peace. Exhale anxiety. Inhale forgiveness. Exhale the grudge that has become a prison. Inhale grace. Exhale the fear that you are somehow not enough. Inhale truth. Exhale the lies that have told you God is far away and hard to reach.

The beauty of breath prayer is that it continues even when your conscious mind moves on to other things. The intention set in the morning carries through every breath of the day. And with every inhale comes a replacement for what is released. What comes in sustains life. What goes out is what has been slowly diminishing it.

The List Is Just a Curtain
Every item on the list, every theological argument, every denominational distinction used as a barrier, is simply another curtain. And curtains have already been dealt with. The access has been granted. The veil has been torn. The high priest has entered on our behalf, not with the blood of animals, but with his own.

Whatever has made you feel like God is distant, whatever has made you feel like your prayers bounce off the ceiling, whatever has told you that you got something wrong and now the door is closed to you, that is the curtain talking.

The curtain is gone.

Breathe.