When Jesus died on the cross, there was an earthquake. Rocks were split. The centurion and his soldiers who had carried out the crucifixion orders were afraid.

In the heart of the temple, in the "holy of holies", in the very heart of Jerusalem, the sacred veil tore, from top to bottom.

The veil, "rent in twain"...

The veils in the tabernacle and later in the temple were important. They're described in great detail in Exodus and in 1 Kings. In Arcana Coelestia 2576, it says that, "Rational truths are a kind of veil or clothing to spiritual truths.... The veil represented the nearest and inmost appearances of rational good and truth....

And now, as Jesus dies on the cross, the veil tears. What does this mean?

Here's how Swedenborg describes the symbolism of this:

"...that once all appearances had been dispelled, the Lord entered into the Divine Itself, and at the same time He opened a means of access to the Divine Itself through His Human that had been made Divine." (Arcana Coelestia 2576)

Think about four watershed spiritual events:

1) The creation of the physical universe. (Current best guess: 13.8 billion years ago). Genesis 1:1-10

2) The beginning of life. (On earth, between 3.5 and 4.5 billion years ago.) Genesis 1:11-25

3) The beginning of spiritually conscious human beings. (Reasonable guess: 100,000 years ago). Genesis 1:26-31

4) The incarnation and resurrection of the Lord God Jesus Christ (2000 years ago).

God's love and wisdom have been flowing into the universe for a long time. Where you might expect entropy, instead we see a universe that seems to favor life and intelligence. Think what a fulfilling moment it must have been when God could tell that human minds were now responding to Him, after all that outpouring.

But the free response-ability has tragedy baked in, because we can also choose not to respond, and to go the opposite way.

As we humans grew more "sophisticated", God used new channels to reach us, notably prophets and spiritual leaders, and later the written word. And in those channels, from the earliest times, there are already prophecies that the Lord would one day come into the world in human form.

Why did He need to do that? He must have foreseen that people would need to have that human level of connection, in order for enough good and truth to exist for us to make the decisions that open us to salvation.

Let's go back to Swedenborg's description:

"... once all appearances had been dispelled the Lord entered into the Divine Itself..."

Throughout the Lord's life on earth, there was the appearance that he was a man, like us. He had a human body. He could be tired and hungry. He could be tempted (though unlike us, he always won). In his spiritual life, there were times when he felt keenly the appearance of his human separate from his Divine essence. At other times, that appearance thinned, and he felt his divinity more powerfully. As he grew up, and was baptized, and began his ministry, he must have been growing more and more fully aware of what was going on inside him -- the glorification of the human part of him. With the death of his body on the cross, the bodily human-ness was no longer in the way. That appearance was dispelled. A new connection was fully forged between the Divine and the human.

And then, there's the second part of Swedenborg's statement:

"at the same time He opened a means of access to the Divine Itself through His Human that had been made Divine."

The veil was torn. The old religion, which had placed ritual above real good, and where God was invisible, separated from human knowledge by a veil -- was torn. New light could reach people, through the new teachings of the Lord. We could respond to a God who, in His Divine Human, we now could understand and approach and love more deeply.

1013. And there came forth a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done, signifies manifestation out of heaven from the Lord that the end is come, and thus that the Last Judgment is at hand. This is evident from the signification of "a great voice, saying," as being manifestation; from the signification of "temple," as being heaven as to the Divine truth, through which all manifestation is effected (See n. 220, 391, 915); also from the signification of "throne," as being where the Lord is as to judgment (See n. 253, 267, 462, 477); also from the signification of "It is done," as being to be ended, that is, that there is no longer any good and truth, thus no longer any church, because all things are devastated. All this makes clear that "a great voice coming forth out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done," signifies manifestation out of heaven from the Lord that the end is come, and that the Last Judgment is at hand. This was said after "the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air," which signifies that all things of man's thought have been turned away from heaven, consequently there is no longer any communication of men of the church with heaven; and when this communication has been broken off the Last Judgment comes. For so long as there is a communication of heaven with the church all things are held together in connection; but when communication is destroyed it is like a house falling when the foundation is taken from under it. And yet a new house is then built by the Lord in its place; the house is the church.

(Continuation respecting the Seventh Commandment)

[2] As all who are in hell are in hatred against the Lord, and thus in hatred against heaven, for they are against goods and truths, so hell is the essential murderer or the source of essential murder. It is the source of essential murder because man is man from the Lord through the reception of good and truth; consequently to destroy good and truth is to destroy the human itself, thus to kill man.

[3] That those who are in hell are such has not yet been known in the world, because with those who belong to hell and therefore after death come into hell, there does not appear any hatred against good and truth, nor against heaven, nor still less against the Lord. For everyone while he lives in the world is in externals; and these externals are taught and trained from infancy to counterfeit such things as are honest and decorous, just and equitable, and good and true. Nevertheless, hatred lies concealed in their spirit, and this in equal degree with the evil of their life. And as hatred is in the spirit it breaks forth when the externals are laid aside, as is the case after death.

[4] This infernal hatred against all who are in good is deadly hatred because it is hatred against the Lord. This can be seen particularly from their delight in doing evil, which is such as to exceed in degree every other delight, for it is a fire that burns with the lust for destroying souls. Moreover, it has been ascertained that this delight is not from hatred against those whom they attempt to destroy, but from hatred against the Lord Himself. Now since man is a man from the Lord, and the human which is from the Lord is good and truth, and since those who are in hell are, from a hatred against the Lord, eager to kill the human, which is good and truth, it follows that hell is the source of murder itself.