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.

732. That there they may nourish her a thousand and two hundred and sixty days, signifies until it grows to fullness. This is evident from the signification of "a thousand two hundred and sixty days," as being from beginning to end, and thus fullness (of which above, n. 636; for this number involves three and a half years, and "three and a half," whether years or days, signifies fullness (See above, n. 532, 658). "That they may nourish her" so many days signifies until it grows to fullness, because this follows from what precedes, namely, that "the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God," which signifies that the New Church, which is meant by "the woman," is at first amongst a few, that in the meantime provision may be made for it among more; therefore it is added, until it grows to fullness; moreover, "to nourish" signifies to sustain life and to grow.

[2] There are several reasons why this New Church that is called the Holy Jerusalem will first begin with a few, afterwards to be with more, and finally to reach fullness. First, its doctrine, which is the doctrine of love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbor, cannot be acknowledged and thus received except by those who are interiorly affected by truths, and those only can be interiorly affected by truths who have the ability to see them, and those only see truths who have cultivated their intellectual faculty, and have not destroyed it in themselves by the loves of self and of the world. A second reason is that the doctrine of that church cannot be acknowledged and thence received but by those who have not confirmed themselves by doctrine and at the same time by life in faith alone; confirmation by doctrine alone does not prevent reception, but confirmation by life also does prevent, for such do not know what love to the Lord is, nor what charity towards the neighbor is, nor are they willing to know.

[3] A third reason is that the New Church on the earth grows according to its increase in the world of spirits, for spirits from that world are with men, and they are from such as while they lived on earth were in the faith of their church, and none of these receive the doctrine but those who have been in the spiritual affection of truth; these only are conjoined to heaven where that doctrine is, and they conjoin heaven to man. The number of these in the spiritual world now increases daily, therefore according to their increase does that church that is called the New Jerusalem increase on earth. These also were the reasons why the Christian Church, after the Lord had left the world, increased so slowly in Europe, and did not attain to its fullness until an age had elapsed.