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.

5079. 'Against their lord the king of Egypt' means that these - the external or bodily senses, meant by 'the cupbearer and the baker' - were contrary to the new state in the natural man. This is clear from the meaning of 'the king of Egypt' as factual knowledge in general, dealt with in 1164, 1165, 1186, 1462, 4749, 4964, 4966; for, the king being the head of the nation, 'the king of Egypt' is similar in meaning to 'Egypt', the same as in other places where the king of any nation is referred to or named, 4789. Since factual knowledge in general is meant by 'the king of Egypt', so also is the natural man meant by him; for all factual knowledge is truth as it exists in the natural man, 4967. While the actual good there is meant by 'the lord', 4973. The reason a new state in the natural man is meant is that the previous chapter dealt with the interior aspects of the natural, which were made new, or - in the highest sense, in which the Lord is the subject - were glorified, whereas the present chapter deals with the exterior aspects of the natural which are to be brought into accord or agreement with those interior ones. These interior aspects of the natural which have been made new - or, what amounts to the same, a new state in the natural man - are what are meant by 'the lord the king of Egypt', while the exterior aspects which have not been brought into a state of order and are consequently contrary to it are meant by 'the cupbearer and the baker'.

[2] There are interior aspects of the natural and there are exterior ones. The interior aspects of the natural are known facts and the affections for them, but the exterior aspects are both kinds of sensory perception spoken of above in 5077. When a person dies he leaves behind those exterior aspects of the natural; but the interior aspects of the natural he takes with him into the next life where they serve as the foundation on which spiritual and celestial things can be based; for when a person dies he loses nothing apart from his flesh and bones. He keeps his memory in which everything he has done, spoken, or thought is recorded, and he keeps every natural affection and desire, and so every interior aspect of the natural. He does not need its exterior aspects, for he does not see anything that is in the world, or hear anything that is in the world, or smell, taste, or touch anything that is in the world, only what is in the next life. Things in the next life, it is true, seem for the most part to be like those in the world, but they are not, for they hold what is living within them, such as things proper to the natural world do not hold within them. For every single thing in the next life owes the beginning and the continuance of its existence to the Sun there, which is the Lord, as a consequence of which it has that which is living within it. But every single thing in the natural world owes the beginning and the continuance of its existence to the sun there, which is material fire, as a consequence of which it does not have that which is living within it. What gives it the appearance of having life within it is that its origin lies solely in the spiritual world, that is, in the Lord through the spiritual world.