The Berlin Wall stood as the physical division between West Berlin and East Germany from 1961 to 1989.  It also served as the symbolic boundary between Democracy and Communism during the Cold War.

The Wall was built to prevent East Germans from fleeing out of Communist East Germany into the Democracy of West Germany.  For 28 years, with guards and other deterrents to fortify it, the Wall was effective in preventing emigration out of East Germany.

But on November 9, 1989, someone opened the wall.

Harold Jaeger is the man credited with opening the Berlin Wall.  But Jaeger doesn’t want the credit.  “It’s not me who opened the Wall.  It’s the East German citizens who gathered that evening.”

The crowd of East Germans kept growing on that cold November night.  These citizens were responding to a TV announcement made earlier that day by a communist official that East Germans could now travel freely into West Germany and abroad.

At the Bornholmer Strasse border crossing between East and West Berlin, Lieutenant Colonel Jaeger had a decision to make.  He telephoned his superior officer more than once for instructions as to whether or not to open the crossing.  He recalls being told: “I have no order from above.  I have no instructions to give you.”

Later, as the crowds continued to grow and become more agitated, Jeager received orders to identify some of the more agitated members of the crowd and let them cross in the West.  This action only increased the desire of other East Germans to cross the border.

At around 11:30 PM, Jaeger gave the order, “Open the barrier!”  When it was opened, a host of East Germans joyfully crossed the border, peacefully bringing down the Iron Curtain after 28 years of separation.

Twenty-five years later, Jaeger still gets emotional as he remembers the barrier being opened.  “I had never seen such euphoria, and I’ve never seen it since.” *

Another great wall has been erected that separates man from God.  It is a wall that WE have built by our sins.  “Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear.  But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:1-2).  The wall separates us from God’s blessing of salvation and eternal life.  Unable to “scale the wall,” we are left with the prospects of condemnation and eternal destruction (Matthew 7:13-14).

But Someone opened the wall!

Because of His great love for us, God sent His Son Jesus into the world to identify with man and then to go to the cross to die for the sins of the world.  Jesus paid the price for our sins with His own blood, opening “a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the curtain, that is, His body” (Hebrews 10:20).

To access the Way to salvation and eternal life, we must place our faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from sin in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Him before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of our sins (Acts 2:38).  Then we must “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).

Jesus opened the wall! 

He said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

Won’t YOU access the Way through your trusting obedience?