There are very few of us alive in America now who can remember what it was like to live in an era without electrical or indoor plumbing utilities. Life was much harder without these conveniences, and gaining them was a great relief.

I don’t remember such a time, but I grew up with parents who did.

I do remember when I was in 3^rd grade that we had a well drilled in our yard, just outside the dining room windows. I recall becoming buddies with the well-drilling guy – can still remember his name to this day! I thought it was really fascinating, and for a while, that is what I wanted to do in life!

My father was so excited about this for another reason that I did not really understand at the time. He was looking toward to the relief of not having to deal with the work of a constant water supply concern. Prior to the well, the water in our country house was from a cistern. There were valves on all the downspouts from the house and garage that would direct rain water from those roofs either into the cistern or out onto the ground. I recall my dad going out into the rain to make sure they were either on or off, depending upon the need. He had to try to keep the supply in the tank full, yet if he was not watching carefully enough, an oversupply would cause it to overflow and flood the basement.

But there was a worse time in his life. He grew up on a farm in the early 1900s … far from electrical supply, and long before plumbing. Water had to be carried from a springhouse at the bottom of the hillside. It was one of his chores as a boy. Light was provided by kerosene heaters; and heat came from a pot-bellied woodstove in the kitchen – which honestly only heated the kitchen. Snow would blow through the window frame cracks, and at 5:00 in the morning when he awoke to milk the cows, he might find small snow drifts on his bed sheets.

So my dad never really got over the amazement of indoor plumbing and electricity. He was profoundly thankful and believed himself to be living in the ultimate modern age. The work of carrying water and lanterns was done. He could flip a switch or turn on a faucet, and everything he needed was right there.

Our passage today talks about the ongoing work of the system of the old covenant – one where the Levitical priests had endless work. It was a career with job security. People sinned continuously, they needed their sins dealt with continuously, and so there was an endless parade of sacrifices and a literal river of blood … there really was! Ancient writers talked about what the Temple area was like on the occasions of the major feasts, such as Passover. Over a quarter-million sacrifices were made for over two million people. Holes and channels in the floor area of sacrifices carried the blood out to the Kidron stream – which flowed red like the river in Chicago flows green on St. Patrick’s Day.

Imagine the sights and sounds of this! Consider the mess … the carcasses of the animals. The entire scene pictured what a terrible mess was the issue of sin, while also illustrating the price of covering it … but it wasn’t really covered! Not permanently. The repetitious nature of it illustrated that the Levitical system was insufficient and inferior.

But, as the writer has indicated, there came an entirely new priest of a new order. This priest – Jesus Christ – was also at once the sacrifice as well. Entering one time into the true tabernacle – not the shadowy one of the Levitical system – with his own blood he made a once and for all, final, sacrificially-sufficient payment for all sin of all time.

Illustrating the permanence of this sacrifice, the writer says that this priest “sat down” at the right hand of God. The work was done. There is no more need for sacrifice or a system that was endless in operation. And what were the last words of Christ?  “It is finished.”

Man, that is awesome! We don’t have to do something like bring animals for some intermediary spiritual personage to sacrifice for our sins. Those sins have been paid for already. What we do regularly is memorialize and remember the one who paid that price for us. And that is what we do with communion.

And oh what a relief it is to have the payment made once and for all.

Christ’s Sacrifice Once for All

10:1 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. 4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; 6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. 7 Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—I have come to do your will, my God.’”

8 First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. 9 Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. 14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: 16 “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”

17 Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”

18 And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.