Have you ever gone to or lived in a place where you felt entirely out of step with everyone around you? I had some culture shocks at times when I lived in Texas for a few years, but I never felt completely lost and alienated.

When I was a pastor in northern New Jersey, I remember feeling just horribly for this very sweet young couple who had come to live and work in my hometown area and attend my church. They were from Iowa – where I am told that life is slow and easy, and everyone is kind, friendly and non-combative. None of those terms describe Jersey! The fast-paced, aggressive, loud, in-your-face culture was totally traumatizing for these folks. Simply driving and getting yelled at was a daily horror for them.

The finale for this couple was coming home from vacation to their rural house and fortunately noticing the curtains on the inside move as they came up the driveway. Pulling back from the home, they called the police. When the authorities came, a man ran out of the house shooting at the police who in response shot him. He was a drifter, who found an empty home and simply lived there while they were on vacation. But that was the final straw for this couple! Back to Iowa they moved!

Do you feel out of step with the rest of the world around you? I’m speaking of the idea of living for Christ and being identified with Him in a world that is increasingly hostile to faith and objective truth. If you feel like you are out of step with the much larger majority, it is probably because you are seeking to walk in the opposite direction than what the crowd is travelling.

This is how the readers of Hebrews felt. Maybe they should just stop swimming upstream … just turn around and take the easy route of going with the flow!

So the writer tells them that such an about-face would not please God. If they desired God’s commendation, they needed to live by faith and trust in Him, even in a crazy-pants world. And doing this was nothing new. Even the great patriarch Abraham had to do the same and live in a way that had him fully at odds with his world.

Think about what he did, even late in life, in obedience to God …

8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the Promised Land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

At the peak of his life, while living in the most prosperous place on earth at the time, Abraham was called to leave Ur and go to a place that God would later identify … just some place somewhere far away – a place he could receive as his inheritance. And when he got to the Promised Land, he didn’t really inherit the place. He basically lived as a nomad, wandering from place to place in tents. The only actual property he ever owned was a cave he purchased in order to bury his wife and family.

But it was okay. It was sufficient. He did not complain, because it says he was looking for a city (a place of permanence) who was designed by and built by God. So that means it was not of this world. This tells us of his focus: It was not on this world and its comforts, rewards or lack thereof. His gaze was beyond the temporary.

Beyond the material element of his sojourning, what good was a promise that he would inherit a great land and have offspring that would become a great nation … when there was no sight of such a reality? He was childless. He was too old to have children, and he had no prescription for Viagra! And beyond that, Sarah was WAY BEYOND childbearing years. This is a big problem. But he had a promise. And he trusted in that, and God blessed.

Taking some verses out of order, let’s finish off talking about Abraham specifically before reading the application paragraph in the text …

17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

The well-known story is one of the great displays of obedience and faith. God had said that Abraham’s blessing would come through his one son Isaac, but then God said to offer that one and only son as a sacrifice. We read of his total obedience in Genesis, but his full thought process is actually revealed here in Hebrews. He was willing to kill his son of promise, believing so strongly in that promise, that God would raise Isaac back up from the dead. That is impressive faith!

Hey Hebrews – do you guys still think you have some life challenges while living for Christ? So, how are your difficulties compared to these faced by Abraham?  Here is the application (about Abraham and the others of faith mentioned to this point in the narrative) …

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

If anyone should have justly received the blessings of fulfillment and earthly ease and successful reward, it would be these heroes of the faith. But instead, none of them did. They died without the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise. Through the eye of faith, they could see the realities of these things from a distance – that the fulfillment would be in some measure in the lives of others to come after them, or not really until eternity. And that final place is the “country” they longed for … not an earthly place of comfort, or else they would have gone back to that comfort zone. Instead they pressed forward toward what the Apostle Paul would term the “high calling in Christ Jesus.”

Having eyes for eternity resulted in the approval of God – as he said he was not ashamed to be called their God and was preparing a place for them.

So, I am going to guess that some of you reading today struggle with these thoughts and truths as do I.  This passage eats my lunch … not gonna lie. I am so often disappointed and discontented that there is not more visible reward for laboring for Christ and investing my life as I have. I’m not talking about material gain, because I don’t honestly care that terribly much about that. I’m more talking about visible and measurable ministry success. Yet honestly, I’ve had an easy calling in all the places I have been. They have all been bigger and better by standards of measurement than the average calling to service in the body of Christ, as so many who have given all of life to building the church have had to labor in smaller and more difficult pastures of ministry.

The challenge for us all is to get our eyes up and away from our feet and the immediate surroundings, rather to cast our gaze ever more toward the horizon of earth and heaven – toward the goal at the end of it all. We need to stop expecting pleasure and fulfillment in this world, that while serving faithfully to the tasks at hand for today, to do so also with the appropriate understanding that we are aliens and strangers in this world. And that viewpoint changes everything.

Seeing is believing. So goes the old adage and English language idiom that full confidence in something is only surely to be found in physically experiencing it with the senses.

But the Scriptures speak that there is a component of belief that is called faith. It is believing in the reality of something as totally real, even though it cannot be seen. It is being as confident of its reality as if it was fully within sight.

The disciple named Thomas is famous for stating he would only believe if he could experience the physical risen Christ. He is chided for needing that substantial evidence, with the statement of blessing for those who would believe without such physical experience.

God commends faith. Faith is necessary, as there is no way to know everything experientially. This begins with creation, where no person was there to bear eyewitness to God calling it into being out of nothing but his spoken word. Yes, that is crazy talk to evolutionary scientists, though they stumble and postulate a great deal about the source of original matter.

The writer to the Hebrews had finished the thought of the passage at the end of chapter 10 with the phrase that he was confident his readers were people who would move forward in faith. And to bolster and encourage this, he brings to their remembrance that operating in faith in the midst of difficult times was the experience of their ancestors. And these Old Testament “heroes of faith” were particularly commended by God for operating on convictions of belief rather than selling out to achieving the comforts and ease of this world.

And therein is the timeless truth that gives this favorite Scripture passage of Hebrews 11 its significant meaning. There is a delayed gratification involved in living the Christian life. It is believing that as one trusts God during the inevitable struggles of honoring him in a sinful and evil would, there will be great reward in the end … and maybe not always even in this world, maybe almost certainly not until arriving at eternal life in the world yet to come.

11:1  Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.

3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

The writer illustrates this principle with an entire list of characters, saving the major points of application to the very end. But along the way, these people are commended by God for the evidences of their faith and confidence in God – trusting in unseen realities in face of persecution and difficulty.

Today we start with three characters, to be followed in the next devotional (Monday) on the great illustration of faith in Abraham.

First in the list is Abel. Recall that he is the second son of Adam and Eve. And though the details are not recorded, it is clear from the Genesis record that God had told them how to approach him in worship – both in substance, and more importantly, in attitude of heart and mind. Abel obeyed; Cain blew off God’s commands. And when God was dissatisfied with Cain’s offering, instead of blaming himself, he took his anger out on his brother by killing him. Abel’s faith is commended and rewarded eternally by God.

4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.

Next in the list of pre-patriarchal characters is Enoch, whose brief account is in Genesis 5.  Again the details are scant, but it is clear that there was something very unique about this man and his passionate heart for God and for fellowship with him. In the end, he did not see death, but God simply took him. The application is that there is a commensurate value to be found in pleasing God in faith … the more you trust him, the more he is pleased and extends his pleasure and reward in this life, and the next.

5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.”  For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

And finally there is Noah – far from a perfect man. But consider what he did and what he had to endure (and don’t picture that from any recent movies about him!).  There is a view of this account in the Scriptures that there had never been rain before the flood – that there was a canopy of vapor that surrounded the earth and gave it a greenhouse effect throughout. The ground was watered from below. So, the idea of a flood was REALLY “out there” … and nothing of the sort would have ever been experienced by anyone. (Even if this view is not true, Noah was building a very big boat in a place where floods simply did not happen.)  The point is that Noah must have looked a bit eccentric to the evil world around him, as he preached the word of God to them for many years. That preaching condemned the unbelievers of his era, and his faith saved his family and the human race.

7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.

Hey, I’d rather see and believe than have to have faith. It is certainly easier. It would be great to have God physically show up once in a while at least, have lunch and talk over what I should be doing and not doing. That would certainly seem to be easier than having to pray, read Scripture, and look to see God’s providential hand operating about me in terms of open doors and circumstances. Yet the biblical record reveals that those who had such experiences often became too used to them and devalued them over time, leading to inexplicable failures. Sin is a mess.

But faith tells us there is reward for being faithful and living in trust. There is evidence of it in the lives of those who are older and who have gone before us in the Christian life. But the best evidence is in God’s record to us – the Scriptures. And to please God, we need to know what they say, and then believe and act upon what we know. Long-term faith is rewarded … someday.

Today’s passage is simply frightening; there is no way to soften it. It is sort of the spiritual equivalent of being told by the doctor that there is nothing else that can be done to save a person’s life. This is the end of the road.

This section is one of several warning passages in Hebrews, and they are difficult to teach and explain easily and clearly. But as always with this letter, remember the situation of the readers – people being warned not to throw off the Christian faith to return to an easier life of convenience.

The previous passage ended with a thought about the approaching day of the Lord and the end of time. Peace and stability in this life is great, but to trade off the truth for such would be to make a pretty stupid deal. And beyond ignorant, it put a person in a place of terrible judgment as an enemy of God. There were no sacrifices for such an apostasy.

The Old Testament Scripture being referenced was one that talked about the judgment that fell upon someone who embraced idolatry. How much more severe judgment would surely therefore befall someone who walked away, not merely from the shadow of things in the OT system, but actually from the fulfilled reality of redemption in the person and work of Jesus Christ. If you reject the final payment, there is no other payment in the pipeline.

These verses also picture more than a merely mild decision. The “trampling” verb used in this verse is one that means to stomp all over and trample completely under foot. This level of apostasy would only be done by one who never really had received and fully trusted in the truth of Christ to begin with.

26 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”  31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

So how do we apply such a passage as this to our lives? Our current circumstances don’t quite match up in a one-to-one way with these original readers. However, a day may come when it is more like what they faced. It is a common theme of discussion in our country right now about the increasing pressure upon Christians and societal disdain for our values. The future may be more difficult for living for Christ in an open way.

At the very end of Paul’s writings, at a time when his own martyrdom was fast approaching … of being “poured out,” he said, “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”  The abnormal thing is to not be persecuted.

The Christian life can be very difficult in a hostile and secular culture, but there is no other place to go.

Probably more than a couple of you reading this have no memory of a silly but popular TV game show in the 60s and 70s called “Let’s Make a Deal.”  People from the audience became “traders” and were given a prize for being selected that was of some moderate value – like a television. They were then offered the opportunity to either take the prize and be content with what they had, or to trade it for something unseen and unknown, often hidden behind one of three curtains. It could be something of truly great value, or something absolutely ridiculous and worthless.

The Hebrews were essentially on the edge of – from the writer’s perspective – making a terrible deal. They were ready to keep the familiar old thing that they knew (the earthly, visible, Levitical system of sacrifices) rather than trading it for something of inestimable and eternal value (Christ and the New Covenant).

But here was the deal for them: what was behind the curtain was not unknowable. The curtain was open to see what was there – literally, it was. The curtain spoken of in our passage today was that one that prevented access to the Most Holy Place in the temple – the one that only the high priest went behind on one day of each year.

Recall though what had happened at the moment of Christ’s death. There was an earthquake that caused this huge, thick, heavy curtain to rip from top to the bottom. The result was that the most holy place was open for view. And of course this all symbolized that an entirely new day had arrived with a final sacrifice for sin. The old system was now obsolete.

Details about this work of Christ as the ultimate high priest have been the theme of our most recent chapters. The way was now open. Jesus is our high priest at the right hand of God. There is open and confident access to the very presence of God – what the passage today calls “a new and living way.”  The Law of the Old Testament, with its limited access to God’s presence said, “Danger, stay away, judgment awaits any who dare to enter the holy place.”  But the New Testament message of the Gospel says rather, “Come to God through the blood of Christ; judgment has already been made and the price paid.”

There are three practical applications, set off by three “let us …” statements …

1. We can confidently draw near to God. What a wonderful truth this is. The creator God wants us who know him as our Lord and Savior to enter right into his royal presence without any fear of judgment. Amazing truth.
2. We have a hope to hold onto in any and every circumstance. This is because of God’s faithfulness. There is nothing that happens outside of that.
3. We should serve one another by being faithful to be together. When you don’t do this, you hurt both yourself and other people. We need each other. None of us have everything that we need to any extent that we can make it by ourselves. Is there an application out of this verse that missing church should be far more rare than common? Yep! God said it, not me! See you Sunday, if not before.

19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

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.

Let’s all collectively agree that this kind of thing could only happen to me.

If you missed our worship service last Sunday morning, then let me fill you in on what happened.  And even if you made it to our morning service, let me try and clarify what happened.  We were working our way through Hebrews 9—just as we’ve done this week.   When speaking of atonement, I was using the terms “shame,” “sin,” and “guilt” essentially interchangeably.  Except at one point all three words attempted—of their own free will, it seems, so I can hardly be blamed—to come out of my mouth at once.  But of course, they couldn’t have merged into some random, culturally-neutral word like “walrus” or “megaphone.”  Oh, no.  Instead, I ended up saying something that most people heard as an expletive.  To quote Jerry Seinfeld: “You were like a Red Fox record.”

In the moment, the internal dialogue that always runs in my head kicked into overdrive.  So I kept going—not because of any conscious choice, but because I literally couldn’t process the sheer number of things going through my mind (including abject horror).

So let’s you and I be clear: it wasn’t intentional.  I know, I know; everyone told me that “the word” fit the context perfectly well.  But trust me; that was never in the manuscript.  And even though Paul uses its Greek equivalent (which we usually translate as “rubbish” or some less-edgy word in our English Bibles) in Philippians 3:8, I tend to think this is one of those cases where shock value loses its effectiveness when shock exceeds the value.

So if you were there—or even if you weren’t there—and you find this sort of language offensive, I truly am sorry.  And if you were hoping this was some new turning direction toward a more in-your-face style of ministry, then I’m sorry to disappoint.  I won’t pretend to never using harsh language, but I’d generally prefer to avoid the label of the “cussing pastor,” thank you very much.

Honestly, the biggest thing—at least for me—was the fact that the whole morning felt tainted.  Sure, people know me for my sarcastic jokes and the bizarre combination of pseudo-intellectual and aging punk-rocker.  But preaching is…well…it’s really kind of doing what John the Baptist once said of himself and Jesus: “He must increase,” he said, “and I must decrease” (John 3:30).

You had ONE job.

One job: to exalt Christ and try not to get in the way.  One job: to communicate clearly so that others might have their minds sharpened and hearts softened by the gospel.  One job, and with one word I felt I’d managed to divert focus away from Jesus and onto myself.

Sure, we all have bad days.  But chances are when you have a bad day at work it doesn’t go on Youtube.  I laughed about it later, but you might imagine how this sort of thing tends to eat at you if you let it.  Because I found myself thinking later about just how much this dovetails with the whole concept of guilt and shame—even that whole thing called the “Dobby Effect” we looked at earlier.  See, I wasn’t bothered because people yelled at me—because nobody did.  I was almost bothered because everybody found it so funny.

Why?

And here’s what God showed me: that in that moment my Savior wasn’t Jesus but my own performance record.    That’s wrong, and that’s toxic.

Had I thought fast enough, I’d have diverted our attention to Hebrews 9:7, which speaks of “unintentional sins.”  Yes, sin can be deliberate, but sin can also include the things we do by accident or drift into when our eyes stray from God.  All of us do it.  No one drifts into holiness.  Our natural inclination is toward self-interest.  I realize now that my “unintentional sin” wasn’t being a “cussing pastor,” but my ongoing temptation to bow down to an idol of performance.

And to think: this all began when our ancestors decided to bite into the lie that eating the forbidden fruit would make them “like God.”  Man had ONE job.  And he blew it.  And so did we.

Thankfully, God’s ultimate plan was for transformation and healing.  What began in a garden defiled would be made whole in a garden restored (Revelation 21-22).  Israel’s temple symbolized this hope, though as the writer of Hebrews reminds us, this hope is ultimately—and only—embodied in Jesus:

23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:23-28)

Do you understand what the writer is saying?  It’s easy for human priests to enter earthly temples.  Jesus went into heaven itself.  He stood before God to intercede for you and me.  The judgment we rightly deserve for sin—intentional or unintentional—fell on the Savior’s shoulders, so that you and I might be clothed in Christ’s righteousness.

That’s what Good Friday is fundamentally about.  It’s the day we observe and remember the sacrifice of Christ.  The day that he hung from a scandalous piece of wood, the day when a curtain of darkness hung over the sky, and the rain pelted the earth like God’s own sorrow.  One of my favorite sermon quotes from Tim Keller focuses on the contrast between the first Adam and Jesus:

“In the Garden, Adam was told, ‘Obey me about the tree—do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or you will die.’…God said to Jesus, ‘Obey me about the tree’—only this time the tree was a cross—‘and you will die.’ And Jesus did.”  (Timothy Keller, King’s Cross, pp. 10-13).

Jesus had ONE job.  And he succeeded where everyone else only failed—though it literally cost him his life.  Because of this sacrifice, when he entered the heavenly places, his perfect record of obedience got “transferred” or “credited” to our account.   What’s that do for us?  Well, for one thing, it destroys pride.  Pride can laugh at others—in fact it excels at it.  But pride can never laugh at itself—in fact to do so is to destroy it.

Not all our failings are laughing matters.  But this Good Friday I am thankful for a church family that responded to their cussing pastor by responding with grace and understanding rather than offense and condemnation.  And I am hopeful that we see God’s grace in action—that our dependence would be on “the old rugged cross,” a far more stable source of comfort and security than our frail reputations.

Are you a bit of a screw-up?  That’s ok; I’ve been there.  Probably will be again.  So let’s you and I trust Jesus together.

He’s the One who does His job.

Friends often tell me that they’ve long struggled to reconcile the God of the Old Testament with that of the new.  For them, God always represented a harsh judge, someone who would hold your feet to the fire (literally) when you did something bad.  Jesus, by contrast, was something of the “other parent.”  When things went poorly, you could count on the embrace of Jesus’ loving arms.  It was an image that was often reinforced by stale Sunday School pictures of Jesus, complete with soft feathered hair and always absent-mindedly petting a sheep.

In 2013, Daily Beast writer Andrew Sullivan captured a nation’s attention with a cover story for Newsweek Magazine.  The cover read: “Forget the Church: Follow Jesus.”  Sullivan rightly sees Christianity in a state of crisis.  His solution?  To move away from “theological doctrines of immense complexity” to return to the “simple ethics of Jesus.”  For Sullivan, what you think about isn’t nearly so important as how you live it out.  On the surface, this is refreshingly commendable.  But press deeper, and you begin to realize that when we recast Jesus as a social visionary, we bend his message into something that suits our own agenda—including an angry indictment against capitalism.

What is the common thread here?  When we fail to comprehend Jesus’ message and purpose, we fall in love not with the real Jesus but our own portrait of him.  For some it is the consoling figure holding a lamb.  For others it’s the hipster Jesus who came to overthrow capitalism and corporate greed.

And, frankly, both visions of Jesus are much more socially acceptable than the image found in orthodox Christianity.  Sin?  Bloodshed?  I don’t want a Jesus who offers mercy; I want affirmation.  I don’t need forgiveness; I need empowerment.  I don’t require transformation; I demand acceptance.  But all of those things only betray a failure to understand our most basic problem: our problem is sin.

A number of years ago, a magazine asked readers to write in a response to the question: “What’s wrong with the world?”  G.K. Chesterton famously responded with two words: “I am.”  I am what’s wrong with the world.  So while it’s comforting—or even fashionable—to blame capitalism, greed, religious abuse, racism, sexism, etc., we can’t escape the fact that sin is both systemic and individual.  The darkness that enshrouds our culture dwells within my heart—or at least it would if not for the transformative power of the gospel.

So in Hebrews we continue looking at the life-giving doctrine of atonement—that means by which God eradicates sin and guilt through the blood of Jesus.  It is Jesus that fulfills what all the former sacrifices could not:

15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. 16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. 17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. 18 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. 19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. (Hebrews 9:15-22)

Do you understand what this is saying?  Purity—of both heart, places of worship, everything—comes through Jesus.  The author makes reference to the sprinkling that occurred through Moses at the inception of the covenant through Moses (that is, the arrival of the Law).  But we may see this as fitting into the larger framework of the sacrificial system.

Do you recall our discussion on the Day of Atonement and the two goats?  One was sacrificed; the other was driven into the wilderness, symbolically bearing away the nation’s sins.   On the cross, Jesus embodied both of these meanings—and we even attach specific words to these achievements.

• Propitiation: This word—meaning to “render favorable”—refers to the way that God deals with our actual sin. In this sense, we can say that propitiation also deals with our guilt—our negative feelings about our actions.
• Expiation: This word—meaning “to cleanse”—refers to the way God deals with the defiling effects of our sin. In this sense, we can say that expiation deals with our shame—our negative feelings about ourselves.

Are these complex doctrines?  Sure.  But do they have specific benefit?  Absolutely.  First, they help me deal with my own guilt and shame, and in that sense can be said to be psychologically beneficial.  But they also help me see the love, justice, and mercy of God all at the same time, for which reason these doctrines can be said to be spiritually beneficial.

If you follow Jesus—or at least try to—there is an important lesson here.  Too often we don’t come to Jesus because we feel we have to “clean ourselves up” first.  Think about it: have you ever avoided entertaining guests because you felt your house was a mess?  You didn’t want people to see the dishes in your sink, or the laundry piles in the hallway, or the crayon marks on the walls.  So you avoid people.  Well, we do the same with God.  We want to make sure we deal with our own shame and guilt first, and then we can feel “spiritual” enough for God.  But it doesn’t work that way.  In fact, the old covenant reminds us that our attempts to fix externals only results in more bloodshed—and more mess.  I don’t clean myself up to come to Jesus.  I come to Jesus to get cleaned up.  I don’t repent so I can come to Jesus.  I come to Jesus to help me repent.  When we get this backwards, we turn God into someone bent on rewards and punishment.  When we understand the gospel properly, we see that these dry, complex doctrines only serve to maximize our joy.

Why all the blood?

One objection you might have to Christianity is this peculiar focus on blood.  Sure, it may have been excusable in the era of the Old Testament.  After all, these were a primitive people, right?  Surely we can move beyond this.  But no, in the world of the first century, the cross of Christ emblemizes the devotion to Jesus.  In the second century, a writer named Tertullian wrote that “at every forward step and movement…in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign [of the cross].”  You might recognize this as the origin of “crossing oneself,” tracing the shape of the cross in the air above your face and chest.  Yet when Mel Gibson’s Passion film was released in the early 2000’s, film critics were mortified.  One critic even dubbed the film “Jesus chainsaw massacre,” while others complained that the film focused too graphically on the manner of Christ’s death rather than the teachings of his life.

Perhaps this is a good point.  Of all the sermons Jesus ever preached, of all the miracles he ever performed, of all the acts of love, compassion, generosity, humility—the symbol of the Christian faith is an instrument of torture and disgrace.  Why?

First, we must understand that for Jesus, his death was not a tragedy, but a victory over sin and death (cf. Colossians 2:15).  Second, Jesus was no unwilling victim. “No one takes my life from me,” he says.  “I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18).  But most significantly, the blood connects us to the understanding of both life and sin.

Leviticus tells us that “life is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11).  This lent a sense of reverence to rituals involving sacrifice and death.  But blood disgusts us as well; I know people who faint at the mere sight of blood.  So, in an indirect way, the sacrificial system was God’s way of saying: Sin is as disgusting to me as blood is to you. 

When the writer of Hebrews describes the sacrificial system, he reminds us of both the necessity and inadequacy of bloodshed.  Necessity—because “without blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22).  Inadequacy—because no animal sacrifice could possibly pay the infinite debt against God.

So the writer says:

11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:11-14)

The temple system is “handmade” (v. 11).  It is finite, only a symbol of man’s true purpose for relationship with God.  The blood of animals might have granted priests access to an earthly temple, but we could never possibly hope to stand before the actual living God and expect mere external rituals to save us. No; we needed something more, something that would purify us so that we could move beyond the superficial nature of the temple system and into fellowship with God alone.

Growing up, I hated “church clothes.”  I still hate dressing up, frankly (try and look surprised).  Coming from a more traditional church, I grew up with khaki pants and button-up shirts (always neatly tucked in, mind you), uncomfortable shoes and the occasional necktie.  Sunday afternoons were great; they represented the longest span of time before the next time I had to put on my church clothes again.  I think a lot of people feel that way about religion in general and probably Christianity in particular.  Religion seems like a lot of work, a lot of effort to put on our Sunday best.  Our sacrifices get repeated week by week by week—not to mention a host of activities such as Bible studies, small groups, and church events.  Don’t get me wrong, we do those things for a reason.  But the reason isn’t so you and I can look good.  In fact it’s quite the opposite.  When we come to Jesus, we can’t possibly dress ourselves up enough to impress him (I can hear God saying: “Armani suit?  You know I made the Orion Nebula, right?”).  Instead we come with what rags we have, because in our transparency, in our authenticity, we are given fine linen to put on, to be clothed in his righteousness alone.

Humans have an innate need for punishment.  Perhaps ingrained from childhood, we tend to view our guilt as deserving of pain.  It’s only been recently that contemporary psychology found a name for it.  The Dobby Effect—named for the self-punishing Harry Potter character—refers to our tendency to “atone” for misdeeds by seeking either avoiding pain or avoiding contact with those we’ve wronged.  Researchers at the University of Brisbane conducted a study to confirm this.

62 volunteers were split into three groups.  Two groups were asked to write about a time they “rejected or socially excluded another person.”  The third group wrote about normal social interactions.  Afterwards all participants received questionnaires to measure feelings of guilt.  After that, some were asked to immerse one of their hands in ice water, while others in warm water.  Following that, guilt feelings were re-measured.  I know this is a bit confusing, so let’s try and summarize in a table:

Not only did the ice water make guilt parties feel roughly half as guilty as their counterparts, they also tended to leave their hands in the water substantially longer than those who wrote about normal interactions.  The lesson is clear: guilt makes us seek out punishment, and the act of punishment seems to have a relieving effect.

According to one of the researchers, these forms of self-punishment send “a signal by which a [wrongdoer] shows remorse to his or her victim when there are no other less painful means available, such as giving a bunch of flowers.”

Yesterday we re-discovered the Israelite temple as a symbol of Eden’s beauty.  But because of sin, many of the temple’s elements—particularly the curtains that segregated the outer courts from the Holy of Holies—reminded worshippers that their sin resulted in both physical and relational distance.

Now, the writer of Hebrews turns from the general to the specific, describing the activities performed in the temple—that is, the sacrificial system.

6 These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, 7 but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. 8 By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing 9 (which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, 10 but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation. (Hebrews 9:6-10)

Sacrifices were not unique to Israel, nor were they unique to the days of Moses.  The earliest sacrifices go back to the pages of Genesis 4, where outside the garden the first family learned to worship God by offering sacrifices.  Sacrifices likewise became an occasional part of the life of Abraham and his descendants.  It was only through Moses, some 1500 years before Jesus, that sacrifices became codified into a system of atonement.

The writer of Hebrews alludes to this elaborate system, which largely defines man’s relationship with God under the “old covenant.”  We note at least two things: (1) the need for a priest and (2) the need for sacrifice.  Though the nature and exact purpose of the sacrifices varied (Leviticus records as many as seven different types of regular sacrifice), the allusion made here is to Yom Kippur—the Day of Atonement that we discussed last Friday.

Yet as unique and significant as that day may have been, the writer of Hebrews ultimately concludes that these rituals deal with external things—and never truly man’s inner conscience.  So wait—so why was the system ever in place at all?  The sacrificial system served as an elaborate—and bloody—object lesson, a lesson that pointed toward the need for a once-for-all sacrifice in the future.  In his commentary on Leviticus, Gordon Wenham says:

“The sacrificial system therefore presents different models or analogies to describe the effects of sin and the way of remedying them.  The burnt offering uses a personal picture: of man the guilty sinner who deserves to die for his sin and of the animal dying in his place.  God accepts the animal as a ransom for man.  The sin offering uses a medical model: sin makes the world so dirty that God can no longer dwell there.  The blood of the animal disinfects the sanctuary in order that God may continue to be present with his people.  The reparation offering  [i.e., the “guilt offering”] presents a commercial picture of sin.  Sin is a debt which man incurs against God.  The debt is paid through the offered animal.”

But Wenham would later note that “Christ’s death…made [the sacrificial system] obsolete…It is no longer necessary to attempt to compensate God for our failure by bringing a ram or a lamb to the altar.  Our spiritual debts have been written off in the sacrifice of Christ.”

Think about it.  Isn’t the Dobby Effect really just another form of selfishness?  After all, it has more to do with alleviating personal guilt than addressing the brokenness to begin with.  If you wreck my car, I might appreciate that you’re sorry—but I’ll still demand you pay the debt of repair.  What about things where a simple “I’m sorry” won’t do?  How can we repair trust?  Remorse can’t reverse the effects of infidelity and betrayal.

Something similar is going on here.  A sacrificial system may have allowed many devout Jews to feel a sense of relief.  But now they’re hearing that such rituals can’t fix the real problem—the problem that goes deeper and darker.  Only a perfect sacrifice can produce true atonement, true purity.  This is the point our author is building to.

If you’re skeptical regarding the Christian faith, I understand.  My gentle challenge to you is to evaluate how justice can ever coexist with a society of radical individualism.  If morals and ethics are (largely) man-made, do we not have the freedom to unmake them?  Why, then, does guilt universally persist?  And why does our education and our technological advances not help us move beyond such feelings?

If you seek to follow Jesus, this passage raises another challenge.  Do I trust in God’s forgiveness through Jesus, or am I still trying to bring a sacrifice?  Do I still think of Christian virtue as “being really hard on myself?”  Perhaps you’re in a season where you’ve experienced the need to “get really serious this time.”  While there is value in a life of devotion, you can’t turn your spirituality into means to an end.  Jesus is the end of all such means.  The pain we bring on ourselves can melt into sweet, sweet joy.  Spirituality, therefore, transforms from a quest to earn God’s approval into a glorious state of affairs where we finally learn to rest in God’s approval.