“We don’t have
a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and
testing, experienced it all — all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him
and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.”
Letter to the Hebrews, chapter 4: 14-16
If
you were one of the original hearers of this letter - a Jewish Christian of the
1st century – the symbolism of High Priest and sacrifice would have
been as familiar to you as anything we know today. The problem for me is that
the imagery here needs an awful lot of explanation. And an illustration that needs to be
explained generally loses its punch.
So,
here’s another starting point.
When
I was in Sunday School, there was a chorus that we used to sing. Maybe if you’re old enough you’ll remember it.
“When the road is rough and steep, fix
your eyes upon Jesus.”
It’s
certainly true that for many people today the road is rough and steep.
I
was talking the other with a friend who had had a terrible trauma in her
life. It was one of those times when a
pastor wisely listens much and says little, for in truth there is little to say
and Biblical promises can sound like platitudes. I avoid people who have too many answers or
who trot them out with a glib certainty. Anyways, talking with my friend, she
asked me if I ever doubted that God is there.
Because, for her, God seemed absent and she felt like just walking away
from the Christian life.
Walking
away can seem a tempting option when our belief in God is stretched too far by
life’s events or by the inner struggles we face. In such times, we come to think that God doesn’t
care. Or that even if he cares, he won’t
do anything about our situation. At that
point, we see only the costs of the Christian journey and none of the benefits.
What
things might make you think about quitting?
High
in the list I guess would be the times when we seem to be talking to the
ceiling. We pray and our prayers are met
by silence. Or we have persevered in our
Christian journey and we have given up what may seem such a lot without always
receiving the promised peace or answers in return. When we have tried hard to
lay down some of the foul-ups that wrap themselves so tightly around our feet
but, as soon as we have kicked them off, there they are - back again.
Or
we have reached a point where we feel boxed-in by life or circumstances or by
our own repeated failures. Most of us know exactly where are faults lie,
because we are daily confronted with them.
As the biblical King David writes in Psalm 51 after committing murder
and adultery, “Wash away all my wrongdoing and cleanse me from my sin. For I
know what I have done wrong and my sin is right there in front of me.”
Yes,
we may go to church. We may read the Bible. We do the things that we ought to
have done and we have tried hard to avoid the things we ought not to do but, as
the Book of Common Prayer has it so poetically, “there is no health in us.” No spiritual strength.
You
are not alone, walking your rough and steep path. The Jewish Christians who first
heard these words had just those kind of those thoughts (the same kind that we
face, though their world was so very different to ours). Jesus, who stood in their
place and ours, showed us what a life totally dedicated to God was like.
He did what in the Old Testament only the high priest could do, offered the
sacrifice to wipe out the penalty for all our sins. But, unlike the early high priest, who had to
make that journey into the holy of holies at the back end of the temple each
year on the day of atonement, Jesus did this once and for all people and for
always.
Without
Jesus we are alone with our failings.
Without God taking the initiative there’s no hope of forgiveness. But understand what a hope we now have.
Because of Jesus, born as one of us, we are now given a fresh start.
