Year 3, Day 120: Lamentations 3

Lament

The first 18 verses of Lamentation are … well … a lament.  I feel kind of silly writing that.  You are no doubt saying, “Have you checked the title of this book of the Bible?”  LOL.  But it needs to be said, even if it is obvious.

I can’t help but read these verses and feel sad for the sake of Jeremiah.  Do you remember how the book of Jeremiah opened?  The Lord came to Jeremiah when Jeremiah was young and He changed His life forever.  God came and formulated a personal relationship with Him.  This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill spiritual relationship that people have with God and God’s Word.  {That isn’t meant as a slam, sorry if it comes off as one.}  What I mean to say there is that Jeremiah heard from the Lord.  The Lord was deeply present in Jeremiah’s life.  The Lord was so present in his life that it irrevocably changed Jeremiah.

That might sound like a good thing.  From an eternal perspective, it is.  But from a perspective of life on this side of death, it is a hard thing.  It is still good; but it is also hard.

You see, being personally touched by God means that you see the world through eyes that are not your own.  It means being wracked with guilt every time you fall into the ways of the world.  It means wrestling with even the smallest of decisions because you see sin in just about everything – not just the “big stuff.”  It means not settling for quaint conversation but always talking to people about the deep and personal stuff that they’d honestly rather keep buried.  It means giving the hard messages when you know most people don’t want to hear it.

As I read these opening 18 verses this is the Jeremiah that I hear writing down these words.  It is this Jeremiah who has consistently made the godly choice and has paid the worldly consequences for it.  He has been scorned, mocked, abused, mistreated, insulted, backstabbed, rejected, imprisoned, wanted for dead, and almost starved to death.  He has endured all of these things because he really knows that he has no other choice.  To free himself of these things he would have to abide by the ways of the world.  That is really no option, either.  Better to take rejection and humiliation from the world than to live by the world’s standards.

Suffering, Endurance, Character, Hope

That title should sound familiar.  It is from a very famous passage in the New Testament.  Look up Romans 5:1-5.  It reads thematically very much like Lamentations 3:19-40.

What gives Jeremiah hope?  His steadfast love never ceases.  Stop there for a minute.  Consider everything that Jeremiah has been through.  Take a good look at that list I put forth a few paragraphs back.  After everything he has been through, he says, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.”  Incredible.  Now that’s a man of faith.

“The Lord is good to those who wait for Him.”  Again, it is incredible that Jeremiah speaks of goodness after all that he has seen.  After all that Jeremiah has been through, he still has the patience to wait for the Lord.  In fact, I’d be willing to bet that all that Jeremiah has been through has actually helped Jeremiah learn to wait for the Lord.

“Let us test and examine our ways and return to the Lord … We have transgressed and rebelled.”  There is a communal aspect to Jeremiah’s spirituality that I find missing in modern culture.  We spend so much time thinking about ourselves, our individual lives, our individual wants, our individual worries that we do truly lose sight of the community.  What do we do as a collective that makes it harder to be a spiritual follower of God?  What could we do as a collective that would make it easier to be in relationship with the only true source of love in the universe?

Focus on the Lord’s Work

So where does Jeremiah end?  The Lord.  The Lord will repay.  The Lord will save.  The Lord will take up his cause.  It’s a good place to be.

So often when we get wrapped up in ourselves we never let things go.  We don’t let go of the desire for vengeance.  We don’t let go of our desire for justice.  We don’t let go of our desire to make sure what goes around comes around.  We strap on our self-made badge of “Righteous Judge” and take on the world.

But that is not what God has asked of us.  He asks that we trust Him to do those things.  He asks us to care more about our relationship with Him than anything else.  He asks us to walk in His ways and trust Him to make things right in the end.  He asks us to focus on Him, and let Him deal with the world.

That’s peace.  Know that, and you’ll know peace.

This has been a powerful chapter of the Bible for me.  I pray the same is true for you.

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Year 3, Day 119: Lamentations 2

God’s Anger

We must be careful to not read the verses in this second chapter with an eternal mindset.  When Jeremiah speaks about God rejecting His people and taking them out of His right hand, Jeremiah hasn’t forgotten God’s promise to restore them.  If we read Jeremiah’s words with an eternal mindset it seems like Jeremiah has forgotten God’s promise of restoration.

However, if we read Jeremiah’s words with a temporal mindset then we can see the truth.  At this moment in time, God had cast down the splendor of His people.  At this moment in time, God had sent His people away.  He has swallowed up the places given to the Hebrew people.  His wrath and judgment have fallen upon His people.  For the moment, the life of the Hebrew people looks rather bleak.

Enemy

Verse 5 caused me to stop and think for a moment.  The Lord has become like an enemy.  That’s one of the most hopeless verses in the Bible.  I cannot imagine the Lord as my enemy.  Granted, I know that in our sinfulness we are all enemies of God – myself included.  But I can’t imagine the Lord as my enemy.  I can’t imagine facing life without the Lord’s voice and will guiding me.  What a hopeless fate.

Of course, I am faced with the realization that this is actually how much of the world lives.  Those who have actively turned away from God have made an enemy of God.  Imagine facing sickness without the promise of God.  Imagine facing sorrow without God.  Imagine facing fear without God.  Imagine facing loneliness without God.  Imagine facing this self-centered dog-eat-dog world without God.  It is rather unfathomable.  Yet it is how much of the world lives.

In the hopelessness of this verse there is the call of the Spirit.  There will be a remnant.  There will be faithful people in the world.  They must be found.  They must be identified and taught.  They must be encouraged and exhorted.  In the face of the hopelessness of life without God, we have a job to do.  We should live with a passion to show as many people as possible why life with God as an enemy is undesirable!

Scorn

Then we get to verse 7.  The Lord has scorned His altar.  This verse is almost as hollow as the opening to verse 5.  The Lord has scorned His altar.  The Lord has scorned the very place that was thought of as His own dwelling place.  What an incredible amount of rejection must have happened on behalf of the people for God to scorn His own temple.

I wonder what would bring the Lord to scorn the place of His worship.  But I know.  We’ve read about it in 1 & 2 Kings.  We looked at it pretty intently in Jeremiah and Isaiah.  What leads to the Lord scorning the place of His worship?  People who do not follow His ways.  People who profess to know Him as Lord but whose hearts are not inclined to Him.  People who stubbornly refuse to humble themselves before Him.  People who substitute their own glory for His glory.

The Lord desires genuine worship.  The Lord desires a broken spirit and a contrite heart.  The Lord desires knowledge and relationship with Him.  He doesn’t desire empty sacrifices, rote behavior, and meaningless phrases uttered by lips that are just going through the motions.

Spiritual Challenge

How about verse 14?  Want to know the fast track to the Lord scorning His altar and the Lord making Himself an enemy of the people?  Verse 14 gives us the answer.

When spiritual leaders see false and deceptive visions, we’re on the wrong path.  When our spiritual leaders stop pointing out our iniquity, we’re on the wrong path.  When our spiritual leaders pronounce oracles that are misleading we’re on the wrong path.

This verse is really hard.  Don’t we like to hear “peace be with you?”  Don’t we like to hear, “God loves you just the way you are?”  Don’t we like to hear, “Don’t worry; be happy?”  But when we hear those things, so often it isn’t for our own benefit.

I hate to say it this way, but we don’t need spiritual leaders who will say things that will make us happy.  Granted, we don’t need spiritual leaders who constantly make us angry, either.  What we need are spiritual leaders who can speak truth into our lives.  We need spiritual leaders who can encourage us in our strengths.  We need spiritual leaders who can challenge us in our weaknesses.  We need spiritual leaders who can help us grow by pushing us ever so slightly out of our own personal comfort zone.  We need spiritual leaders who can see us through the eyes of God – for better and for worse.

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Year 3, Day 118: Lamentations 1

Structure of the Book

Before studying Lamentations, I’d like to talk a little about the book itself.  This is an often overlooked book and that is a shame.  This book has an incredible amount of planning and symbolism behind it.  It is not just a great literary work; it is a great work of symbolism as well.  I should also say that I am going to write this blog as though tradition is correct in attributing authorship to Jeremiah.

The book contains 5 chapters.  Chapter 1 deals with the destruction of Jerusalem (IE, the people and their reaction).  Chapter 2 deals with God’s judgment (IE, God’s work).  Chapter 3 deals with Jeremiah’s response to what he has seen.  Chapter 4 deals with God’s anger. (IE, God’s work).  Chapter 5 deals with the response of the remnant (IE, the people and their reaction).  Do you notice the structure?  The first and last chapters deal with the people.  Jeremiah’s reaction is in the heart of the book at chapter 3.  Between Jeremiah (chapter 3) and the people (chapters 1 and 5) is the Lord (chapters 2 and 4).

However, they symbolism gets better.  Each chapter has precisely 22 stanzas – which is exactly the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet – except for chapter 3 which has 66 stanzas.  Additionally, chapters 1, 2, and 4 are written so that each consecutive stanza begins with the next consecutive letter in the Hebrew alphabet.  Chapter 3 is written in triads with the first three stanzas beginning with the first letter of the alphabet, the next three verses beginning with the second letter, etc. 

Also, note that the middle chapter contains exactly 3 times the number of verses of the other chapters.  I find it very interesting indeed that the chapter that is in the heart of this book should contain 3 times the content of the rest of any other chapter.  It is as if Jeremiah is telling us that the divine – even the Trinity – is at the heart of who we are as people, no?

Needless to say, the composition of Lamentations shows quite an incredible level of compositional mastery.  It is a work of art.  And we haven’t even begun to read it yet!

Lament

As we read through this opening passage, it is largely a reflection of how the people of Jerusalem felt as they were dragged away into captivity.  I can only imagine their humiliation.  I can only imagine their shame.  I can only imagine their loss.

Discipline is never easy to endure.  Tough love is only appreciated after the lesson is learned.  Nobody enjoys paying the consequences of their thoughtless behavior.  Nobody wakes up and says, “Gee, I hope the consequences of my actions catch up with me today.”

Yet, there is a sense as we read through this first chapter that the author knows full well that the people are being taken captive because their sinfulness has indeed caught up with them.  The author speaks of the transgressions of the Hebrew people as being bound upon them as a yoke.  Jerusalem’s uncleanness was within her, yet she took no accounting of her future.  Judah has gone among the nations because it acted as though it belonged among the nations.

It is sad to see people get hardship. It is sad to see people get the consequences of their actions.  None of us like to watch someone else suffer.  But sometimes consequences are exactly what is called for.  Anyone who has ever had to do some parenting can attest to that.

Submission

What is there to do in a case such as the Hebrew people going into captivity?  When a people are undergoing judgment and receiving just due for their action, what can be done?  The answer is simple to say but hard to do: submit.

Again, anyone who has ever been a parent knows this.  If a child screws up, accepts punishment, and admits wrong then things will likely go well for the child.  But if the child screws up, blames everyone else, and refuses to acknowledge their role in the action then things will likely go poorly for the child.  Submission is difficult in the time of judgment; yet submission is precisely what is most appropriate.

Look at what Jeremiah says here in verse 18 on behalf of Jerusalem.  “The Lord is in the right, for I have rebelled.”  In verse 20 Jeremiah says, “My heart is wrung within me for I have been very rebellious.”  In verse 22 Jeremiah says, “You have dealt with me because of all my transgressions.”

Jeremiah knows how rebellious the Hebrew people had been.  He knows how much they followed what was right in their own eyes.  He knows how much they ignored the people that God sent to them to try and call them into repentance.  Now he knows that what has to happen is to get the people to see it and repent.  Jeremiah knows that repentance has to happen as the people are being dragged off into captivity.  Genuine submission is the quickest way out of captivity.

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Year 3, Day 117: Hebrews 13

Faith Applied

Hebrews 13 is the close of this book.  As such, it contains a long list of directions that we should pursue in life.  Show brotherly love to one another.  Continue to be hospitable.  Remember those who are imprisoned for their faith.  Take marriage seriously in an honorable and undefiled manner.  Be content with what you have so you can be free from the love of money.  After all, the Lord provides for our needs.  Do not neglect doing good.  Share what you have.  Pray for others that they might have a clear conscience and desire to do what is right.

That’s a great list.  That is a list that if we all followed we would be far more likely to be where we need to be in life.  We’d spend more time in community and less time focused on ourselves.  We’d spend more time following God and less time running from God while we chase after the lusts of our own heart.

Submission

You may have been reading the list above and realized that I skipped over a pretty significant portion of this chapter.  I did that intentionally.  You see, I don’t think that it is an accident that the author of Hebrews mentions spiritual leadership twice among the things that I spoke about earlier.  The author of Hebrews mentions them in verse 7 and then again in verse 17.

We are to remember our leaders.  We are to consider their life and imitate the expression of their faith.  We are to obey our leaders.  We are to submit to them.  

This is one that I’ve been paying special attention to lately.  How do I model submission in my life?  To whom do I submit?  Sure, I submit to God; but the author of Hebrews tells us that we need to submit to our spiritual leaders as well.  So I’ve been wrestling with to whom I submit.  For if I don’t submit to anyone, why would anyone in their right mind submit to my spiritual leadership?

But I think it runs deeper than that.  I need someone watching over my life.  I need someone paying attention to my decisions and my pursuit of God.  I NEED that.  So I need to submit.  If I need that, then I should do it willingly. 

I should also do it in such a manner that makes it joyful for my spiritual leader.  I need to learn to submit in such a way that it makes it a joy to watch over my life.  The life of my spiritual mentor is going to be tough enough because of the persecution that they will receive from the world.  They don’t need me making their life any more difficult because of stress between them and me.

But here’s the cool part.  I haven’t even gotten to the neatness of this passage.  Do you notice what lies in between each of these references to our spiritual leaders?  The verses in the middle are about Christ.  Christ is at the core of our submission to our spiritual leaders.  Our submission to our spiritual leaders brings us in to Christ.

We have a great altar to which we have been invited by Christ to come.  We have a great high priest who suffered outside the gate and was rejected by the world.  We have a Lord who was not welcomed into this world but instead welcomes us into the world to come.

You see, the call to remember our spiritual leaders bookends an incredible passage about Christ.  The author of Hebrews is saying that Christ should be at the core of our spiritual leaders.  Therefore, we can submit and remember our leaders because they are submitting to Christ as we submit to Christ.  It is Christ that is the center of everything we do.

Benediction

Having now seen our response as centered in Christ, we turn to the benediction.  I join with the author of Hebrews on this point.  May the God who through Jesus Christ brought us forth out of death equip us to do His work.  May we go about our life with the perspective of God.  May we go about our life seeking to bring praise and glory to Him and His name.  May it be about Him and not us.

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Year 3, Day 116: Hebrews 12

The Cloud

We are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.  These are people who haven’t bought into being a citizen of this world.  These are people who are searching and longing for a better and heavenly homeland.  These are people of whom God is not ashamed when they are mistreated, reject, abused, persecuted, and even killed.  This is the cloud of witnesses that surrounds us.

Since we are surrounded by them, we should put off sin.  We should run the race that God has set before us.  We should be able to endure as we look towards the example of Christ.  Sure, we may not be able to see Him, but neither could any of the faithful people who lived in anticipation of His coming!  We may not be perfect, but neither were any of the cloud of witnesses.  They are a part of the cloud not because they were perfect but because they lived in Christ longing for their citizenship in heaven.

Endurance

So now we get to the heart of the conclusion in this letter.  We’ve talked about Christ.  We talked about His supremacy.  We’ve talked about His calling and His faithfulness.  Now we turn to our response.

I don’t find it hard to believe at all that the author of Hebrews needed to talk to His audience about endurance.  I think every single one of us reaches a place in their life where endurance is difficult.  We all reach places where we want to quit, we want to give up, or we want to give in.  A message of endurance is a message that should be universally appreciated because I’m willing to bet we’ve all needed one before.

The author of Hebrews doesn’t particularly pull any punches, though.  He makes a straightforward assertion.  “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your own blood.”  In other words, none of us have given our lives for what we believe in.  None of us who are still living have been asked to make the sacrifice that God asked of His own Son.  Of course, there have been people in the past who have been asked to make such a sacrifice and I’m sure there will be people in the future – perhaps even some people reading this post.  But as of right now, that level of endurance has not been asked of any of us.

I really find that humbling and challenging today.  I can convince myself that I’ve been asked to make sacrifice after sacrifice.  But I really haven’t.  I haven’t been asked to give up too much, all things considering.  I have a good marriage, a good job, food on the table, and a roof over my head.  What have I really had to sacrifice up to this point?

Painful in the Present, Fulfilling in the Future

Even in those things that I have been asked to make sacrifices, it is as the author says.  It is painful in the moment.  It is sometimes even downright difficult to do the right thing and make the hard sacrifice.  But every single time it has been for the better.  Every single time I give up something in this world for the sake of God I end up being a better person because of it.  Of course I respect God for disciplining me and asking me to make sacrifices so that I can draw closer to Him.  It’s just how spiritual growth works!

So I should pick up my head – so should you!  I should step out in faith – you too!  We should do what we can to make sure that nobody “fails to attain the grace of God.”  {Remember our conversation about husterew (ὑστερέω) in Hebrews 4?  Anyone want to guess what word appears in verse 15?}  We should do what we can to help people get rid of bitterness, stop being defiled, leave sexual immorality behind, and stop trading their true spiritual nature for worldly gain.

Reason to Take Things Seriously

Every time husterew (ὑστερέω) appears in Hebrews we have a following discussion of warning.  The author knows that we have reason to fear.  The author knows that there will be a time of accounting.  As the author says here, once more God will shake creation so that only the things that cannot be shaken will remain.

We know from other places in scripture that there will be a day coming when all things will pass away.  There will come a time when the heavens and the earth will be discarded and God will bring about a new creation.  What an incredible time that will be.  What an incredible failure to miss out because we long more for the things that can be shaken than the things of the kingdom that cannot be shaken.

As the author says, “Do not refuse Him who is speaking.”  After all, we know that when the Hebrew people refused to obey God at Sinai they wandered the wilderness for 40 years until the last of them had died.  If that was what God did to those who refused the temporary covenant, you can only guess as to what God will do to those who refuse the true covenant.

Let us be grateful.  Let us approach God with awe and reverence.  Let us take time to offer up acceptable and pleasing worship to God.

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Year 3, Day 115: Hebrews 11

By Faith

As I read through the first 12 verses of Hebrews 11, I couldn’t help but focus on the word faith.  I think that’s the author’s intent, so I don’t think I’m doing anything other than what I am supposed to be doing.  Sometimes it is good to not have to re-invent the wheel and instead just do what you are expected to do.

As I focused on faith, I began to realize that these stories are all pre-covenant and certainly pre-Law.  However, they were not pre-promise.  God has promised to be with us.  So here are a bunch of people having faith that God is with us.  They aren’t acting upon any kind of Law.  They aren’t acting upon any kind of prescribed behavior.  They are just responding to a promise from God.

I think that’s really a neat thought for me today.  So often I think that conservative Christianity gets the reputation of having to “live a certain way.”  While that is true, it isn’t as narrow as it is often painted.  We are to live according to the promise of God.  We are to live in such a way as we are brought into relationship with Him.  We don’t have to be carbon copies of one another.  We certainly don’t have to be carbon copies of the patriarchs.  We need to live in the same spirit of faith so that we are brought into relationship with God.  But that path might look slightly different for each and every one of us.

Life isn’t about following the prescribed human notion of righteousness.  Life is about abiding in God, listening to where He is calling us into faith, and then following.  Life is about response to our relationship with God.  That’s what I love about the opening dozen verses of this chapter.

Verse 13

Then we hit verse 13.  This verse – no, the opening phrase of this verse – caused me to really stop and ponder today.  “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised.”  Woah.  If that verse doesn’t stop humanity in our tracks, I don’t know what does.

Think about it.  Don’t we make bargains with God often?  And yes, I mean often.  We say, “God, if you let me do well on such-and-such, I’ll be more faithful to You.”  Or we say, “Lord, lift me out of this struggle and I’ll devote more of myself to You.”  Human beings are a “show-us-the-goods” kind of people.  We want to inspect the goods before we buy.  We want to try it out before we commit.  We want to purchase, put it on credit, and pay it off all while we enjoy the benefit of ownership.

Is that really what verse 13 tells us the walk with God is like?  God makes a promise.  People respond.  People die before receiving the promise.

So I think back to Abraham.  He was told His descendants would number like the stars in the heavens – which they do.  But did he see the realization of that promise?  No way!  He lived, knowing that God would make the promise happen.  Abraham lived knowing that God would keep his word.  Whether the fulfillment would happen in this lifetime of the next was really not all that important.  Abraham lived with an eternal perspective.  He lived thinking centuries into the future.

That is deeply challenging for me today.  That’s why this opening phrase of verse 13 stopped me in my tracks today.  Do I live with an eternal perspective?  Am I focused on the great-great-great-grandchildren of the people who call me pastor?  Or am I focused on the sermon I have to preach in three days, the three meetings on my calendar today, and when I’m going to find time to eat?  If I go through this week feeling as though God hasn’t fully fulfilled His promises to me right now, am I going to be upset?  If that’s true, how can I possibly ever hope to live with an eternal perspective?  How can I ever hope to say that I died comfortable with the fact that I had not received the things promised?  If I have to have the fulfillment of God’s promise in my lifetime, am I really living with the perspective of God?  Or am I just duping myself to think that I am?  Am I just placating my humanity by making it appear as though I am living through the eyes of God?

More About Faith

Then we leave verse 13 and tackle the rest of the chapter.  By faith person after person considered themselves to be foreigners.  By faith person after person considered themselves a resident of the life to come instead of a resident of the life that is.  By faith person after person accepted the fact that within this world they are strangers.  By faith person after person accepted that within this world they are exiles.  By faith, person after person considered their citizenship somewhere other than where they were currently residing.

As I read this chapter, I couldn’t help but to think of the old Petra song, Not of this World, from their album of the same name.  I am sure this is where they got much of their inspiration for the lyrics.

I am challenged by the thought carried through the rest of this chapter.  This is the witness of people who were seeking a homeland.  The rest of this chapter is a witness about people who are seeking a better country – a heavenly one.  So I return to my introspection.  Is this true about me?  Does this play out in my life?

God is not ashamed to be their God.  When the world tortures His own, God is not ashamed of them.  When the world cuts His own in two, God is not ashamed of them.  When God’s own are abused, mistreated, beheaded, or rejected God is not ashamed of them.  Those who are seeking a different citizenship than that of the world will find such a fate.  But they shall not be rejected by God.  That is a promise we won’t see fully fulfilled in this life.  Do I live as though I’m okay with that?

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Year 3, Day 114: Hebrews 10

The Old Way of Sacrificing

As we progress in Hebrews, we must be careful to read the actual words rather than putting our own spin on the words.  It is easy to read to this point and to actually become fairly anti-Semitic.  Or if not anti-Semitic, it is easy to find ourselves in a place that looks down our nose upon the Hebrew people.  After all, the sacrifices of the old covenant are inferior to Christ.  The priests of the old covenant are inferior to Christ.  The tabernacle of the old covenant is inferior to God’s heavenly domain.  It’s real easy for Christians to get to this point and feel rather superior to the Hebrew people.

Therefore, we must be careful.  For you see, all of those things that I just listed off as inferior were instituted by God.  They were God’s will.  They were given to Moses atop Mt. Sinai by the very hand of God.  They aren’t inferior because they are any less godly.  They are inferior because they were temporary.  We must remember that they were given by God and think of them as such.

This is the point of the author of Hebrews.  The reason that the animal sacrifices had to be offered year after year is because the animal sacrifices were only a temporary solution.  They were simply to prepare the people for Christ’s superior sacrifice.  They were designed to train people to recognize sin, to see the danger of sin in our life, and to desire a way to restore our relationship with God.  They were instituted to point us to Christ!  From this perspective, we should feel rather grateful for the old covenant even if it was a temporary representation of God’s ultimate reality.

Because the old covenant was temporary, it can be honestly said that God desired we “rend our hearts and not our garments.”  {See Joel 2:13}  It can be said that God desires steadfast love and not sacrifice.  {See Hosea 6:6.}  It can be said that the “sacrifice of God is a broken spirit and a contrite heart.  {See Psalm 51:17}  It isn’t that the old covenant was bad at all.  It was temporary to prepare us for Christ.  It pointed us to the permanent values that God desires – things that Christ taught us and displayed to us while He was here.  It pointed us to the things that the Holy Spirit continues to draw us towards as He dwells within us.

More Discussion of Judgment

The author of Hebrews once more lapses into talk about judgment in the midst of speaking about hope.  As in the past, the author of Hebrews doesn’t pull out any punches.  We are reminded that if people were condemned by not following the Law, how much more condemnation will people receive who turn their back upon the very Son of God who came to permanently fulfill the Law?  It was scary enough to fall into the hands of the everlasting God when all that there was to know was the Law.  But can you imagine falling into the hands of the living God having come to a point of rejecting His very own Son?

I don’t know about you, but this passage alone is enough to cause me to want to make sure I am right with God right now.  Yes, we all have sin in our life.  None of us are perfect.  There is no need for being terrified.  But there are some worthwhile aspects to evaluating myself and making sure I am in as good of a relationship as possible through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Assurance

This is why I love the other parts of this chapter that surround these words of judgment and warning.  We who are in Christ can be in full assurance.  Those of us who have submitted to God and who are covered by the blood of Jesus Christ can claim Him as our high priest who will carry us before God.  We can grasp onto our confession of faith with confidence.  We can look forward with incredible hope.

We can also go forth into God’s calling and be confident in what God has asked us to do.  We can witness to the poor and in prison.  We can go to the sick and the lame.  We can encourage and exhort one another.  We can let go of our worldly attachments knowing that our heavenly treasures are far more sustaining.  We can be the confident people of God not because we are great but because we are brought into the presence of God by our great high priest.  We are confident because of what Christ has done for us and because He has placed His Holy Spirit within us.

Perseverance

The last words of this chapter are an encouragement to not shrink back.  We should not go backwards.  Now we return to an earlier theme about which the author of Hebrews had spoken.  We must not regress.  We who are ready for spiritual meat must continue to desire spiritual meat.  We cannot return to spiritual milk and spiritual infancy.

God did not call us to be His disciples only to have us continue to be a drain on the system.  God has empowered us to learn and to grow so that we can contribute to the church!  We are called to be leaders and teachers in the faith, not just consumers.  We are called to be walking billboards of faith – people whose souls are preserved and who are in the business of helping God preserve others.

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Year 3, Day 113: Hebrews 9

Not Now

The opening five verses talk about the tabernacle that was created according to the instructions given to Moses on Mt. Sinai.  But the last half of verse 5 is terribly interesting.  Literally the author says, “About which it is not now to speak according to a part.”  In other words, as your modern English Bible probably says, “Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.”

The word that is interesting is “cannot.”  In some translations, this comes across as the author saying “I don’t have the time or space to write about it.”  But this is not at all what the author is saying.  Rather, the author is saying that it is impossible to speak about those things.  We literally cannot speak about those things.

Sure, we can speak about how they were shaped.  We can go back to Exodus and read the literal description about how the tabernacle and its implements were made.  But remember what the author said in the last chapter.  The earthly tabernacle (or temple or even modern churches) is just a shadow of the true reality in heaven.  It is just a representation of what true reality is actually like.  We can talk about the worldly things crafted by human hands and put inside a human tabernacle (or temple or church).  But we cannot hope to be able to meaningfully speak about the significance of those things in the literal heavenly presence of God!

Let me get to the point, because I haven’t really done a great job of that yet.  What we have here on earth is just a shadow of what true reality with God is like.  You know how you can look at a person’s shadow and get a general impression of what they look like, but you can’t tell for certain exactly what they look like?  So it is with heaven.  We can have all kinds of deep spiritual moments – and praise be to God for them!  But all of what we do here on earth is just a shadow – a representation – of what true reality in the presence of God is going to look like.

Think about the absolute pinnacle spiritual moment of your life.  Think about the time when you were the closest to God that you have ever been.  Now think about what it is going to be like in the presence of God when you add a whole different dimension to that experience.  Imagine taking that moment of incredible spirituality and thinking of it as only a foreshadowing of what existence with God is going to be like.

Yeah, that’s what the author is getting at in these first 5 verses.  We can talk about the things of this world.  But the reality is that we can’t even imagine what true reality is going to be like once we are in the genuine presence of God.  I find that pretty mind-blowing today.

By the Blood

I absolutely love the next ten verses.  The author does an incredible job talking about how there had to be the shedding of blood even before a priest under the old covenant could enter into the first of the Holy Places.  Even then, only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies.  Even then, only once a year.

Yet Christ came and died.  The author doesn’t say it, but the temple curtain was torn.  The Holy of Holies was no longer only for just the High Priest once a year.  Access was granted to the presence of God for all people according to the blood of Jesus Christ.

We have an eternal redemption, once for all.  Christ has done it.  What can wash away my sin?  Nothing but the blood of the Lamb.

Better Sacrifice

In keeping with the theme of the last two chapters, we hear yet again how Christ is superior.  The worldly representations of this world were purified with the blood of animal sacrifices.  That was okay, but it had to be done over and over again.

The heavenly places, however, have the presence of the real and true sacrifice.  Christ has gone into the true temple of God – the heavenly one.  He is the true and superior sacrifice for our sins.

Coming Again

Because He is the true sacrifice, He doesn’t need to keep coming to earth and dying over and over and over.  On one level, that really makes sense.  But from the perspective of a Hebrew mindset, just think how strange that must have sounded.  They were doing animal sacrifices monthly and yearly for over a millennium.  All of a sudden this guy comes, calls Himself the Son of God, and says that no more sacrifices are needed because He is the ultimate sacrifice.

Wow.  That must have been unthinkable.  I have so much respect for those early Christians who had the courage to convert from Judaism to Christianity.  Talk about completely changing your whole theological worldview!

That being said, Christ will come again.  He won’t come to die again.  He won’t come to cover more sin.  Instead, He will come to claim those who are washed in His blood.  He will come to claim those in this world who are His.  He will come to deal with us who eagerly await His return.  Amen.  Come Lord Jesus.  (Ἀμήν, ἔρχου κύριε Ἰησοῦ.)

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Year 3, Day 112: Hebrews 8

True Tent

Once more the author of Hebrews makes a poignant statement about the supremacy of Christ.  After Christ died, He rose from the dead.  After He had risen, He ascended into heaven.  As our creeds say, “He is seated at the right hand of the Father.”  Jesus is not in a tomb.  He is not there.  He is risen and He has ascended to be with the Father.

Why is this significant?  Well, God gave Moses the plans for the tabernacle.  It was to be a representation here on earth of God’s temple in heaven.  It was not a perfect mirror imagine.  It was a representation.  The priests who served faithful did so representing relationship with God.  I don’t mean to say that it wasn’t real.  I mean to say that it is as real as it could be on this world, in this physical life, and according to our physical ability to understand it.  It was as real as it could get; but it was still a representation.

On the other hand, Jesus has ascended to the true throne of God.  Jesus is no longer here representing God; He is with God in truth!  He is in the presence of God – well, besides being God Himself, of course.  But here’s the deal.  Jesus isn’t here on earth acting out a representation of dwelling with God.  He is in heaven actually dwelling with God.  Since He is actually in heaven dwelling with God, He is superior to any of us religious folk still left here on earth.

Again, that doesn’t make any of us wrong or bad – other than our inherent sinfulness, of course.  It simply means that He is superior.  Yes, He is superior because He is God and we are not.  But we have proof of His superiority because He ascended.  We all will wait until His return before we will ascend with Him to heaven.  But He is there now.  This is proof of His superiority to any spiritual leader who came before Him or who shall come after Him.

Quoting Our Recent Friend

I love the fact that we find a quote in this chapter from Jeremiah 31, largely because we just finished reading Jeremiah and that quote is fresh in my mind.  No, I didn’t plan that.  Yes, I believe God did.

This quote from Jeremiah is one of my favorites.  I love the focus from God’s perspective about establishing a New Covenant.  This New Covenant will not be like the old covenant.  The old covenant could be broken.  The old covenant could be “opted out” as the Hebrew people eventually did – hence the story of Jeremiah.  The old covenant could be ignored, discarded, and even abused.

But this New Covenant will be different.  This New Covenant will not be external.  It will be internal.  The ways of the Lord will be written on our hearts.  We will not need to tell each other to “know the Lord” because we will know Him personally.

Of course, this is not an excuse to neglect evangelism.  When we look around we can see a world that does not know the Lord.  We can see a world where we need to tell the lost that they need to know the Lord. 

What we do not need to do is to tell the people who are in Christ to know the Lord because we who are in Christ do know the Lord personally.  We know what it is like to have the Lord deep within us.  We know what it is like to have the Lord in our life everyday as He speaks to us and guides us.  We who are in Christ do indeed know the Lord!

We know Him because He has given His Holy Spirit to us.  He has written His ways upon our heart by sending the Holy Spirit within us.  We can know God personally because God has come and “tabernacled” with us personally.

Obsolete

Therefore, since we have the Holy Spirit with us the old covenant is obsolete.  We need to be very careful here, though.  We must understand what the author of Hebrews is speaking about because if we aren’t careful we end up throwing away the baby with the bath water.  The author of Hebrews is not saying that the Law is obsolete.  God’s ways are God’s ways.  Sin is still sin.  God is still offended by the things He has always been offended by.  Relationship with God is still broken by the things that have always broken relationship with God.  As I said, God’s ways have and always will be God’s ways.

What has changed is how our relationship with God can be restored.  The old covenant was that if we sinned we had to provide atonement.  An animal had to die and blood had to be shed to atone for our sins.  That was the old covenant.

Now, we no longer need an animal sacrifice.  We have our great high priest: Jesus Christ.  He died for our sake.  He died to pay the price we could not pay.  He paid it once for all.  He paid it in full.  The new covenant is that Jesus has covered the wages of sin for us.  We must simply receive His grace and then humble ourselves to abide in His will as a response to the salvation that He mercifully gives to us.

Many have called this the Great Exchange.  God gave us His Son and had Him die for our sake.  We give God our sin and through Christ He exchanges it for righteousness.  That’s a New Covenant indeed!

What a blessed exchange.  What an incredible gift.  When put in those terms, how little it seems for us to simply humble ourselves to Him!  Yet how hard even humbleness before God is to achieve on account of our innate sinfulness.  Oh, how we need that superior high priest in Jesus Christ!

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Year 3, Day 111: Hebrews 7

Melchizedek

Melchizedek has become one of my favorite Bible characters.  This chapter has much to do with my fascination with Melchizedek.  I am fascinated by him because he is only mentioned at one point in Genesis and a single time in the Psalms before being absolutely expounded upon by the author of Hebrews.  It is so rare for a figure to rise out of absolute obscurity and become a fore-runner to Jesus in a John the Baptizer kind of way.  The end of the story of Melchizedek screams of Christianity.  He is a man taken out of obscurity but through the presence of the Son of God has an incredible honor bestowed upon him.

Let’s look at this man.  As the author of Hebrews says, Melchizedek literally means “King of Righteousness.”  Genesis tells us that Melchizedek was a God-fearing priest.  He was righteous in a land of Canaanites before the Hebrew people ever came to settle in the land of Canaan.  That right there makes him pretty cool.

He was literally the King of Salem – the town which eventually becomes known as Jerusalem.  Salem is the word for “peace.”  So not only was Melchizedek a righteous man, he was a king whose place of dwelling and ruling was known as “peace.”  That makes him doubly cool in my book.

Third, as the author of Hebrews mentions, he comes to us with no genealogy.  Certainly he had a father and mother; we just don’t know who they are!  It’s like he comes out of nowhere, displays God to Abraham for a brief moment, and then recedes back into history without even a mention of his death.  His coming and his going isn’t important; what is important is how he reflected God while he was here.  That makes him triply cool in my book.

Finally, notice that God’s chosen man – Abraham – gives a tithe to Melchizedek.  Abraham is God’s chosen implement.  He is the founder of the Hebrew people.  He is the forefather of faithfulness to God!  Yet, Abraham gives a tithe to Melchizedek.  Abraham, who becomes a founder of a group of people whose religious qualities are based on genealogy, gives a tenth of everything he has to a guy with no known genealogy or lineage!  Here we can clearly see that what is important is righteousness with God, not lineage or self-justification or anything like that.

Melchizedek v. Aaron

Now the author of Hebrews returns to the dagger that he began to employ in Hebrews 3.  In Hebrews 3, the author made the point that Jesus was greater than Moses and the salvation that comes through Jesus is greater than anything that can come through the Law.  Here, the author of Hebrews makes it clear that the order of Melchizedek is greater that the order of Aaron.  Imagine how such a claim would be heard by Jews!

Of course the author makes a genealogical point.  Jesus is descended from the tribe of Judah, not the tribe of Levi.  Therefore, Jesus can clearly be seen as king; his priesthood is in question if it were not for Melchizedek being king of Salem (which became Jerusalem).  So we can see that Jesus is both a priest and king.

Then, the author makes the argument that the Law made nothing perfect.  Imagine how this argument would have gone over with the Jews of his day!  But this is an absolutely fundamental point of Christianity.  The Law does not make us perfect.  The Law points out our imperfections.  The Law may try to curb our imperfections – our sin – but it cannot prevent us from sinning.  It can merely demonstrate our sinfulness and aid us in our fight against sin.

How do we know that Jesus is a better high priest than any of the priests that come through the line of Aaron?  {Or for that matter, any who come from a fully human lineage?}  The author’s rationale is simple.  Every priest of the line of Aaron dies - every single one.  If we want to expand it to a modern perspective, every single religious leader since Jesus has likewise died.  We who are fully human all die.  Our effectiveness comes to an end.  We can only do so much.

Not so with Christ!  Christ overcame death.  Christ rose from the dead.  Christ lives eternally with the Father.  Christ continues to be able to work.  He can save those who draw near to Him because He has defeated all enemies.  His work of salvation continues on to and through this day.  Tell me another priest of whom that can be said!

Jesus had no need to offer up an offering to cleanse Himself before He was offered up for our sake.  Jesus had no need to be cleansed from anything prior to dying for our sake.  He was not weak when He was appointed to carry out the will of the Father.  Since Christ was appointed in His strength, he is naturally superior to all of us who are appointed while being in our weakness to sin.

There can be no doubt regarding the superiority of Christ.  He is superior on every front.  The salvation that comes through Him is likewise as superior.  He is our great high priest.

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