 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
Therefore, my friends,
since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary
by the blood of Jesus,
by the new and living way
that he opened for us through the curtain
(that is, through his flesh),
and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.
And let us consider how to provoke one another
to love and good deeds,
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another,
and all the more,
as you see the Day approaching.
This is the Word of our Lord. Thanks be to God.
Sabbath in the House of God
Hebrews 10:19-25
Last week, when I mentioned to a clergy friend that I was preaching from the Letter to the Hebrews, his reply was, “Very strange book. Take your flashlight.” “Flashlight,” I asked. “Why?” “Because,” he said, “the Letter to the Hebrews is like a cave; once you go in, you may not find your way out.”
And you know what? He was right. This Letter to the Hebrews is a baffling and mysterious text filled with complex content, lyrical passages, and multifaceted meanings. It’s also a book of the Bible that can not be pinned down. We don’t know who wrote it. We don’t know where it was written. We don’t know when it was written. We don’t know for whom it was written.
Plus its language is unlike any we see in the New Testament. It’s a book out there on its own. And as one scholar says: Hebrews appears in the Bible without a mother or a father or a genealogy.* And if we can’t track the context of where it’s come from, how can we follow where it’s taking us?
To understand our text we must act on trust, dive in, give up what we think we know and hold on for dear life. And the very place to start our understanding is in noticing that what we know as The Letter to the Hebrews is really not a letter at all.
It may be called a letter. It may look like a letter. It may smell like a letter, but it’s really a sermon in disguise: a sermon written by a Preacher to a beloved church that needs to hear a word of encouragement, a word of hope.
And this is what she preaches:
My dearest friends in Christ, you know we can -- without a doubt, without any uncertainty or hesitation -- walk right up to God, anytime we want, walk right into God’s house, up those front steps to this sanctuary, and know with absolute certainty that we loved and are part of the new and living way.
How is this possible? Because Jesus has cleared the way, cleaned the road, swept the path by the blood of his sacrifice. He is our priest, our pastor, our shepherd, our hope, our salvation before God.**
Tom Long notes that this Preacher is not preaching somewhere out into the void. She’s not making this up as she goes along. Her church has urgent pastoral concerns. The Hebrews congregation is exhausted. They are tired: tired of serving the world, tired of worship, tired of giving, tired of keeping a faith life going in a world that dis-believes believers. This congregation walks around heads down; shoulders slumped, eyes glazed, feet shuffling. So deeply in need of rest and renewal, some are considering walking away from their faith all together.
Of course we recognize the problem. We recognize ourselves. We too are exhausted, worn out, overworked, and overstretched. Sunday mornings become some of the only unstructured time in our entire week. Why show up to church?
Yet the Preacher from Hebrews, when faced with the pastoral problem of spiritual weariness is bold enough, brave enough, brash enough to think that a word about Jesus and a sermon can be the answers. The Preacher doesn’t appeal to improved group dynamics or conflict management techniques.***
She doesn’t hire a congregational life coach, or a professional organizer to tidy up. She doesn’t create a snappy flow chart to track goals and objectives. Rather she daringly preaches the truth about God:
- God who so graciously gathers us into church to refresh and restore us;
- God who gives us Jesus, the priest above all priests, the priest who walks with us on the new and living way;
- God who cleanses and purifies and frees us from our weariness by feeding us the food of confidence and hope and encouragement;
- God who strips us of our exhaustion and clothes us abundance and completeness of Sabbath life.
It’s so easy to be caught up in the relentless doings of our lives, rather than being God’s people through accepting God’s grace, peace and encouragement.
B.J. Katen-Narvell invited me to attend a pastor’s conference this past Wednesday afternoon that was led by Wayne Muller. Wayne Muller has written a number of books about the Christian life, but on Wednesday he focused on his work around Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in our Busy Lives. He is a wise and articulate man, and much like the Preacher of Hebrews; he proclaims the God of the Sabbath.
Muller says in the relentless busyness of life we have lost our essential rhythm between work and rest. Our culture invariably supposes that action and accomplishment are better than resting in God; that doing something -- anything -- is better than doing nothing.
Because of our desire to succeed, to meet these ever-growing expectations, we do not rest in God’s arms, says Muller. Because we do not rest, we lose our way and forget the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy. We invariably miss the compass points that would show us where to go; we bypass nourishment that would give us succor. We miss the quiet that helps us listen for God’s wisdom. We miss life’s joy born out of effortless delight.
We say to one another how busy we are, with no small degree of pride, as if our exhaustion were a trophy, our ability to withstand stress a mark of real character.
So poisoned by this hypnotic belief that good things come only through unceasing determination and tireless effort, we can never truly rest. When we turn our backs on God’s gift of Sabbath, and our lives, our souls are in danger.****
For the Preacher of Hebrews who loves and adores her
congregation, she’ll have none of it. Nothing, but nothing, is going to jeopardize the wellbeing of her people. She knows that worshiping God is not simply a good thing to do; it is the essential, indispensable, fundamental thing we do to stay alive.
When all the clutter is cleared away, we do not merely need to worship; we truly yearn to worship, our body and soul hunger for it. And all of us know, somewhere in our hearts, that we are not whole, we are incomplete, without worshiping the One we love and adore.
One preacher puts it this way: when we gather here week after week, it’s not your pastors that make worship meaningful. It’s not your musicians and educators that make worship meaningful. The One whom we worship is the meaning. We do not create worship that addresses your deepest needs. God whom we worship is our deepest need and meets our needs.
Our response then, is to praiseGod with word and song; to thankGod with deeds of love and kindness; to honor God by prodding one another to act with compassion and mercy. Our very worship becomes a foretaste of heaven.*****
If you are here for the very first time; if you are a life-time member; if you worship with us from time to time, or have recently joined the church:
Welcome to this Sabbath -- this place of rest.
Welcome to this community -- this place of encouragement.
Welcome to this ministry -- this place of service.
Welcome to God’s foretaste of heaven.
Thanks be to God.
* Luke Timothy Johnson. The Writings of the New Testament: an Interpretation. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986, 412. As found in Thomas G. Long’s book Hebrews. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1997, 2.
** Inspired by and adapted from Eugene H. Peterson’s The Message. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress Publishing Inc., 1993, 470.
*** Thomas G. Long. Hebrews. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1997, 3.
**** Wayne Muller. Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives. New York: Bantam Books, 1999, 1-3.
***** Thomas G. Long. Beyond the Worship Wars: Building Vital and Faithful Worship. The Alban Institute Inc., 2001, 17.
Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission