You
better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why;
Santa Claus is coming to town. He sees
you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been
bad or good, so be good for goodness sake; Santa Claus is coming to town. Have we ever stopped to think about these
lyrics that we sing to our children? In
many ways, these are scary words, but we have sung them so many times that we
don’t notice. Writer and naturalist
Annie Dillard tells a story of one cold Christmas Eve when Santa showed up at
her front door. The family called to
her, “Annie, where are you? Look who’s here!”
But little Annie ran upstairs. She
never wanted to meet Santa Claus. He was
the old man who you never saw, but who always saw you and knew everything about
you. Worse, if you were bad he would
take away your presents. Annie Dillard
comments that she ran away that night because she knew that she had been
bad.
There
are a lot of biblical parallels with this story. If you just substituted a few things, this is
easily the story of Genesis chapter 3.
Adam and Eve were out in the Garden when all of a sudden God stood at
the door. “Why are you, Adam?” God
called out. But Adam and Eve had run
away and hidden themselves. They knew
that they had been bad. And, from the
Bible’s perspective, this is how all of our lives go before we meet Christ and
when we’re not living into our relationship with Christ. We run from God, because we know he knows all
about us and we even know that we’ve been bad.
From
God’s perspective, this was not going to work.
When he shows up, he comes only to bring love and give us life to the
full. However, he does know that we
can’t be in his presence without something changing, so he has provided his son
as the mediator between God and man.
This is what our reading from Hebrews tells us about Jesus today. The past two weeks in our series we have
focused on Jesus as the messenger and message of God, and Jesus as our brother
and the pioneer of our salvation. This
week, we read of Jesus as our high priest.
This morning, the author of the letter to the Hebrews tells us that
because our high priest is Jesus, the sympathetic, sinless, son, we can boldly
come into God’s presence for all we need.
Our
reading this morning begins in a way similar to the song, Santa Claus is Coming
to Town. Hebrews 4:12-13 tells us “For
the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any
double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints
and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing
in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and
laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” These are scary words. They tell us that we are completely exposed
before God, all of our thoughts, words, and actions. We are actually reminded of this every Sunday
morning, as our worship service begins with the Collect for Purity. “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open,
all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.” Scary!
We hear these words every week, and for many of us, myself included,
they just flow in one ear and out the other so we can move on to the next part
of the service. But according to
Hebrews, and our own liturgy, we stand before God and we must give an account
to his perfect standard. That means I’m
in trouble, and I want to run from that.
If this
doesn’t scare you enough, try an exercise that Fr. David told us at the staff
meeting this past week. Imagine that
when you were born a recording device was attached to you which recorded
everything that you ever said. Now, when
you die, imagine if God played back the recording and listened for all of the
ways which you judged other people, the standards that you used, and then used
those to judge you. How would you
do? Again, I’m in deep trouble. I want to run from that. And in reality, we’re not judged by our own
faulty standards, but by God’s perfect standards.
However,
God is not a God who is content with his children running from him. He has made us for the purpose of being in a
loving relationship with him as our Father, not for us to cower at the presence
of his shadow or the mere hint of his presence.
God’s answer to this was to provide a mediator, which the Old Testament
calls the high priest. The job of the
high priest was to stand between God and the people, to be a mediator. The high priest was the one person who on the
Day of Atonement would enter the Most Holy Place in the Temple with the
sacrifice for the sins of the nation and offer the sacrifice to God. He was the only one that was allowed to
enter, and then only this one day per year.
But on that one day, he would stand in the place of the people before
God and offer the sacrifice. Then, he
would come out and tell the people on God’s behalf that they had been
forgiven. This was the job of the high
priest as a mediator.
However,
there were problems. The high priest was
a man just like any other Hebrew. He
himself had sin. If he, as a sinner,
entered into God’s presence in the wrong way, he would be killed. Sin cannot enter the presence of God’s in his
holiness. What if the high priest before
he had offered the sacrifice to God?
Would the people be unforgiven?
If the high priest was the only one who could enter, and he died, who
would go in and remove the body from the holy presence of God? In order to counter this, the Jews would tie
a rope around the ankle of the high priest, and he had bells on the bottom of
his robe. That way, if he died, they
would hear the clash of the bells if he fell over dead, and they could drag him
out. Then, the next person in line to become
high priest would prepare themselves and enter to offer the sacrifice to God.
Hebrews
tells us that God has provided a better way.
He has given us Jesus as our high priest. And because of Jesus’ qualifications
(sympathetic, sinless, and the Son of God), we can boldly approach God’s throne
rather than running in shame.
First,
Hebrews presents to us Jesus as our perfect high priest because he is
sympathetic. Hebrews 4:15, “For we do
not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one
who in every respect has been tempted as we are.” Jesus has experienced the same temptations
that we have, and can therefore sympathize with us as he talks to God the
Father on our behalf. Now Jesus was not
tempted with each specific temptation that we are. He was never tempted to break the speed
limit, to shoot another person with a handgun, or to watch pornography on the
internet. These things just weren’t
around in his time. However, all of our
temptations boil down to one thing; trusting God for who he is and how he
works. For example, when we are tempted
to break the speed limit, harmless as it may seem, the temptation is for us not
to trust God and his timing. When we are
tempted to harm someone with a weapon, we are tempted not to trust that God
will bring justice. When we are tempted
with pornography, we being tempted doubt that God really is the only Lord, not
our sexual desires as our surrounding culture often tells us. All of these things boil down to trusting God
for who he is and how he works.
Jesus
certainly experienced this temptation.
In his own temptation experience, he was tempted to make stones into
bread; thereby being tempted to doubt that God would provide for him if Jesus
was doing his will. He was tempted to test
God’s promise that he would lift him up if he jumped off the temple roof. In that he was tempted to try to control God
and not let him be the God he says he is, one who would be faithful to his
promises in his own way. Finally, he was
tempted to bow down to Satan in order to achieve his goal of reclaiming all of
the nations of the world. In this Jesus
was tempted to doubt God’s way, the way of the cross.
In all
of our temptations, we are asked to doubt that God is who he says he is, and
that he will do what he says he will. Jesus
was definitely tempted with this.
Therefore, when we are faced with these same temptations and cry out to
him, he knows what we’re going through. And
how comforting that is. When I am having
trouble and go to talk with someone, I don’t always want someone to fix it, but
I do want someone to tell me that they understand. Satan so wants us to feel alone in our battle
with our own sinful nature. But we are
not alone. Jesus, our high priest has
already struggled with these same temptations and is now the mediator for us,
sending us the help we need from God the Father in this battle.
So in
our need for a mediator, Jesus is the perfect high priest because he is
sympathetic to us in our temptations.
The second qualification that Hebrews gives for Jesus being the perfect
high priest is that he is sinless.
Verse
15, now with the very end, notes, “For we do not have a high priest who is
unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted
in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” Even though Jesus faced the same temptation
that we do, in a very real way, he did not sin.
He never gave in to that doubt of who God is and how God works. He endured through those hours of
temptation. The perfect snapshot of this
is our savior in the Garden of Gethsemane.
There, Jesus prays that the father would remove the cup of suffering
from him. He knew the way that God had
for him; it was the way of the cross.
Jesus was so wrestling with this temptation to walk away from the
Father’s plan that he was sweating blood.
And yet, in the face of that temptation he concluded, not my will but
your will be done. And he stood and
walked the way of the cross.
This
makes Jesus the perfect high priest because we don’t have to worry about him
dropping dead in the presence of God the Father. Remember that the Jews had the bells and the
rope; to tell them if the priest died and then they could drag him out. We do not need the bell and the rope. Jesus is the perfect, sinless one who can
freely enter into the throne room of God to intercede on our behalf.
Finally,
not only does Hebrews tells us that Jesus is the perfect high priest because he
is sympathetic and sinless, but also because he is God’s Son. Verse 14 of our reading, “Therefore, since we
have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the
Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.” The high priests of the Old Testament could
only enter into the Most Holy Place of the Temple to intercede for the people
on one day of the year. But Jesus has
passed through the heavens and can enter the throne room of his father at any
time. In our first week we read that
Jesus is now seated at the right hand of God in heaven. He is already there, right next to God the
Father, speaking to his Father on our behalf.
And he does so as a son.
Stories
abound of the access that Abraham Lincoln’s son, Tad, had to the
president. Even if the president was
incredibly busy with an important meeting, he could waltz right in and have
immediate access to his father, because Lincoln loved his little son. I’ve heard stories of times when Tad would
meet people waiting to see his father, but who were at the back of the
line. If little Tad became convinced of
their cause, he would take the person by the hand, walk them past all of the
other people in the lobby and into the Oval Office for an audience with the
president.
Jesus
has found us, not waiting to see his heavenly Father, but running from
him. However, he knows our cause, he has
faced the same temptations, and he can take us into the presence of his Father
at any moment for the help that we need, and he is glad to do it.
In our
need for a mediator, Jesus is the perfect high priest because he is
sympathetic, sinless, and the Son of God.
Through him we can access the throne of grace.
We
began this sermon by talking about Santa Claus as knowing all about us and
giving us presents only if we’re good. I
drew an analogy to God, who knows everything about us. From him no creature is hid, and we are
uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an
account. However, unlike Santa Claus,
God is not sitting in a room somewhere with a long list of names ticking off if
we are naughty or nice. Rather, he comes
to us as love, true love, to redeem us into a relationship with him.
Remember that story of Annie
Dillard? She ran from Santa who showed
up at her door that night because she knew that she had been bad. However, later she found out that it was not
really Santa who showed up, but Miss White, the little old lady who lived
across the street and who loved Annie very much. Later, Annie reflected on how that encounter
so mirrored her attitude toward God. She
wrote, “It is who misunderstood everything and let everybody down. Miss White, God, I am sorry I ran from you. I am still running, running from that
knowledge, that eye, that love from which there is no refuge. For you meant only love, and love, and I felt
only fear, and pain. So once in Israel
love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were
all afraid.”
God has come to us, he has sent us
messengers, and in the fullness of time, he sent us himself, the message,
Jesus, the Son of God. This Jesus shared
with us in our temptations, yet he conquered them, not to rub it in or to shame
us into doing better, but that he would be the perfect mediator, the high
priest standing between the Father and all of fallen humanity. Because of this, because we have Jesus as our
perfect high priest, we can approach God at any time and bring our concerns to
him. We need not be ashamed or put on a
show. We need only honestly come before
our loving Father and offer our concerns, our hopes, our fears, and we can know
that they will be heard and the Father will give us what we need, in his plan,
to accomplish his purposes.
The application that our reading
gives us this morning is to boldly approach the throne of grace for help in our
time of need. We all have needs. We all have struggles, in varying degrees of
intensity. However, when we refuse to
bring those to our loving heavenly Father, we are in essence hiding from
him. He desires to assist us, to give us
good gifts, life to the fullest, life in him.
But we do not have to run and hide.
We do not have to be ashamed of our needs or try to tough it out. God knows our situation, and in our need for
a mediator, he has provided Jesus to be our perfect high priest. As we draw nearer to communion, I urge us to
think about what it is we need from God.
Where are those areas of hurt or of need in our lives? Then, as we are welcomed to God’s table at
communion, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we
may receive and find grace to help us in our time of need.
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