Lent 5 Hebrews 5:7-10
March 18, 2018
We are living in an age of depression. So much unrest. So much hurt and anger. So much disagreement and too few solutions. Sometimes it doesn’t even seem worth it to be a Christian. God has the solution but so few seem to want to hear it. In fact, if you speak up about what you believe, you risk being ignored or scorned. Sometimes being a Christian feels more like a liability than an advantage.
That pretty much sums up what was going on in the lives of the Christians who first received this letter. They were Jewish converts to Christianity. They had received the message about Jesus with joy and deep commitment, but at the time Christianity was not legal in the Roman Empire. Soon they faced oppositionand it hurt. Some lost jobs or property. Others were imprisoned. Families were hurting. Was it worth it? Judaism was still legal and many of their friends were still Jews. Why not just go back to it?
The writer spends the whole letter showing that Jesus is the fulfillment of everything Judaism pointed ahead to. He was greater than anything that pointed ahead to him, just as the real person is greater than his shadow. If they gave up on Jesus and went back, they would be giving up on the very salvation for which they’d been waiting. To abandon Jesus would be to abandon eternal life in heaven.
The most important shadow in Judaism that pointed ahead to the coming Savior was the High Priest. The High Priest was appointed to be the mediator between God and man. He represented sinful mankind by offering sacrifices and prayers on their behalf. He represented God by announcing his forgiveness and promises of life. The High Priest was the only way to God’s heart, and the only way from God’s heart to man’s heart. In all of this God was showing the Jews that he was sending them another High Priest, a perfect one, not from the regular line of High Priests, but one like Melchizedek, who was another picture of Christ in the Old Testament. Jesus would be the last and only High Priest they’d ever need. He would represent sinners by offering a better sacrifice for their sins once and for all. He himself would be that sacrifice. He would represent God by providing the forgiveness and promises of life they needed in order to be at peace with him forever.
This High Priest came and offered that sacrifice. To turn away from Jesus was to turn away from his salvation. That would be a tragedy. They would be lost all over again.In our age of depression, Christians are still in danger of doing the same thing. It’s time to hear again how THIS HIGH PRIEST HAS DONE IT ALL … FOR YOU!
So often welearn aboutJesus’ life and work as if it were dry historical facts. We don’tgrasp the enormous implications. These verses from Hebrews 5 let us in on what was going through Jesus’ heart and soul as he prepared to offer his life as a substitute for our sins. As true man he was terrified and under tremendous stress knowing what he needed to do – asyou or I would feel when we are facing surgery. In fact, he’d been waiting for this dreadful day all his life. The devil knew it was coming, too, so right from the start he tempted Jesus togiveup and take back the glory he already owned and deserve. ”Why waste your time on sinners?They won’t appreciate it, anyway. Many of them have already gone to hell in unbelief. You can’t help them now. What about those who won’t believe in you now or in the future? Why waste your life on them? Even those who do believe won’t grasp how much you did to save them. It isn’t your problem. It’s theirs!”
Jesus’ answer to the devil was, “Your will shall not be done.”Three years later we find our great High Priest offering up “prayers and pleas with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death”. How valuable, how precious is our salvation! It wasn’t a cheap last-minute gift but a priceless, extravagant treasure into which God devoted everything he had. Our High Priest gave the last full measure to save us!
Jesus usually went off by himself to pray, where no one could see or hear him pour out his heart to his Father. What the writer to the Hebrews describes here is the scene in Gethsemane, where Jesus confided in Peter, James, and John, “My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death. “ (Matthew 26:53). Heleft them andwent a stone’s throw away to pray. They could hear his cries and see his tears and sweat falling to the ground like drops of blood.Our hearts would ache to hear anyone in such anguishbecause we can relate to how that might feel. We don’t know all the words Jesus prayed, butwe can relate, we can imagine, what was in the humble Son of Man’s heart as he prepared to suffer more than any person ever suffered.“My dear Father, more than anything I want to do this foryou, but I’m so afraid. I know you will help me go through it, but it’s tearing me apart inside. I know I will hear horrendous, godless blasphemy against your holy name and the thought of it turns my stomach with bitterness. Although I am your pure, beloved Son, I know I will be mocked, beaten and ridiculed mercilessly. I know my body will be exposed for all to see - bleeding, dirty, naked and ashamed like a common criminal on a cross. I shudder knowing that I must suffer the intensity of your fierce anger in hell, but I trust you not toleave me there forever. I tremble knowing that I must die, but I trust you not to abandon my body to the grave. Oh Father, my flesh and my heart are failing, but you are the strength of my heart. I know that there is no other way to redeem mankind from their sin, otherwise you would have me do that instead. I know I must drink this cup of suffering. So your will be done, dear Father.Your will is my will.”
“He learned obedience.” This was how Jesus had lived his whole earthly life for us. He who created the universe, including life itself, humbled himself and become a helpless baby. The all-knowing, almighty God had to learn how to walk and talk and how to read. He who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, submitted to growing in wisdom and stature into a young man. Now he was about to “learn obedience from the things he would suffer.” He prayed, “Father, your will be done”in Gethsemane,then he went to Calvary where God’s will was done.The lamb went uncomplaining forth, from commitment to the cross, from words to action that included real thorns and scourge; spikes and scorn; horrific crucifixion, death and the grave.
We say “I will,” and don’t always do God’s will. But Christ did. He went to the cross and paid for our broken promises to God plus the heartache and tears we’ve caused those we love by failing to follow the right words with the right works. He endured the cross, scorning its shame.“And, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation.” “Made perfect.” That’s what it says in the Greek. When we hear the word “perfect” we usually think of “holy”. But Jesus already was holy, so “perfect” must have a wider meaning. The translation we used today is clearer, “After he was brought to his goal”(EHV).Jesus would later use the same word when he cried from the cross“It is finished”(John 19: 30). He had reached the goal of redeeming us.
Because he did, our High Priest became the source of eternal salvation “for everyone who obeys him.”At first that sounds like we have to do something in order to be saved. You know - Jesus did his part, now we must add our part. But to obey him means to believe in him. He tells us through John’s pen, “This is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ.” (1 John 3:23) To obey him is to use our God-given faith to trust the work he did – to count it as everything weneed –to make us right with God. To disobey would be to disregard what he did – to count it as nothing – and instead trust what we do to save ourselves.
Which brings us back to the reason for this letter. God has already sent us the greatest and last High Priest, and he’s done it all for you. He was totally devoted to saving you. There was nothing in it for him except the joy of seeing you heaven with him! Sowhere else could we go? Only Jesus has the words of eternal life!
Several years ago a man’s car stalled in busy traffic in Rochester and another man stopped to help him push it out of the way. They were both hit by a passing car. The man who had stopped to help became paralyzed for the rest of his life. You and I can imagine how terrible the owner of the stalled car felt. He felt responsible. It was his car that stalled. Now a helpful stranger was paralyzed. When we look at what our sins did to Jesus and hear his loud cries and tears for strength to help us, it’s enough to bring us to our knees and sing in one of our Lenten hymns, “I caused your grief and sighing By evils multiplying as countless as the sands! I caused the woes unnumbered with which your soul is cumbered, your sorrows raised by wicked hands.” (CW # 113)
But Jesus doesn’t tell us about his tears, fears, anguish, suffering, or death to make us feel terrible and guilty. He tells us because he wants us to know how much he loves us!He tells us so we will feel happy and relieved because he took away all ourguilt and became our only source of salvation.He did it all for you! Amen.