Rev.
Debbie Cato
Hebrews
10:11-25
Fairfield
Community Church
November
14, 2021
Open us,
Holy One, to your Word and your Way. Clear our minds of daily distractions.
Fill our hearts with the humility we need to hear and receive the message you
intend for us today. Amen.
A Sanctified
Life
Hebrews can best be
understood as an anonymous sermon written to encourage an early Christian
community to continue to be faithful and hopeful in the face of hardship. It’s unique among New Testament books, because
the sermon develops the image of Christ as the great high priest who fulfills
and completes the Jewish system of sacrifice.
Thomas Long, professor
of preaching at Candler School of Theology says that the preacher is addressing
a very common and familiar pastoral problem: congregational decline. His congregation is basically tired and discouraged
– tired of trying to live the Christian life in a culture that offers no
support for it and discouraged about the way evil still seems to persist in the
world. As a result, the congregation has
begun to question the value of being followers of Christ. Attendance at worship has begun to falter,
zeal for mission has waned, and the kind of congregational life that is rich
with love and compassion has begun to dissipate.[1]
The preacher hopes to
revive his congregation’s spirits. What they need, he believes, is a clearer
Christology or an understanding of Christ. He’s convinced the only way to
overcome their despair is to know more firmly and to believe more deeply the work
and meaning of Jesus Christ. This
passage is the climax of a long and dramatic section of Hebrews in which
Jesus is presented as
the great high priest.[2]
The preacher wants his
congregation to know for absolute certainty that what Christ has done in his
death on the cross is a “once and for all” sacrifice that frees people, not only
from their debts of sin, but also from the ritual sacrifices that once
surrounded them. This freedom from
ritual sacrifices offers an invitation for a community to be organized in a “new
and living” way, rather than be mired in the rehearsal of an ‘evil conscience.’[3]
You see, Christ’s
sacrifice actually created a void and a shift in the identity of the people. If they are no longer required to order their
lives around sacrifices and offerings, what shall they do? How shall they live
in light of this new reality? Why should
they even gather? To gain a sense of the impact of this new reality, imagine
the humble farmer prior to the advent of electricity or the steam engine. Time and energy that used to be spent behind
the plow working by hand and lamplight is freed up, thanks to new sources of
power. Far larger fields can be
developed, as the day offers more possibilities than ever before. The same is true with the inbreaking of
Christ into human history. Old patterns
of living are broken and fresh possibilities to observe the invitation of the
living God summon the faithful to an altered identity in the use of their
time. What is their reason for gathering
if it is not to offer sacrifices and offerings?
Scholars believe this
sermon was preached between 60 – 100 C.E.
That was quite a few years ago.
But many of the themes sound familiar.
Churches everywhere are facing membership decline – even before Covid. Furthermore, Christians are tired of trying
to live a Christian life in a
culture that offers no
support for it and discouraged about the way evil still seems to persist in the
word. And frankly, many young adults are
turned off by a church that doesn’t act like the church.
The preacher reminds us that
Jesus, the great high priest, accomplished a permanent pardon for sin. He also answers the question, why does it
matter? What does this sanctified life –
this process of being made holy and set apart for a purpose, mean and how shall
we live? And – as part of his urging to
holy living, and Christian hope, what is the function of the church and why is
it important? Why does the Church
matter, anyway.
In the middle of the passage
that I read today, verses 15-18, we learn that Jesus’ saving work is the
fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy of a “new covenant” in which the law is
written on the hearts and minds of believers.
In other words, Jesus’ single sacrifice has transformed or sanctified
believers into people who are able to do God’s will as reflected in the law. Holiness is not a matter of living under the compliance
with the external commands of the law. It
is rather, a Spirit-given ability to live as people of the new covenant.[4]
What does a sanctified
life look like? Is there a role for the church
in our sanctified life?
Living a sanctified life
is living a life postured with confidence before God.[5] Before Jesus, the people continually offered
sacrifices and offerings because nothing could take away their sins. Their guilt and shame never
went away. So they offered the same sacrifices and the same offerings over
and over again. But when Jesus offered himself “through his
flesh” as the final, perfect sacrifice, he cleansed believers forever “from an
evil conscience.” As baptized and forgiven
people, believers do not need to be crippled by guilt or fear. For God said, “ I will remember their sins no
more.” We can enter into and experience
God’s presence fully, honestly, and authentically – knowing we are wholly clean
and pure and accepted and even desired. We
can luxuriate in God’s loving accepting presence, soaking it all up. We can be confident in God’s presence.
Living a sanctified life
is a living a life filled with hope.[6] We can believe and exercise our faith boldly,
following the example of Christ, who will be faithful to his promises. At our baptism we (or those responsible for
us) depending on when we were baptized, made a confession of faith, and the
preacher of Hebrews encourages us to hold on to that. That confession – which we will affirm after
the sermon, should always be our life target.
We may not always hit it – doubts and circumstances may hinder us at
times – but keeping it in our sights gives us hope and purpose and energizes
our ongoing search for authentic faith.
Our Christian hope does
not come from within us. It is practiced
against our outward circumstances, the difficulties, the hard times, the
tragedies we experience. That is why our
hope cannot be rooted in human effort, but solely in the faithfulness of
God. We are able to “hold fast” because the
one “who has promised is faithful.” God’s promises never fail. Our hope is in
God’s faithfulness.
Our sanctified life is
lived in community.[7] The preacher of Hebrews actually chides his
congregation for neglecting to meet together regularly
for worship and
fellowship. The purpose of gathering
together in
community is to “provoke
one another” or encourage or stimulate one another to live the Christian
life. We are to stir up each other into
fulfilling our baptismal promise. I
heard somewhere that this Christian life is not for wimps! We need one another.
The preacher suggests
that the church is not a place where everyone “plays
nice and necessarily gets
along all the time, but a place where our duties to each other include
contentious wrestling, with love and good deeds to provoke one another to
Christian living.[8] We need to be creative in encouraging and
pushing and pulling everyone in our family of faith to love and do good
deeds. This is all about participating
in the body of Christ, working with and for and through others in the
church. This speaks more directly to the
gospel of Christ as our model and mentor.
We are not mere spectators of God’s work or simple recipients of God’s
grace; we are active participants in the saving work of God in the world, as we
follow Christ’s ultimate example of sacrificial giving, serving, and loving until
the very end.[9]
Christians are called to
live in solidarity with others. Holy living involves maturing in acts of love
and Christlike service to all people.
The preacher of Hebrews is concerned that his congregation are still
infants in the faith and warns them against complacency and allowing the gospel
of reconciliation to become a matter of cheap grace. Sanctification is a calling as well as a
gift. It's true God’s grace is free but
believers must respond to
God’s gift by engaging in practices that form them
into mature disciples ready for solid food.
These practices are best cultivated within the life
of the believing community as it comes together to
worship, enjoy fellowship, and provoke one another to acts of Christlike
service.
As we begin to live out our life of faith together
and figure out what our life as a church is going to look like, may we be reminded
to live out even more passionately the grace we have been shown in Christ. May we ponder new ways to encourage one
another and receive permission to provoke one another to good deeds and
stimulate one another to live a Christian life.
May we inspire one another to find new, creative ways to be the Church
and serve our community, to invite past members to join us on Sundays, and to
live with the confidence and hope that Jesus gave us all through His once and
for all sacrifice on the cross. May we
be a church that provokes one another to be continually transformed as we live
this sanctified life granted us through the free gift of grace through Jesus
Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.
[1] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume
4. Proper 28. Page 303. Exegetical Perspective. Thomas G. Long.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Feasting on the Word, Year B,
Volume 4. Proper 28. Page 302.
Pastoral Perspective. Elizabeth
B. Forney.
[4] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4. Proper 28.
Page 302+304. Theological Perspective. Jane E. Fahey
[5] Ibid. Page 304
[6] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4. Proper 28.
Page 304. Theological Perspective. Jane E. Fahey
[7] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4. Proper 28.
304. Theological Perspective. Jane E. Fahey
[8] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4. Proper 28.
Page 304+306. Theological Perspective. Jane E. Fahey
[9] Ibid. Page.
307. Homiletical Perspective. Peter M. Wallace.
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