Meditation 259
Hebrews 10: 16-25
In the gospels we are told that at the Last Supper Jesus told his disciples that his blood was the blood of the covenant poured out for many. This passage in Hebrews describes that covenant. We are told that the laws of God will be put in our hearts and on our minds. This is not like the way the law was given to Moses. Moses was given the commandments of God that were written on stone tablets. The law in this case was a standard by which people could measure their behaviour. The law instructed people to put God first and the requirements of the law were not harsh. The law that Moses brought to the people could be thought of as not a part of oneself, but rather as a code that needs to be followed.
God knew that more than an external code of behaviour was needed to draw people into the Kingdom of Heaven. The prophets Ezekile and Jeremiah had promised that the law of God would be written on the hearts and minds of the people, and in Jesus this was accomplished. Jesus taught us about God in a way the other prophets did not. All of the prophets reminded us that God was loving and just, that the people of God were to care for the sick, the widowed and the orphaned, that God was just and would bring about consequences for sinful behaviour, but the prophets before Jesus were as human and frail as the people to whom the message was given. Jesus was a different kind of prophet.
We believe that Jesus was fully human and fully divine. As such he experienced life in a human body with all of its limitations, and he knew what it is to be tempted. Jesus in being fully God, was able to “offer for all time a single sacrifice for sins [and sit] down at the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:12). There was an element to Jesus’s work as a prophet that no other prophet was able to accomplish. The other prophets were as human as their hearers. Jesus in being divine is the one who brings us close to God in a real and final way.
At this point in Holy Week, we are still on our way to the events of Good Friday. If we are following Jesus through this week, he is getting ready for the Passover and he is mixing with people. He is getting ready for difficult days so that by his resurrection, he will be able to accomplish for us the best gift of all. We will have the God’s laws on our hearts and our minds and our sins and lawless deeds will be remembered no more. We are brought into the family of God by Jesus.