A New and Living Way – Hebrews 10:19-25

The letter to the Hebrews is very much true to its name. It was written to encourage Jews who were seeking to understand how things had changed with the teaching of Jesus and even further what the death and resurrection of Jesus really meant in terms of their faith and life in relationship to the God who had led their nation for generations. We know that the 12 who formed the inner circle of disciples struggled with understanding how Jesus changed so much about their faith and life and relationship to God.  I can only imagine how others who were not as close to Jesus in his ministry may have struggled to come to terms with all that had transpired. The author is very clear in his presentation to ensure that the people understand that the coming of Jesus was not something so radically new but rather a fulfilment of much of what the prophets had spoken of. What God had done in Jesus was meant to bring a final peace and hope to a people who had struggled to find real peace and hope in their lives.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus taught the people from the word of God – a word that they had known for centuries. The commandments that God had given the people were the same commandments that Jesus reinforced through his teaching and his ministry. But there was a new energy, a new interpretation of those commandments that made Jesus’ message seem more radical than it really was.

In the beginning of the faith, a personal relationship with God was possible only for special people who had been chosen by God to be the bearers of God’s will to the people. Those communicators spoke with God and the messages were communicated to the people.  God was near to the people yet distant at the same time.  The glory of God was revealed but only to a few.  For the most part, the people remained in the shadows.

Yet there was ever a hope among many of the people for a relationship with God that would bring them face to face with their God and allow them to experience fully the love, mercy and forgiveness that the prophets and other leaders so often told them God truly had for them.

The people would bring their sacrifices to the place where God was said to dwell.  First in a tent that moved with the people on their nomadic journeys and later in a temple erected in the city that God had ordained to be the capital of the people’s homeland.   And no matter whether it was in a tent or in a temple, the people remained close yet distant from God.  They could approach just so far and could only imagine what it was to experience the presence of God.  The tent and the temple were holy places designed to allow the people to come close to God and never forget that they were the people of God but there ever remained a barrier – a curtain – that kept the place known as the Holy of Holies shielded from all except for one of the people – the High Priest whose responsibility it was to intercede on behalf of the people to God.  Access to God and to the voice of God, the touch of God was limited.  The people had to rely on the High Priest not only to communicate to God but to communicate to the people.

As we read through the history of the people, we discover that while this way of communicating with God remained, there were prophets who began telling the people of God’s desire to take away the curtain that separated them from him.  He began to speak of no longer being content to have the people obey as they followed the written commandments, he wanted to write his laws on their hearts.  He wanted them to be people who lived as his people not out of fear but   out of love and devotion.

As long as that curtain remained, the people would never be able to even come close to allowing God to write his laws on their hearts because they would ever be bound by the laws and commandments that required them to offer sacrifices in the temple.  The curtain needed to be torn so that God could be clearly visible to the people and the people be allowed to see the God who had given them life and who sought to be in a true and lasting relationship with them.  And so, it was recorded for us in the Gospel of Matthew that at the time Jesus breathed his last, the curtain in the temple tore in two. In that moment, God made it clear that he had removed all barriers, all walls, all coverings that could ever keep the people   from coming face to face with him.

Where once sacrifices of animals and oil were offered and the High Priest’s entrance into the Holy of Holies to secure the forgiveness of sin  - a forgiveness that had to be secured year by year, now the people themselves could come knowing that they no longer needed to make those sacrifices because Jesus – the Son of God – had made a sacrifice with his own body and blood.  The death  of Jesus was the offering for the sin of the world and its people.  Nothing more needed to be sacrificed for sin.  All that is asked of each person is to believe that the sacrifice of Jesus has granted them forgiveness for their sin and with sincerity of heart receive the gift of God’s forgiveness, mercy and love.  Knowing this should encourage any believer to stand firm in their confession of faith, ever remembering that God will be faithful to the promises he has made.

But this knowledge is also to be a call to the believers to be supportive of one another, encouraging one another and looking out for one another to ensure that all who have received the grace of God and the gift of forgiveness for sin will be able to stand in faith till the end of their lives here on earth or the end of the age – whichever may come first.

We have been granted by God a new and living way - a relationship with God that generations past could only imagine and for whom it was a faint hope.

May we celebrate that gift of God - our relationship to him and the forgiveness for sin given to each one of us and ever encourage one another in faith, in hope and in love.

AMEN