Letter to the Hebrews

Hebrews is an “elegantly polished” text, which is “removed from the world of the Modern reader.” This book serves as a pastoral letter, which exhorts Christian believers, a “pilgrim people,” to “persevere” and to continue to grow. Though the letter is Pauline in content, he is not the author. Instead, the author is likely to have been associated with Paul. This author is an educated Jewish person trained in Greek philosophy and exegesis. This person is clearly an authority in the church with an important word for an increasingly diverse, though clearly the author’s contemporary Jewish audience, probably in Rome. This letter refers to the “tabernacle” more than the “temple”, with references to the “wilderness” through which the “pilgrim” community is venturing and can reach their destination “today.” This treatise, which describes the Hebrew Scriptures as “alive and active”, is clearly describing the realities and promises fulfilled through the finished work of God in Christ. The author outlines three key Christological arguments; Jesus is “superior.” Jesus is superior as the Son, the Pioneer of our Faith, and the High Priest. God has spoken in the past through angels, but now he speaks to us through his Son, the agent of God’s creation and revelation, in these “last days.” He shares our humanity, yet he is the heir of all things, who receives the promise on behalf of all human beings. As a superior pioneer, he has gone ahead of us, blazing a trail for us to follow, doing what we could not do. After the order of the priesthood of Melchizedek, he is a “perfect” high priest, who was made perfect through suffering, and can make our consciences perfect through his perfect offering made once for all.

Prince of Peace

This is the season when we think about the baby born in a cave, an animal stall in a little town in the ancient world of a tiny nation, a nation God chose to shine His light into the dark corners of the world. Even under the beauty and calm of a starlit night, shepherds kept watch to protect their flocks. They knew the peace they experienced was fleeting and wolves would prey on their hopes to provide for their families. The Prince of Peace came to make peace in a violent and dangerous world.

We sing of this Prince of Peace, remembering his birth each year. Away in a manger, happy carolers sing door to door reminding their neighbors of the little Lord Jesus. No crying he makes? What do you think? Did he cry? Did he experience the same pains, disappointments, fears in a struggle for peace that we experience? Yes, the scriptures tell us, in every way.

Jesus experienced what it is like to be helpless, and completely dependent on the love of imperfect people to feed him, wipe his tears, and clean his swaddling cloths. He came to this tiny terrestrial ball in the vast emptiness of space as a human child, with eyes, ears, nose, hands, feet, and toes. His small frame grew as his heart pumped blood to his brain and other vital organs. His lungs filled with the stench of a world far away from ours; no hot showers, no temperature-controlled homes, no treated water, no sewers, and no refrigerated food storage and convenience stores.

Though shepherds came when a curious angelic throng announced that the King of all Kings was born in David’s ancestral city, the baby would not have survived if his parents had not made the daily sacrifice to care for him. Though Sage star-gazers brought gifts for the Lord of Life, he would have certainly died at the hands of Herod if Joseph had not followed the private instructions of another heavenly Messenger.

Have you ever wondered what Gabriel looked like? Certainly the angel was not one of those effeminate baby cherubs with a bow and arrow. And why don’t we have masculine angels to decorate our Christmas trees? I digress.

Though he is fully God, and though he had at his disposal all of heaven’s resources, the Son of God chose to be fully human and fully vulnerable to every temptation, every disappointment, and every peril of life. He chose the name, Son of Man.

As a boy, Jesus chose one day to hang out with the wise guys at the temple asking questions. What did those religious men think of this precocious boy? Did Jesus have all the answers or was he in the process of discovery? I believe he was sorting out his relationship with his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph, and he was discovering intimate relationship with his Father in heaven. His discoveries were all part of the process of growing spiritually and physically. He found favor with His Father and with humankind. Like you and me, he had to learn to obey and how to resist temptation.

Jesus lived in a time when the curse on all of creation was enforced by the fully armed rulers of darkness. All his young male cousins were murdered by the tyrant ruler of Israel. His parents were charged to protect him, but not without cost, not without the experience of scorn, derision, and dismissal of relatives and neighbors who judged his questionable legitimacy. They could not protect him from every scraped knee, every splinter of wood, and every bloody nose. Yes, he surely shed his blood before the ordeal of cat of nine tails, the whip that tore his flesh when the Roman soldiers placed a mock crown on his head, thorns that cut his scalp to the skull.

Cruelty remains on this planet and wrongful deaths have multiplied a hundred-fold, but when our Prince of Peace triumphed over those evil powers, they were disarmed by the sacrifice of blood Jesus shed on the cross. He made peace through intense suffering. Peace has a price.

Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. He is God who became man. The Son of God made an eternal choice. He put on skin and he has that same skin and bone today. The incarnation is eternal. The Prince of Peace is forever making peace.

Have you ever considered what it is like in heaven, the place Jesus is preparing for those who make the eternal choice to receive his free gift of love, hope, and forgiveness? We were taught to pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” But what is it like in heaven? That’s the place where Jesus lives today. He still has two ears, two eyes, and a nose. He’s preparing a feast for us and we will look on that food and taste it around a table of friends from every nation, tribe, and tongue. There will be people of many generations our arms will embrace. There will be dwellings and our feet will take us through the doors. There will be much yet to learn and we will love the journey exploring the depths of God’s wisdom and love. We will live there forever.

Let’s return to earth. Here I sit in a small town in the Midwestern United States in December 2008. My neck is in pain and my not-that-old body is sore. I must keep watch, like those shepherds, over my family and my own life. If the Prince of Peace was subject to dangers, rejection, and harm, I must not be surprised when the same perils face me and those I love.

There is a place of protection, however. It is called the secret place where God hides us under a protective shield, the shadow of his wing. So as I seek peace, choosing to dwell in the secret place, I must understand that in this world, there are troubles. If I fail to make peace, standing firm in Jesus authority as victor over the powers of darkness, I cannot presume that I will have peace in this world. Making peace is a proactive stance against forces allied against God’s dream for this world. I must stand and resist, as a peace-maker, just as Jesus stood against the powers of darkness and defeated them.

Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. He faced resistance and his Spirit teaches us to fight the good fight of faith. If I eat right, I will grow in health. If I set the resistance on the exercise machine, I will grow in strength. But if I fail to stand in resistance to a world that is antagonistic toward us, I will be destroyed. If I fail to fix the leak in the roof, the house will slowly fall apart. It will be destroyed. The cold and the heat of my surrounding environment are harmful to me, therefore I must make peace with my environment. I must create an environment for my family, my community, my world. I must not presume that peace can be found by seeking a cosmic harmony, assuming that if we do nothing, the surrounding world will embrace us and protect us. Jesus modeled a different way.

The Prince of Peace came to make peace.