Jwquaker's Blog
Archive for
The Beginning is Near
By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
November 28, 2021
Click to join our Meeting for Worship
Luke 21:25–36 (ESV)
25 “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26 people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” 29 And he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. 30 As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. 31 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 34 “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. 35 For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
We are told that this is the most wonderful time of the year. It has been playing on the radio for a month now and will be for the next month. But what do we really know about this time of the year?
The holiday season is one of the most stress filled times of the year. There are year end deadlines, there is holiday shopping, and for many mandatory overtime. The stress of the season is only increased because the human body is naturally predisposed to be less active during these darkest days of the year. Our human development has had thousands of years where this is the season to chill. Crops are not actively growing, its dark longer than it is light, and there really is not a reason to go out unless you happen to be the parent of a hockey player. Only in the most recent generations has the fourth quarter of the year become something so active.
This festive season is filled with anxiety. This affects us all differently. Some of us have the benefit of having family near by so even though the stress of this season increases they have healthy relationships that allow them to cope with the season. But what about those that live away from home? What about those whose families might live across the state or worse, on the other side of an ocean?
This is what I hope we consider this holiday season, this advent. Advent is the time of year I like to call holy anxiety. I do not know if I like to call it this but I think it is fitting. It is a time of stress and hope. It is a time where many wonder how things will ever work, and a time where we realize that it does. It is necessary for us to consider this season. This season of longing and anticipation, so that we are able to recognize the hope that is available to us all.
The first thing we need to realize is that we live in a world of struggle. I want each of us to look around this room today. What do you see? For those that are only watching online you see me, and maybe those that sit close to the front of our meetinghouse. But for those of us in this room we see several people that look like they are glad to be here. I am certain they are glad to be here, otherwise they would be somewhere else. But why do we come to this place? Why do we come to meet to worship every Sunday? Have we ever really thought about it?
I have been a part of the church my entire life. And there have been times where I do not want to attend. I do not always feel like singing songs of praise. There are times where I do not even want to hear the scripture read or listen to what God is speaking through the people that gather to worship. I do not always want to be here. I say this even as a pastor. Yet it is rare for me to miss worship on a Sunday morning. Even when I am on vacation I am usually worshiping on Sunday.
The reason I am here is not because I have something profound to say. It is not because I am filled with joy all the time. I am here most of the time because I am a mess. I am here because my life is not in order. I am here because I need help.
“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
These are not exactly the words most of us think of as we enter the most wonderful time of the year. Yet this is often what we feel. That is what this season is all about. Jesus spoke these words near the end of his ministry. And I think it is important for us to consider the literary and cultural landscape before we move forward.
Israel was in a unique place. Politically they were being ruled by others, yet religiously they were probably functioning better than they had ever functioned in their entire history. Their temple was profound. It was a wonder within the entire Empire. They were relatively free yet at any moment all that they knew could be laid to waste. Today’s passage was Jesus’s comments about that precarious situation they were in.
We live in a place like this. All across Facebook we are beginning to see memes about the war on Christmas. We get upset about the term happy holidays. And we begin to feel as if there is a something going on. But do we really know what Jesus is speaking about here?
When Jesus says that there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress. What is he saying? These apocalyptic passages are scarry. They are the stuff of nightmares. Movies are filmed and books are published using these story lines. Yet they are meant to be words of encouragement. How encouraged do you feel?
These words insight fear because it speaks of where and in what our faith is in. Sun, moon, and stars are the things that we perceive to be endless. Things that will never fail. What happens when the things we trust do not meet our expectations?
Jerusalem in Jesus’s day was thought by the religious as an everlasting place. If they continued to zealously follow God, God would protect them. They trusted their faith, and they had every right to do so. The feast of dedication that is recorded in scriptures is the feast we know as Hanukkah or the festival of lights. It is a celebration that was dedicated to the faithfulness of God, who preserved the oil in the lamps, keeping them burning within the temple while they priests worked to rededicate it to God after the abomination that caused desecration. God provided for them, so God had returned and honored them. They had spent generations in exile, they had suffered and they persevered. They believed that God would continue to honor them as long as they honored God in their worship. Yet Jesus is saying these words to the people within the city.
They were putting their faith in the temple, not in the God whose footstool stood within that temple.
We can get distracted at times. We can get comfortable in life as we have known it. Then seemingly all at once something changes. Someone kneels at a football game instead of standing for the national anthem and we go nuts. Suddenly our world begins to shake.
I took an Art History class when I was in school. I love art. I cannot make art myself, but I love watching art being created. I like talking with artist about what they have done, and I enjoy watching people as they look at art. When I took this class, my teacher loved the art of ancient Egypt. And he said something interesting about Egypt when I was in this class, according to the art there was never a bad pharaoh of Egypt. Even when the rest of history might say something contrary to what is depicted in those ancient tombs, every pharaoh was great. These artists knew that some pharaohs were not great, some of these pharaohs had not even lived long enough to even have a chance to be bad let alone great, yet their art said they were great. Why, because they wanted it to be true. If the artists were to tell the truth, then their entire society would come crumbling down around them. Their faith was in their pharaoh. And their society would not allow the artists to speak the truth because they did not know what might happen if they did not believe that their pharaoh was perfect.
Our world shakes at times. Truth does not change that. The truth is that companies fail when poor decisions are made. The truth is that governments at times make poor decisions and their people suffer because of it. The truth is even religious organizations can get distracted from what is most important, and we sense a shaking in the foundation of who we thought we were. Our world seems to shake because we have put our trust in things that should not bear that weight.
Jesus is telling the people of Jerusalem in this section of the gospel that their city will fall. He is telling them that the very temple you have put so much cultic devotion into and towards will fall. Everything they trust, everything they believe, everything they hold as important to who they are, will only last a short time. History shows us this time and time again. Jerusalem did fall within a generation of Jesus’s ministry. Many of the people that listened to these words being spoken were alive to see its demise, and many were probably within the walls of Masada during their last stand. But there is something that remains even after the dust of war settles, people.
“Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Jesus tells them the absolute worst story to be told and then he tells them to lift their heads up. It sounds ridiculous. And he would have received the exact same response by us in this room today as he received in Jerusalem then. When Jesus told Peter that he was going to be killed in Jerusalem Peter told him to shut up. He did not believe a word Jesus was saying. In his mind it would never happen. Jesus told Peter that day, get behind me Satan. The people of Jerusalem had the same feelings. Our city would never fall, we will prevent it. We will do whatever we can to defend the honor of our people. And yet Jerusalem fell.
Jesus tells them exactly what to do. He does not tell them to take up arms against Rome. He does not tell them to withdraw into the wilderness or to burn the fields. He tells them to straighten up and raise their heads. He tells them this because our faith should not be in the works of men, but in God. Our faith should be in the God that created the entire world out of his great love. Our faith should be in the God that did not give up even when his creation, both spiritual and physical, rebelled against him. The God who preserved humanity through one family when the entire rest of the world chased after other gods. The God that continued to love humanity enough to call Abraham out of Ur, to bring about a nation for himself. God never gave up. Even when this nation, his nation, rebelled against him, he preserved a remnant so that through them He could redeem all humanity, and all of creation. Jesus tells them to lift up your heads and stand up straight because our hope is not in the things of men.
He continues, “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place you know that the kingdom of God is near.”
Growing up on a farm, I know the signs of spring. It is a rhythm of life for us. We slow down as the days shorten, but we do not stop. During those dark days we are still at work making repairs on the equipment that we will need in the future. Every day there is work to do so that when that day comes, we are ready. When I first moved here to Kansas City, I worked for a lawn care company. We would start early in the morning and would often work till the sun went down. Making sure that the grass would be green in our city. But when winter came, 2/3rds of my coworkers were laid off. The other third spent the winter repairing all the trucks. We tore every truck apart completely; we tore down every pump and replaced every part we could. We did this because soon spring would come. For those that were laid off it was a dark time. For those that continued to work it was an anxious time. The entire year’s wages depended on the ability to get back out there when the sun shined again.
So much of the religious community is focused on the distractions of the world. We are focused on the things of politics instead of what is most important. Does it really matter if people say happy holidays or Merry Christmas? No. We should instead be focused on something greater. Spring is coming. The Kingdom is near. And what does Jesus say about the kingdom? It is not of this world.
What remains after the war? What remains after the stock market crash? What remains when a company closes? People; your friends and coworkers. The neighbor down the street. The teacher in you child’s classroom, and the children on your daughter’s soccer team. The people that do not have the means to move remain even when the world crashes down around them. This is what Jesus wants us to focus on. These are the ones that Jesus called blessed in his sermons.
The kingdom of God is not of this world even though it works within this world. The kingdom of God is all around us because it resides within the people who believe. We so often think of kingdoms as nations with borders, but kingdoms are a scope of influence. God’s kingdom expands not by might of armies, but by the lives lived with others.
We live in anxious times. The things we once revered as unshakeable show signs of weakness and we fear. People we once regarded as great have their humanity revealed, and we are afraid that our world is about to collapse. The news reports earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, pandemic variants, and civil unrest and we think that the end is near. Jesus is looking at us and telling us to stand up straight, raise our heads, and roll up our sleeves because we have work to do.
Our ancestors might not have done things right in the past, that is the truth and we cannot change it by denying it or covering it up. What matters is how we live now. The things men have placed their trust in are shaking and they are looking at us, will we show them where our hope comes from? There are marginalized portions of our population that have been systematically pushed out of participation in society, will we offer them hope? The darkness closes in and we might not feel like singing, but we are here. We are here because our hope is not in the things of men. Our hope is in God, and we know that when we come together as a community we are renewed. When we gather, we tell the world that our hope is not in the governments. Our hope is not in the economies driven by consumption. But our hope is in God. Our God left his throne in heaven and was born of the virgin. Our God lived within a family, grew, and worked alongside them in their business. Our God grew in the knowledge and wisdom of God and men and taught us how to live within that wisdom daily. Our incarnate God was unjustly tried and executed, suffering the very worst humanity could offer. He was buried and on the third day our God rose from the grave. After forty day our God ascended back to his throne and the spirit of God came to dwell in us. We are the temple of God. We are His kingdom. And when the powers of the world fail, we remain.
This season can be filled with hope and despair. It can be filled with joy and depression. Some within our community might be struggling, and others might be having the best days of their lives. We come together so that we can share. We come together so that those that struggle will know that this is only for a season, spring will come. For those that rejoice we rejoice with you, and we remind you that this too is only a season. We come because we need each other. We come because we are all a mess in our own way, and together we cry out to the lord for our redemption. And Jesus tells us, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” When the dust settles around us, we will rebuild with what we have. When the world trembles look at the fig tree, and all the trees and let us be found preparing for the spring. The beginning is near and we have work to do.
If you would like to help support the continued Ministry of Willow Creek Friends Church please consider donating online:
https://secure.piryx.com/donate/nlcsJT87/Willow-Creek-Friends-Church/
To help support the personal ministry of JWQuaker (Jared Warner) online and in the community click to donate.
The Butterfly Effect
By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
November 21, 2021
Click to Join our Meeting for Worship
John 18:33–38 (ESV)
33 So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” 35 Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” 37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.
The past few weeks we have focused on the priesthood of Jesus. This week we move back from the letters written to encourage those early believers that followed Christ, and again look at that period of time during Jesus’ ministry.
I often stop and consider the timeframes surrounding Jesus’ life. As we approach the season we traditionally call Christmas, we are reminded of the story of Jesus’ birth. In America we somewhat get all this backwards. We sing Christmas songs basically from thanksgiving until December 25th and then we abruptly stop. According to the church calendar Christmas begins on December 25th and it continues for twelve days. The season prior, what retailers call the Christmas season is Advent. There is a difference.
Next Sunday we will enter the Advent season. I guess I just want to start it early, mainly because I am the type of person that loves the major holidays. I could sing Christmas Carols year-round, and I remember a few times when coworkers of mine had walked into the office in the middle of summer while I was jamming to the carol of the bells. It is ok I am at one with my own weirdness. I can also sit gazing at the Christmas tree shining with lights, while singing “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” in my mind.
For me the entire story is important. Without the birth there would not be an Easter, and without Easter there would be no need for the birth. We need the life of Jesus from birth through his ministry, his suffering, burial, and resurrection. Now here is the kicker, without the entire story of human history from creation to the end of ages there would be no need for the story of Jesus. We are part of that story. Everything that we do today, every decision we make, every conversation we have, every smile we give and argument we participate in is part of this story. You are that important, we are that important. One person’s life can change the course of history, even if we never know their name.
In the scientific and mathematical spheres of life there is something called the chaos theory. Contrary to what the name might imply this theory speaks about how interconnected things are in our world. Within this theory there is an idea called the butterfly effect. This is something that E.N. Lorenz, a mathematician and meteorologist, formulated while he studied weather patterns. He ran his various models trying to gain a greater understanding of weather, particularly tornados, because tornados are one of the most unpredictable forces within weather. Within this model he entered various measurements they had recorded from previous storms into his computer and they began to run a simulation. As the testing went on, they were getting the expected results. Then there was a day where he decided to take a short cut. He instead of typing in the full measurement he left off a few of the decimal places, ran the test, went to get a cup of coffee, and came back. In that amount of time the computer simulated the weather of two months, and the results were staggering. He said this in his book.
“Instead of a sudden break, I found that the new values at first repeated the old ones, but soon afterward differed by one and then several units in the last decimal place, and then began to differ in the next to the last place and then in the place before that. In fact, the differences more or less steadily doubled in size every four days or so, until all resemblance with the original output disappeared somewhere in the second month. This was enough to tell me what had happened: the numbers that I had typed in were not the exact original numbers, but were the rounded-off values that had appeared in the original printout. The initial round-off errors were the culprits; they were steadily amplifying until they dominated the solution.” (E. N. Lorenz, The Essence of Chaos, U. Washington Press, Seattle (1993), page 134)[7]
We might not think much of this. If we have taken basic arithmetic, we all know that if we change numbers the resulting solution of the math will change. But Lorenz was studying weather, that little change represented a seemingly insignificant change in atmospheric conditions, but that seemingly insignificant change effected the weather of the future. Later Lorenz spoke about a conversation he had with other meteorologists saying, “if the theory is correct the flapping of one seagull’s wings would be enough to alter the course of the weather forever.”
Now that my total knowledge of chaos theory and the butterfly effect has been exhausted, I want us to consider this. Every aspect of our lives is interconnected with the lives of those around us. When we make a decision, even a small insignificant decision, it can become either a blessing or a hardship for someone else. We may never even see the effect we have, because the end result might be felt by someone on the other side of the world and may not even fully be sensed until two or three generations later. But what we do know from the math is that changing one integer changes the result.
This brings us to today’s passage, in some weird way. Maybe I need to stop listening to audio books while I work, but when I think of the conversation Jesus has with Pilate this is what comes to my mind.
One of the things that I began to see more clearly as we read through Hebrews is the interconnectedness of our history and where and why Jesus had to do what he did. Our first parents were in Eden, which was the place where the realm of God and the realm of Earth met. Adam and Eve walked with God, they had full access to God, and God provided them with a job. If we were to read the account there is something that we often miss. We assume that the garden was the entirety of earth, but that is not what it says. There were boarders to the garden which implies that there was something beyond those boarders. The job God gave to our first parents was making the world beyond the boarders like what they experienced within. They were to go into the world and be little agents of God’s goodness throughout the world. God spoke plants into existence and Adam and Eve were to take those plants and spread them. God created animals and our first parents were to run around the world playing hid and seek with those animals while giving them names.
They had a job to do, but there was a resistance. A serpent slithered around in the garden, and this serpent began spreading deceptive words. This outside intelligence, which could be called a shining one or a divine throne guardian, began to sow seeds of doubt within our first parents. Slowly confusion entered, and once confusion began chaos erupted. One seemingly insignificant action changed the course of human history. And God was determined to restore what was lost, one of his own spiritual beings began the problem and only God could correct it.
The incarnation is powerful because the God that set everything in motion around us, stepped into human history. He stepped into human history in a seemingly insignificant manner. Not as a conquering titan like deity, but a zygote. He entered this world just like each of us. The joining of genetic material inside the body of a woman, that become a complete single celled life form. That single cell begins to divide and evolve into an embryo, and the cells begin to differentiate until it forms a fetus, and that fetus after nine months passes into life and take its first breath. And once that breath is taken the lives of the parents are forever changed, because they no longer remember what sleep is.
Jesus was born, just like us. He grew within a family. He interacted with those around him, he attended school at the synagogue with all the other children, he worked along side his family as they built homes and potentially even worked on the temple. He became a man and became know as the carpenter within his neighborhood. The fact that the gospel says, “isn’t he the carpenter,” makes me believe that Jesus was good at what he did. He had a good life, a good job, a great community. And then one day Jesus went to the river to see his cousin John, and everything changed.
Each of us has something that triggers our deepest self. For some of us we must create art. We can see a sunset and suddenly everything around us seems to stop until we translate what we are feeling in that moment into a painting or a poem. For others that deep seated self is triggered by perceived injustice around us, and when we hear a story of wrongdoing we are driven to action. Others might have compassion for the sick and when they hear a cough, they are compelled to comfort the suffering. We all have that aspect within us that seed of joy that God planted as we were woven together in our mother’s womb. When we allow that seed to grow, we find who we truly are. Jesus had that too. He was happy as a carpenter but there was something more to him and he knew it. That seed, that spark of fulfilled life, took hold when John dipped him into the water. Suddenly human history snapped into focus, and the reason Jesus was born became clear.
“For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
I want these words to fully saturate each of our minds and let them seep deep into your heart. Jesus was standing before Pilate facing execution, and this is what he says. He was standing in that place because the people within the surrounding community loudly proclaimed that Jesus was their king. This act made the political leaders nervous. He stood there because the religious leaders took advantage of that proclamation and turned him over to their overlords. They did this so they could maintain power within the community. They wanted to preserve a power that was progressively eroding the moment Jesus had lifted his head from the water at his cousin’s side.
“For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world.” He says. Jesus came into the world to stand before the powers constructed my men. He came to stand before the structures to say that their power is a mere shadow.
Pilate asks Jesus if he is a king. And Jesus does not answer the question. He simply says, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” I find this answer funny. I find it funny because by answering Pilate in this way, Jesus turns the question around and basically asks Pilate the same question he asks Peter and the other Disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” At this moment Pilate is looking Jesus in the eye, he is looking God in the eye and he must answer that very question. And Pilate does not know what to say.
You can almost feel the uncertainty in the words as Pilate answers, “am I a Jew? Your own nation and priest have delivered you over to me, what have you done?” This answer is an evasion. Pilate does not want to answer the question, he may not even understand the question. Am I a Jew? He asks. He has no framework to even begin.
Then Jesus answers the question for him. “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
This is his purpose. He did not come to rule the world in the manner we think of rule. His reign is not like that of a king or a presidential term. His influence does not extend like the might we see on the battlefield. If this is what God wanted to do, who could stop him. We are told in scripture that God, to protect our own future, flooded the entire earth and saved one family. We are told to prevent coordinated destruction he confused the languages and scattered the people. We are told that in a moment of holy justice, God can wipe unrepentant cities off the face of the earth, yet Jesus stands before Pilate and says that is not true power, and that is not my kingdom.
True power is sacrifice. True power is standing for others not yourself. True power is seeing that of God in your neighbor, that seed of joy or spark of life, and encouraging it to grow to its fullness. Jesus’s purpose, the entire reason he was born, is to be the butterfly effect. One action performed by one man, in a seemingly insignificant corner of the world by imperial standards, that will change everything.
With that one action, Jesus began to reverse the chaotic effects that were started by our first parents, and those waves move all around us. The waves of grace and the waves of sin. When we believe in Christ our lives begin to align with the waves of grace. The more we turn to that frequency of life the greater the intensity becomes and the waves begin to affect those around us. And grace spreads. We are also bombarded by the waves of deception and sin. What will we reflect? And what will we do?
Jesus said in the Gospel of John, “a new command I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35 ESV)
What is your effect? Will you live your life in the power of Christ’s kingdom? Will you stand with Christ before the powers of the world knowing that it will cost you your life? Jesus came, was born, grew in stature and wisdom, became a teacher bearing the words of life. He stood firm even in the face of death, was executed and buried, and rose again. He restores our hope and purpose. And each of us must answer the same question Jesus turned onto Pilate. Will we listen to the words of truth or continue the deception? What is truth, and what effect will you have?
If you would like to help support the continued Ministry of Willow Creek Friends Church please consider donating online:
https://secure.piryx.com/donate/nlcsJT87/Willow-Creek-Friends-Church/
To help support the personal ministry of JWQuaker (Jared Warner) online and in the community click to donate.
Provoked to Love
By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
November 14, 2021
Click to Join our Meeting for Worship
Hebrews 10:11-25
11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. 15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” 17 then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” 18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. 19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
The past few weeks we have camped out on the concept of the priesthood of Jesus. The writer of Hebrews spends a great deal of time comparing the priesthood of Israel in the tabernacle and the Temple and that of Jesus. He spends so much time comparing the two that it almost becomes so repetitive that we begin to lose interest. We begin to overlook the connections and are tempted to skip forward to something else. Yeah, yeah, yeah Jesus is a priest what’s next. We forget the importance of the priesthood.
The entire point of the book of Hebrews is about identity. The reason it is called the book of Hebrews is because the main recipients of this letter were those followers of Jesus who came from Israel. We might not fully understand the significance of this, but for those followers they are facing a significant crisis of identity. To the people of Israel, the Torah was important. The books of Moses, what we know as the books of the Law, set them apart from the rest of the world. Without this who are they?
As we read through the gospels and the book of Acts, we notice the greatest threat to the Israelites was to be put out of the synagogue. The synagogue during the first century was the center of the Israelite culture. The synagogue was the center of education. It was the place where disputes were brought for discussion and justice was sought. The synagogue was more than a place of worship, it was the hub of their very society. And these synagogues were ruled by various scribes or teachers of the law, some of which were priests that had rotational obligations at the temple.
If the synagogue was the place of cultural acceptance and unity among the people, the temple was the place of acceptance within the larger story. The temple connected the synagogues or the people with the divine. To be put out of the synagogue severed not only your place within a community, but it questioned the very core of your identity. You were a member of God’s people, and now you are denied access to the only place where communion with God was found. Every time you approached that holy place scandal followed. The apostle Paul faced this struggle. One of the reasons for his arrest was that it was believed that he had brought a Gentile inside the place within the temple reserved only for the chosen people of God. The person in question was a friend from Ephesus who was seen with Paul in Jerusalem, but there was no evidence that he had brought him into the temple, it was all based on assumptions. This did not stop the accusations, and Paul was accused and beaten nearly to death.
The earliest followers of Jesus faced great struggles. They faced persecution, they faced false accusations, they faced ridicule. They faced all of this for one reason, they believed that God through Jesus was restoring all people. This new theology threatened what those within the religious community taught. It questioned their understanding and their power.
We sometimes do not recognize the power acceptance within a community has on us, even as adults. We recognize that acceptance is important to students we speak a great deal about peer pressure among the younger members within our community. Influences that our peers might make in our lives that might lead us into behavior that our community has accepted as being deviant in some way. When I was a student, this largely revolved around the consumption of Alcohol. We do our best to teach our children the dangers the world might pull them into and how those things might trap us into a life and lifestyle that is not best for them. Often though the teaching comes across as legalistic adherence to rules that no one can fully explain. Which often drives our children toward the very lifestyle we tried to convince them to avoid.
This is what those first century believers were facing. One side is urging them to return to the life they grew up in and the other is urging them to remain with Christ. One side has centuries of well thought out and presented teachings, and the other is a mystery. One lifestyle everyone knows their place, and the other is an adventure opening before them.
We find ourselves in positions like this. We all hesitate at the very thought of change. This is why the writer of Hebrews takes such pains in explaining the priesthood and comparing it to Christ. “And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.” How many of us have thought about the sacrifices that were offered in the temple? I am going to make a wild guess and say nearly none of us. I say this because for two thousand years we have been reading the teachings of the Old Testament through the eyes of the New. The confusing sacrifices mention in the Torah we easily cover with Jesus because we have had this taught to us. It might surprise us that not one sacrifice ever took away sin. Not one.
It might be a shocking statement because we often read about sin offerings, I even spoke a couple of weeks ago about the offering made on the Day of Atonement. From our perspective these offerings were made to remove the sin, but that was not the intent. The sacrificial system was set up to illustrate the separation of humankind and the divine realm. We often look at the work done by the priests as making the people acceptable before God, but in reality, all the sacrifices are there to prevent our sinfulness from infecting the sacred places. The blood of the animals sacrificed during the rituals could never redeem the people, they were there to remind us that our sinfulness had a cost and if we wanted to have communion with God it would also come with a price. In today’s imagine we as humans are infected with the virus of sin, and the sacrifices are like masks. They are used to help prevent the spread of the disease, but not a cure.
Every day people would bring offering to the tent or the temple. Every day the priest would do their duty within that sacred space. Every day the entire community would look and watch as people struggled to the carry or drag livestock through the city and standing in line as countless other attempt to do the same. And everyone knows something. They know what each animal is for because they themselves have had to bring one at some point. Imagine the gossip that might erupt if someone in high standing within the community had to walk through town dragging a few bulls behind them.
The sacrificial system is not a cure, it is a visual reminder of our inadequacies. It is a testimony to the entire community that even the most righteous among us cannot stand before God, without a protective barrier. The writer of Hebrews says why would you want to go back to that? Why would you want to return to a system where there is no assurance, where there is not true communion. “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
One single sacrifice. The writer of Hebrews is showing us that what Christ offers is greater than anything we can offer. Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, while the priests of the temple are skittering around the footstool. He is right there with God.
“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”
Jesus opens before us something even greater than Israel experienced before. True friendship with God. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.” Through Jesus we are invited back. We are called to enter once again that place our first parents experienced before the deception in the garden. We are called to walk with God once again, not as creatures but as friends and members of his family. Through Jesus everything that once separated us from God is removed and forgotten, we are renewed and restored. We can know this because Jesus told his disciples that he is going to prepare a place for us. We know this because he told Thomas, “You believe because you have seen, blessed are those that believe yet have not seen.” We have not seen the risen Christ yet the place He prepared for his disciples is also open to us if we believe.
What is belief? I have mentioned often that there are three types of belief. The first is knowledge. We know something and we accept that knowledge in our minds. The second type of belief is trust. This form of belief recognizes that what we know has merit so we begin to enact it into aspects of our life. The third type or stage of belief is entrusting. This level of belief is faith. We have recognized not only the merits of the knowledge and observed it in some aspects of our lives. Now we have confidence to entrust what we have to that lifestyle. This is what Jesus and the writer of Hebrews is calling us to. Life filled with meaningless effort, or a life of Friendship with Christ.
There is power in the argument made by the author of this letter. Every animal sacrificed for the altar in the temple did not return to the flock. Yet Christ was crucified before the entire nation on a cross. He was sealed in a tomb, not just sealed but guarded because the teachers of the law listened to Jesus as he taught and they knew that he said destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days. They placed guards at the tomb because they knew that something might happen, because they knew that this same Jesus had restored to life a man that had been buried several days in tomb. Jesus laid in that tomb surrounded by guards, yet on the third day the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty of everything but the grave clothes. The tomb was empty, and everyone knew it because they had put a seal on the stone. Now they must explain why. The disciples claimed that Jesus was restored to life. Not just one or two, but scripture tells us that he appeared and ate with all the disciples, and to his unbelieving brother, and to the seventy, and Paul tells us Jesus appeared to more than five hundred at the same time. Jesus rose from the dead. Death is the penalty of sin, yet Jesus overcame death and is restored to life. We that believe are joined into that life, even though we face death we know that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, because he has faithfully proven this.
Why continue to strive with empty rituals of righteousness? Why do we continue to struggle to merit God’s acceptance through our own actions and abilities? Why do we continue to try to prove to those around us that we are good enough in ourselves? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Not one of us is righteous in ourselves. But while we were still sinners Christ died for us. While we still lacked faith, Christ rose for us. And while we still struggle Christ speaks for us to his Father, saying they are my friends.
“Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,” the author says. “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” This takes us back to peer pressure. The term to stir up is to provoke. Usually this is a negative thought, but just as we can be provoked or irritated enough to participate in the lusts of this world, we can also be provoked or encouraged to do good. The author encourages us, to turn away from the pressures of the religious, and the world and to focus on something greater. Provoke each other to love, and to good works. This is not empty attempts of righteousness to gain God’s favor, but participation in what Jesus has started in us. He has removed the sting of death and given us the hope of life everlasting through him. Our sins are forgotten by God, and Jesus is whispering in the Father’s ear that we are his friends so we can boldly approach God not as creatures but as restored members of God’s divinely appointed steward of the earth. We can once again assist God in making the entire earth into Eden where we can once more walk with God.
Let us become people of encouragement. Let us be tributaries of God’s love and blessing to others. Let us become people loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others. Let us become Friends of God. This is all ours through the freely given grace provided to us through Jesus. Who passed through the heavens to become the son of man, who was sacrificed outside the city and buried in a tomb, and who rose again to overcome death and restore us to life. Let us not neglect meeting together to celebrate our hope. And let us be provoked not to anger or sin, but to love and good works.
If you would like to help support the continued Ministry of Willow Creek Friends Church please consider donating online:
https://secure.piryx.com/donate/nlcsJT87/Willow-Creek-Friends-Church/
To help support the personal ministry of JWQuaker (Jared Warner) online and in the community click to donate.