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11.10.2009 Hebrews 3:1–4:11_english text
| 11.10.2009, 17:04 | |
| Rev. Tatiana Cantarella Psalm 95; Numbers 20:1–13 Hebrews 3:1–4:3, 7–11 «Confident confession and obedience – the way to God’s rest» Previously in Hebrews: the author insistently reminds reader to turn their attention for all kinds of “shiny wrapping” of religiosity and lift their eyes to Jesus – co-creator and the perfect imprint of God’s own nature; the One greater than angels, the One who sits at the right hand of God. The author reminded us that in the midst of all pressures and temptations we face we are to hold fast onto our faith in Christ lest we drift with the current, and not to relax our effort relying solely on the efforts of other Christians. Hebrew goes on today: “Therefore, my brothers and sisters: you are God’s holy ones, and you share the call from heaven. So think carefully about Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession of faith” (3:1). Think carefully of Jesus whom we confess. Today the author compares him with Moses: Moses mattered in the history of Israel, but Jesus matters much more. Exalting Jesus the author is not putting Moses down but gives both their rightful places – a place on honor for Moses and the first place to Jesus. To think carefully about Jesus is not just to meditate and move on to do your business. Serious thinking leads to action, influences how we will act in response to it. Right living is the result of right understanding of Christ and ability to confess that understanding. The author of Hebrews know that only the one who knows where he/she wants to go and can verbalize it will reach our calling from Heaven. Think for a moment. What is confession? For many people it means telling someone you did something you should have not (“owning up”). Yes, officer, I was speeding”. “Yes, professor Ivanov, I got my paper from the internet”. “Yes, dear I spent my paycheck on this beautiful necklace”. But early Christians gave these words a much wider meaning: “telling people what’s really true about your belief”. “Owning up” no to what you’ve done wrong but to believing in the Christian message and to belonging to the Christian community. “Yes, I believe that Jesus is Messiah and God raised Him from the dead”. “Yes, I believe that all God’s purposes and promises came true in Christ”. “Yes, I belong to the family of Christ”. At times such public confession might get us in trouble. But Christians from the very beginning understood the necessity of such open confession of belonging to Christ and His family and lived it out whether it was met with a cheer or a snarl. The author goes on: “Christ is faithful like the Son put in charge of the house. And we are His house, only if we hold on tightly to the free delight and confidence to the end”. The Church is a community of people who boldly and strongly trust in Christ; the family of people who know what they believe in. Unfortunately, many believers are only able to give mealy-mouthed confession of faith when asked by others: “well, I feel drawn to follow Jesus” implying that we might be wrong and that plenty of other people are just fine doing other things. That’s why we often stumble and going round in circles our whole life, not even knowing ourselves what our faith and life are built upon. St. Paul stated clearly in Romans the inseparability of faith and confession: “That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” (Rom. 10:9–10). Since I’ve been teaching, I know for a fact that you really do understand the subject when you can explain it to another, if you can’t explain it, you probably don’t really understand it yourself. No wonder, then, that our spiritual life is so lame, when we can’t even clearly confess before others what is it that we believe in. Tom Wright wrote of that: “Either you believe that God’s new world has come to birth in Jesus and is there, waiting for us, as a solid and definite hope – which means you can be bold in living and acting on that basis, and can make sure and confident claims about it. Or you haven’t really understood what Christianity is all about” (Hebrews for Everyone, 25). And this is not a call for arrogance and pride, but the reason for joy based on sure knowledge that Good News and the hope it gives do not depend on our achievements or circumstances but only on God’s love and grace. That’s why time and again Christians all over the world confess the Apostolic Creed, reminding themselves and others what they faith is based upon. When life around us seems to start falling apart, when it’s hard to see the light, the Church continues to confess: “I believe in God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth, creator of my life as well! I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Lord crucified, dead and buried, but who rose on the third day from the death and has given me forgiveness and new life. I believe in the Holy Spirit that gives me strength to do God’s will. I believe that earthly life is not the end and we are on the journey to the life everlasting!” Life’s circumstances can change and become rather unfortunate, but the reality of God and His Son Jesus Christ and what He has done for our salvation and the hope that He gave – are unchangeable. We might have different temptations than 1st century Christian but the hope is still the same no matter what pressures or tests, for Christ is faithful and is the victor over death and I know that He will be with me in my need also. But if we cannot say clearly what we believe in, it’ll be very hard for us to keep our hope and courage to the end. One student group in England set off for a mountain hike. One of them was a Kenyan student who never saw snow in his life. He was fascinated with snowflakes and prints in the snow, brightness of light against the snow. In the beginning every one had a great time. They couldn’t see far ahead but no one was worried – it was an adventure. A couple of house into the journey things changed. The novelty has passed and temperatures dropped drastically, the wind became cutting. It turned out that not everyone even brought gloves and now were hiding their hands in their sleeves. The Kenyan discovered that African posed were bigger than European and was freezing faster than others, some offered him their layer of clothing. Their strength and enthusiasm were evaporating fast. Some were griping, others suggested to turn back, and someone that they shouldn’t have set out at all in this weather. They could still be sitting by a cozy warm fire reading a nice book. Fortunately, just at this point, they reached the crest of the mountain and came upon an old sheepfold. There they could rest, get warm and eat. Very soon everyone was in a much better shape. A Kenyan was given more layers of clothing and the journey was complete with style. At the end everyone agreed that they had a great time. This story is a typical cycle: initial enthusiasm, grumbling when things get difficult and then provision of enough to go on with. That is exactly the way the story of Israel in the wilderness had gone. The author of Hebrews reminds us of this story in Psalm 95 today. It had an euphoric beginning of fresh breath of freedom from slavery, then difficulties on the way and people’s grumbling, even desire to go back. Then comes the final realization that they had sufficient provision (all along) to finish their journey. This Psalm shows that their journey took 40 years because they were tested whether they would trust God to take care of them like He did in the past. But instead of that they started putting Him through tests (8–9), asking for proof of His presence although they’ve seen His deeds so many times in the past. Hebrews warns us: “as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert,” (7–8). Hebrews questions whether the readers unlike Israel, will be faithful to Christ in the midst of testing. “The Holy Spirit says” in the present, speaks to us as well. We are called to imagine ourselves in the place of that generation in the desert on their way to God’s promises but not to repeat their mistakes. Yet, it’s not enough to just remember them and decide that I will do better. To do better one has to have confident belief and understanding that our earthly life is just a preliminary part of the greater story towards the completion of which we are all going. Last Sunday we heard a warning to those of us who love to go with the current, who is in Church for the ride. Today, Hebrews repeats the warning: “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness!” (12–13) It is those in the church who are there for the ride but whose heart is not in it, will grumble on the mountain hike about cold and hunger, while having brought neither warm clothes nor food. Such people enthusiastically join their friends on a hike but when difficulties come their hearts fail them, because they never really believer in the success of this venture. Many, who leave their faith in Christ and start living in sin, are confident that it’s because of their circumstances but Hebrews reminds us that turning away from the living God is not a matter of circumstances but a matter of heart. Perhaps some of you saw “Chicken run” cartoon. It’s about chickens that are trying to escape their horrible farmer who decided to kill them all and make money selling chicken pies. So, they begin learning to fly so they can get over the fence and save their lives but nothing is working and they almost give up and get ready to meet their death. They are sure – their circumstances – high fence and their fat bodies are the problem. But one of them with her whole heart still believes in their rescue and says: “It’s not the fences around the farm that keep us here; it’s the fences around your brains”. When a person walks away from the Living God, it’s not because of the circumstances but because of the heart that was deceived by sin. The scheme of deceit is simple: first we allow ourselves to do what we know is not right but convince ourselves that it’s not as important. When that becomes a habit, we completely cease to think of it as wrong and if anyone challenges us we have a rationalization ready: “everyone does that”, “that’s how this world is anyway”. This conviction becomes the basis for other actions, which you knew before as wrong but now they seem all right. And without noticing you justify that also and once the mind is deceived the habit gets out of control and our initial faith evaporated like the strength of those mountain climbers: “may we shouldn’t have gone this way to begin with, may be this mountain doesn’t really have that beautiful summit they promised…” Unbelieving heart is the one that doesn’t trust God, that tries to manipulate God to do according to our will rather than His own; a heart that grumbles and is bitter because it doesn’t see God’s presence in the midst of life’s pains and tests. A heart deceived by sin experiences a double tragedy: it turns away from the Living God but realizes that there is nothing to turn to except for one’s own deceived self. That’s why in 3:15, Hebrews calls again: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion”. To “hear” in both Old and New Testaments does not just mean “hearing the sound” but is the same thing as “obey”. To hear God is the same as not harden your heart, not to turn away from Him, not to close your heart from God’s words, the opposite of hearing the sound but doing the opposite. Both Psalm and Hebrews warn us: “Don’t make your heart impenetrable for God’s attempts to strengthen and inspire you. Don’t resist His attempts to help you in the midst of your troubles and difficulties by allowing sin to deceive you”. But in order for that not to happen we need to encourage one another every day, to motivate, to remind about the purpose we are journeying to. Not just “don’t worry it’ll all be ok”, but on the basis of true sure confession. “Things will be alright, but not because it’ll all somehow work out or even despite the choices we make, but because God in Christ is faithful to his promises not to leave nor forsake us, as long as we don’t leave Him!” We are called to help one another to be aware of our spiritual condition, so that we do not (without even noticing) fall away from God and His life. We need a reminder from our brothers and sisters. Nobody plans to fall asleep driving when gets into the car but it happens time and again and becomes the cause of many tragedies. And that’s because we so often get sleepy in our spiritual lives and near catastrophe that we need one another to “keep us awake”, to awake our loyalty to Christ, so we can reach God’s promised rest in Christ, the goal of God’s purpose in our life, to find wholeness, maturity and fulfillment. And not entering the rest means realizing that not only God is not finished with me but He will never be finished! Because when I turn away from Him without even noticing I turn and find nothing! When God speaks to us the truth but we choose to listen to the deceiving voice of sin, we find ourselves in the same danger as the people of Israel and 1st century Christians. When we stop (or if we never started) to believe that God called us, saved us and leads us into the future which He promised, we will continue to circle around the desert, never reaching the “rest” into which God desires to bring us. And notice that Hebrews is not warning unbelievers but believers again that danger. It sets out three questions in verses 16–18: “Who were the ones that rebelled? Who was God angry at those 40 years? To whom did He promise that they would not enter rest?” It wasn’t the gentiles, not the unbelievers that God was angry at but His own people who were delivered from slavery but rebelled against God’s Words; they heard what God said and did the opposite. And today the Word is a warning to us: don’t think that if you started the journey with great motivation you will not get sleepy on the way. The Word spoken today is not spoken to a person next to you; it is a word to you. Yes, to you! The journey is not completed yet, so keep walking in obedience to God with a firm confession that the way to God’s new world lies only through God’s Good New of Jesus. When you face obstacles and testing, lift your eyes to Jesus – the Messenger and High Priest, remind yourself and your brothers and sisters what we believe in and where we are going and what provision we all need on the way. | |
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