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When I was kid, every couple of months my mother would take us on a special shopping expedition. Instead of the normal Sainsbury’s we would go to Waitrose (1). Then after we came out we would go to a coffee shop. Not like Starbucks or Cafe Nero where you buy cups of coffee. No - a coffee shop where you buy actual coffee. They would have 20-30 meter tall brass dispensers full of different kinds of coffee bean. My mum selected her beans and they would grind them for her before bagging them up. And - ohhh- The smell! Coffee tastes nice - but oh, the smell of freshly ground coffee, it is so much better. I used to imagine that heaven is where coffee tastes as good as it smells. That heaven is somewhere where you get the full reality while on earth you get a partial shadow of it.
What has the odor and taste of coffee got to do with Hebrews chapter 12?
To understand that, you need a bible covered in coffee stains!
The Christian view of the bible have a very different view of our Holy Book to other religions. If I was to talk about a Quran covered in coffee stains, my Muslim friends would think I was being blasphemous. Muslims will not place a Quran or a bible or a Torah on the floor because they believe it is disrespectful. It always sits on a special stand in the home. Sikhs treat their Holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib as a living person, waking it in the morning and putting it to rest at night. But I ask how many coffee stains are on your bible… Because Christians are encouraged to have battered bibles.
St Jerome tells us “Ignorance of the bible is ignorance of Christ” . Collosians 3:16 commands us “let the word of God dwell in you richly”.
Well if your bible is on a ceremonial stand or gathering dust on your top shelf, are you going to know it? Is God’s word going to dwell inside your heart if it’s pages remain unopened.
If you have coffee stains on your bible, that’s a sign you have been reading it.
And so we come to a passage like today’s reading from Hebrews.
Hebrews is really easy to understand … so long you know you bible backwards.
There is a slight problem here - the bible you have in your house might not have all the books in it that the writer to the Hebrews had in her or his bible. Roman Catholic bibles have books in the Old Testament that have got lost from the Protestant bible. Eastern Orthodox Christians have books in their Old Testament that have got lost from the Roman Catholic bible. Ethiopian Christians have books in their Old Testament that have got lost from the Eastern Orthodox bibles. And the bibles the earliest Christians used - like Paul and Jude and James and the writer of Hebrews contain all these books
So you might have trouble getting hold of a copy of the book of Enoch to get coffee stained yet it’s referenced in Hebrews and Jude and other books. But we have no excuse for not knowing the books we have easy access to. They should be covered in coffee stains.
How for example can you understand today’s passage if you don’t know Exodus chapter 19 where the people of Israel come in to a towering volcano billowing smoke and fire. There is an earthquake shaking the floor underneath them and a noise like that of a trumpet, so loud, that people are clasping their hands to their ears. All signs of the presence of God in that place. So holy a place that if an “animal touches the mountain it shall be stoned to death”. A place where even Moses when he comes into that place trembles with fear at the presence of God.
For those of you old enough to have seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, you can imagine what it was like. That, says Exodus, is what it was like to come into the presence of God.
And how can you understand today’s reading if you don’t know Genesis 4:10 . Adam and Eve have two sons Cain and Abel. They both make sacrifices to God, but Abel’s is deemed more acceptable because it comes from a right heart. In jealousy Cain murders Abel and tries to hide it. But God says to him “Listen your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground.
Or how can you understand this passage if you don’t know the prophecy of Haggai 2:6 where God promises that “yet once more I will shake both the earth and the heaven”
Or how can you understand this passage if you don’t know where the Israelites are warned about the importance of right worship for “the Lord your God is a consuming fire a jealous God”
As you flick through your coffee stained bibles these verses tell you about the nature of heave and the nature of Jesus.
You remember me walking with my mum into the shop with the freshly ground coffee, soaking in the aroma of the grinds and imagining that heaven would be where coffee tasted as good as it smelt?
Hebrews recalls the story from Exodus 19 with Moses and the mountain and “a blazing fire and darkness and a gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice that made the hearers beg that not another word could be spoken to them” and where “if even an animal touches the mountain shall be stoned to death”
And the letter to the Hebrews says - “You think that was impressive? That was just a whiff of the smell of the coffee - you are now in the place where it tastes as good as it smells…”
“You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire and darkness …” blah de blah. Rather: “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels in festal gathering and to the assembly of the first born who are enrolled in heaven , and to God the Judge of all, and to the Spirits of the righteous made perfect and to Jesus the mediator of the new Covenant.”
You thought that mountain in heaven was present because God was there? Now you are entering the TRUE throne room of God. When you worship you have access to heaven itself. Moses, the mediator of the new covenant brought the children of Israel to the foot of the mountain - the thunder the lightening the billowing clouds of smoke, the voice from heaven - but they had to remain at the bottom of the mountain. Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant does something that is quite amazing. He doesn’t leave us standing at the bottom he brings us right into the presence of God.
A few months back Henry and I and a few of his friends went to a pop concert at Wembley Stadium. It was an amazing experience but the singers were so far off. We could barely see them and you got a better view looking at screens. But right at the front was “The Golden Circle” - the VIP area where you could not just see the stars but almost touch them.
Jesus the mediator of the new covenant brings you not to the bottom of the mountain, not to the back of Wembley stadium - but right into the VIP area.
You have been brought in there because through Jesus you have become one of the assembly of the first born.
You may not know this - but {name of congregation member} is One hundred and twelve thousand four hundred and ninety third in line to the throne. But if {name of congregation member} turns up at the gates of Buckingham Palace, he won’t be let in. Prince Charles on the other hand is the first born son and can get right up close to the queen whenever he likes.
Through Jesus and through adoption you have been made one of the assembly of the first born. So long as you don’t chuck it away you have a right of access to God.
And if you are thinking that there are not enough people worshipping here this morning...Hebrews reassures us that the true reality is more awesome than the “blazing fire and darkness and gloom and tempest and sound of trumpet” on sinai - because here worshipping around us are “innumerable angels in festal gathering” and all those saints - the first born - who have gone before us. He is echoing a picture that is picked up again in Revelation - though that hadn’t been written at the time Hebrews was - but which comes first in 2 Esdras 42-48 where we are told “I saw on Mount Zion a great multitude I could not number and they all were singing and praising the Lord”
So if you ever feel down in church think “if only there were more people here” -you are not seeing the reality - the reality is: we are surrounded by a great crowd of saints and angels.
Which brings us through the pungent smell of fresh coffee to the smell of blood crying out to heaven.
In the story of Cain and Abel, Abel’s blood cries out for vengeance, and Cain spends the rest of his life being punished- after all he deserved it, the world’s first ever murderer - and the Hebrews readers with their coffee stained bibles would have known precisely that- Cain thought he could get away with his crime, but he got what was coming to him because the blood cried out for vengeance.
Which isn’t much hope for us - we’ve all done things wrong. Will we get away with it?
Arthur Conan Doyle sent a telegram to 12 prominent friends saying “all is discovered, flee at once!”(2) - all twelve promptly left the country. How would you respond if someone sent you that missive? We all have secrets we would not want to come out. We have all done things wrong. Will we get away with it or will we get what is coming for us?
And yet the author of Hebrews speaks of “a Sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel”
We are waiting for someone to cry out that we should get what we deserve, and instead Jesus’s blood cries out that we should get a second chance, his blood cries out that we should be forgiven. Whatever you have done - however much you write yourself off- Jesus doesn’t write you off. His blood “speaks a better word”
And we are told to “see that you do not refuse the one who is speaking” - So we are brought to the final phrase in our coffee soaked bibles to that prophesy from Haggai “yet once more will I shake the earth and the heavens”
Which is interesting - because in Haggai the one who is speaking is God - whilst here in Hebrews, it is the sprinkled blood who speaks a better word - ie Jesus.
There are many people we live amongst who don’t believe Jesus is God. Our Muslim friends for example believe the bible was re-edited later to add the few sentences that directly claim Jesus was God. And it is true there are not that many of them - but if your bible is truly coffee soaked what you will spot time and again is where passages that refer to God in the Old Testament are quoted as referring to Jesus in the New Testament - because for the early Christians they take it for granted Jesus is God. And that God calls out inviting us into his presence.
This year is the 25th anniversary of The Matrix. If you know the film, the main character Neo discovers that the world he lives in - which looks just like our world - isn’t really real. And he is given a choice - to take the Red Pill and experience the world as it really is or to take the blue pill, and dull his senses, forgetting all he has discovered and “settle” for the reality that isn’t really real.
Hebrews 12 is an invitation to take the red pill “to come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God,” To come into a kingdom that is more real than then the world we call real - a Kingdom that cannot be shaken -a kingdom that we experience when we “offer God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe”.
Which pill will you take?
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(1) For those of you outside the UK: Waitrose is a particularly up-market grocery store
(2)This story is sometimes attributed to Conan Doyle and sometimes to Mark Twain -cf wikipedia.
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