For six weeks we have been looking at the Letter to the Hebrews. If you hadn’t noticed before, you are probably aware by now that it is far from the easiest book of the New Testament to understand, with its frequent quotations from what often seem obscure passages from the Old Testament, and with its talk of angels and references to mysterious characters like Melchizedek.
On the other hand, I hope that at the same time you have begun to appreciate what an amazing piece of writing Hebrews is—and that you will realize this more and more as the weeks go on.
My own experience of Hebrews goes back some of my earliest days as a Christian, when I was an undergraduate student at university. A friend and I thought we’d like to get together to study the Bible. For some reason we landed in the Letter to the Hebrews. As the weeks went on, we invited others to join us and they in turn invited others, so that by the end of the term there were more than thirty participants in the group!
While we found it challenging and at some points even mystifying, we also found that we were being profoundly enriched, with its repeated calls to focus on Jesus, the incomparable Christ. Indeed, a year later that became the theme of a campus-wide mission: “Focus on Jesus Christ”.
The Letter to the Hebrews is unique among the books of the New Testament on a number of accounts. For one thing, nowhere does it tell us who its author was. Added to that, many scholars aren’t sure that it was intended as a letter at all, but think that it may have begun its life as a sermon. Whatever the case, it is clear that its author was a highly gifted teacher, a deeply caring pastor and a brilliant interpreter of the Old Testament. Most importantly, whoever he or she was, this writer was passionate about Jesus.
Unfortunately, that seems to have been less and less the case with some of the men and women to whom this letter was addressed. We cannot know for sure, but evidence suggests that Hebrews was written somewhere in the early 60s. And the likelihood is that the recipients were in the main Jewish converts to Christ living in Rome.
At that time Rome had a population of about a million people, of whom around fifty thousand were Jews. It is not unlikely that the good news about Jesus had first come to Rome with some of those who had been visiting Jerusalem on the feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus’ disciples in the upper room. They were among those who had been cut to the heart by Peter’s proclamation of Jesus as Lord and Messiah. They had heard the challenge to repent. They had responded by being among the three thousand who were baptized. And they had brought the good news of God’s love in Jesus back with them to Rome.
However, the years between Pentecost and Hebrews had not been easy ones for the Christians in Rome. In AD 49 the emperor Claudius had expelled all Jews from Rome—and that undoubtedly would have included a number of those who had turned to Christ. Over the years that followed, many of them were able to return. But hostility towards Christians from both Gentiles and Jews was only growing. It would reach a climax under the emperor Nero in the year 64, following the great fire of Rome.
With all this in mind, it isn’t difficult to understand how many of the believers in Rome were suffering from discouragement. Some, I suspect, had reached a state of exhaustion. Others were tempted to go back to their Jewish roots. And a few were at the point of abandoning the faith altogether, if they hadn’t done so already.
This, then, is the audience to whom the Letter to the Hebrews was directed. And I’m wondering, does any of it sound familiar to you? Two years of covid have kept many believers isolated from the fellowship of the church. And even when we are able to come together, what we are permitted to do is for the most part a pale shadow of the worship and community life that we formerly enjoyed.
Besides that, we live in a milieu that is increasingly hostile to many of the truths we hold dear. Christian faith has become marginalized, if not demonized, in many of the mass media. Added to that, “cancel culture” makes it dangerous to say or write anything that conflicts with today’s social norms—norms that are becoming more and more inimical to Christian values.
The result is that we end up with Christian believers who suffer from what we might call faith fatigue—rather are like someone who is adrift in a rowboat in the middle of a storm. Row as hard as they will, the rain continues to lash down, the wind continues to whip around them, and the waves threaten to overturn their little craft at any moment. Does that match up with anyone you know? Perhaps it even describes where you’re at right now.
Our Privilege: Brothers and sisters in a heavenly calling
If that’s the case, take heart. Because that was exactly the kind of people the author of the Letter to the Hebrews was writing to. And what does he say to them?
He begins by reminding them who they are. Look at how he addresses them in the opening verse of our passage this morning: “holy brothers and sisters”, “you who share in a heavenly calling”.
First of all, he calls them “holy”. Now that isn’t a word that many of us are accustomed to using of ourselves. We may think of “holy” people as those we consider model Christians, women or men who demonstrate all those beautiful fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience and all the rest. But that’s not what the New Testament writers mean when they use the word “holy”. We are holy not because of anything we have done, but because our heavenly Father has claimed us for himself, because Jesus Christ has died for us on the cross, because the Holy Spirit dwells within us. You don’t have to think about it for more than a moment to realize what an immense privilege that is.
Secondly, he calls them “brothers and sisters”. If the word “holy” speaks to us of our vertical relationship with God, then “brothers and sisters” speaks of the horizontal relationship that we have with all who belong to Christ. That is, we have the remarkable privilege of being knit together with people of every language, race, status, nationality and whatever other category you care to mention—all those factors that are too often used to divide people and set them apart from one another.
I’m not a huge traveller, but I have worshipped with other believers in Australia, France, Libya, India and Haiti (not to mention most of the provinces of Canada). In every case I have found myself welcomed by people who recognized and claimed me as a brother in Christ. One of the qualities that draw me to First Congregational is the wide diversity of backgrounds and nationalities that this church embraces.
We are brothers and sisters. And if that weren’t enough, the author goes on to tell us that we share in a heavenly calling. We look forward to the day when, with all of God’s people from every language, tribe, century and nation we will be gathered around the throne of the Lamb.
What a privilege this is! It is one that sets all the worries and contradictions, all the tensions and disappointments, all the pains and setbacks that life in this world puts across our path, into a totally different context. Surely these are words of encouragement if you are one of those who find yourself lonely or discouraged in your Christian walk.
Our Pattern: Take a good look at Jesus
If that is our privilege, the author of Hebrews next calls us to look at the pattern that God gives us on which to model our lives—and I don’t have to tell you that that pattern is Jesus! “Consider Jesus…,” he tells us. The word that he uses for “consider” means to ponder, to study, to observe thoroughly, to take careful notice, to contemplate, to fix your eyes on, to rivet your attention on something. The Message Bible translates it, “Take a good hard look at Jesus.”
What do we see when we do that? We see one who was faithful. And here the author does what he often does. He compares Jesus with a figure from the Old Testament. This time it is with Moses.
Everyone would have known about the faithfulness of Moses. In the face of threats from Pharaoh, in the face of the Red Sea, in the face of the Egyptian charioteers, and in the face of the rebelliousness of his own people, Moses remained faithful to God. For forty long years he faithfully led the people of Israel across the wilderness towards the land that God had promised them.
Moses was faithful as a servant, the author tells us. But Jesus was faithful as a son. Moses’ faithfulness led him to give up his privilege as a member of Pharaoh’s household. Jesus’ faithfulness led him to surrender all his heavenly glory to become as one of us. Moses’ faithfulness caused him to plead to God on behalf of his wayward people. Jesus’ faithfulness took him to the cross, to suffer and to die for the sins of the whole world—for your sins and mine. Moses’ faithfulness brought him to the edge of the Promised Land. Jesus’ faithfulness exalted him to the Father’s right hand, there to reign eternally in all his heavenly splendour. So it is that we fix our eyes firmly on Jesus.
Many of you will be familiar with the account in Matthew’s gospel of when the disciples were caught in a storm on the Sea of Galilee. They were far from shore and the wind was driving them farther, while the waves splashed over the gunwales. As things were getting completely out of control, they looked and there was Jesus! “Lord, if it really is you,” Peter shouted, “command me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” Jesus said. And at that Peter stepped out of the boat and began to walk towards Jesus. But when he looked at the wind whirling about him, he started to sink. “Lord, save me,” he gasped. At which Jesus reached out his hand and took hold of him (Matthew 14:28-33).
Peter’s experience is a useful model for us when we find ourselves overwhelmed by the circumstances that life sometimes throws at us: to look to Jesus, whose very last words to his disciples were these: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
Our Priority: Hold fast
We share in the incalculable privilege of being sisters and brothers in a heavenly calling. We have a pattern in Jesus, who faithfully went to the cross for us and promises to be with us to the end of time. And that leads us to a priority, which we find in the final verse of this morning’s passage: to hold fast.
A couple of years ago Karen and I were in Australia at an extended family gathering on a lake. One of the people there had brought a high-powered speed boat, from which he towed a large inflatable raft. Of course, this was a source of great fun for the many children and teenagers who had come. But that wasn’t enough for some of them, who began to dare me to go out for a spin.
I can’t say I was keen on the idea, but eventually their cajoling got to me and I agreed to go out for a spin. We hadn’t been out for more than a few moments, when I could see a devilish expression cross the face of our driver as he glanced back at us. Suddenly he revved the engine to full speed and took us back and forth, bouncing recklessly across the wake of the boat. A couple of the young people who weren’t holding on very tightly were tossed into the water. But I held on for dear life as we were buffeted by wave after wave, and managed to survive until we reached the shore. I even went out for a second run!
Well, I can’t say it’s going to be fun. Indeed, it very often isn’t, and the stakes can be high. For some of those early Christians their faithfulness cost them their lives. And it hasn’t stopped. Are you aware that there were more Christians martyred in the twentieth century than in all previous centuries combined? That every day thirteen Christians die for their faith and another dozen are unjustly arrested or imprisoned?
We can be grateful to God that, while keeping the faith can be a challenge, while it can even lead to losing friends or losing a job, we do not have to suffer as many of our fellow believers have. But with them, the Letter to the Hebrews calls upon us to hold fast, to keep a firm grip, not to allow anything to cause us to let go.
As we move on through Hebrews, the author will give us some practical guidance as to how we are to do that. But I don’t want to steal from future sermons in the weeks ahead! So, I will leave it there, with the encouragement to keep your eyes trained on Jesus, to hold fast and not to let go, even if sometimes we feel we are just barely hanging on by our fingernails. And with the reminder that we have a God who promises, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).
