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| Strength for the Journey #10 Jesus: The Perfect Sacrifice |
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Looking to Jesus: The Perfect Sacrifice
Reading: Hebrews 9:12-10:18
“‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,’ says the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,’ then he adds, ‘I will remember their sins and their misdeeds no more.’”
Hebrews 10:16-17 (8:10-12; Jeremiah 31:33-34)
“I will remember their sins no more.” So, can an omniscient, all powerful God somehow mysteriously pull the plug on all that he knows and not know some things anymore? For us creatures made in his image, he didn’t make us that way. Sure, I forget incredible amounts of information everyday. I forget appointments even when I’ve put them on my Daytimer—I forget to look at my Daytimer! I’ve forgotten huge masses of information in the course of my life. I’m terrible with remembering people’s names. Yes, there are those instances where whole memories are lost. Sometimes individuals suffer the trauma of amnesia; we know too well the memory losses that come with aging, senility and Alzheimer’s.
But there are some things I wish I could forget, yet they always find a way of coming back to mind. There are images I wish I could forget; stories and circumstances that I try to forget. My sins are like that. Oh, I forget the minor stuff pretty fast—the slanderous thoughts about some driver that cuts me off in traffic…maybe its not that I forget, it’s that they happen so frequently I can’t keep them straight! I forget most of those incidents in my life that I wished at the time I had behaved better or differently. But there are other experiences, the deep ones, the secret ones, the ones that I need others not to know in the first place. I remember the sins of shame. I remember the really embarrassing ones that make me cringe inside whenever they come back to the surface again. Most of the time I can keep them buried, out of mind’s sight. But then they reappear with crushing force.
I especially remember the recurring ones, the sins that were/are such a struggle to overcome. Some are like those nightmares I had when I was a very small child. I can’t tell you any details about a single dream or nightmare I’ve had in the last 30 years. But I can still recall with vivid detail some recurring nightmares from early childhood (when I was 3 and 4 years old). I can still picture in my mind the awful, horrible monsters that would try to attack me at night.
For the second time in a lengthy section that began back in chapter seven, the preacher in Hebrews quotes these very affirming and comforting words from Jeremiah about the days of the new covenant. The day has arrived, he keeps claiming. In Jesus Messiah, God has decisively acted to put his laws on human hearts, to write them on human minds rather than on tablets of stone. Twice the preacher reiterates the promise of God, “I will remember their sins no more.” The context of this assertion is the conclusion of an ongoing comparison the preacher has been making between the activity of priests and the high priest in service to the tent of meeting as described in Scripture and the activity of Jesus. Particularly in chapters nine and ten, the preacher contrasts the forgiveness of sins that God provided the people through sacrifices offered on the Day of Atonement and the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus.
There were deficiencies in the original system of sacrifice, he says, because the system itself was always a copy, a shadow of true realities in the heavens. The Holy Place was a shadow; the Holy of Holies was a shadow; the sacrifices themselves were shadows. Sin created an insurmountable barrier between Creator God and his Creation. However, the Tent of Meeting and the sacrifices of the priesthood could restore limited access to God if everyone followed the prescribed procedures. Only priests were allowed to enter the Tent of Meeting, the Holy Place. Only the High Priest could enter into the Holy of Holies, and then only once a year. The people, the masses, never could get past the courtyard that surrounded the tent. Because the priests and the High Priest were human sinners, they were always required to offer sacrifices for themselves before they could offer sacrifices on behalf of the people. They needed forgiveness just like the rest of the people who were given no access to the Holy Place.
But here was the good news and the bad news, the preacher says. The good news was that when the priests offered those sacrifices for sins, and when the High Priest offered the prescribed sacrifices one day a year on the Day of Atonement, there was an external cleansing of sins. The limited access to God provided by such actions was maintained for another year. The sins of the people were removed onto the scapegoat. It really was quite a ceremony when you go back and read about it in Leviticus 16. There would be one animal sacrificed and some elaborate ritual of procession by the High Priest back and forth between the Holy of Holies and the outside where the people were. Then the High Priest would ceremonially lay his hands on this second animal—a goat—and the goat would be sent off into the wilderness, symbolically carrying away the sins of the people committed in the past year.
Unfortunately the good news of forgiveness was also the bad news of forgiveness. You see, such actions were not unlike our experience of shadows today. When shadows pass over things, they change the outward appearance for a time, but they have no lasting effects on the objects overshadowed. Those sacrifices in Shadowland were like that, the preacher says. They could never perfect the conscience, could never eradicate sin. It was impossible, he says for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins—to eradicate the barrier of sin at the entrance to the Holy Place. No matter how many sacrifices were offered, no matter how many Days of Atonement came and went, access to God remained limited. So people had particular sins forgiven by God; they could do enough through that system of sacrifices to maintain limited access—but it was always just that, limited!
That’s the good news of Jesus. In rupturing the space-time continuum, God came into this world in the form of the Son. The Son’s action of death on the cross, resurrection, and exaltation back across the space/time continuum into the heavenly realm functions simultaneously in both realms, both worlds, the preacher says. In our world the great enemies of humans—sin and death—were conquered by his death and resurrection and exaltation. In the heavenly realm, the true reality, the blood shed in his death on earth becomes a once-for-all sacrifice for Sin. In the true sanctuary, the preacher says, that sacrifice for sin has the power to cleanse the conscience of us humans still here in Shadowland.
Remember, Sin destroyed relationship and access to God for all humans. God’s covenant with Israel restored limited access, but it could always and only be just that—limited access. Only one person could get close to God, and then only once a year, and then only after appropriate sacrifices, and he couldn’t stay long. For everyone else, access to God was a fleeting moment as they watched that goat wander off into the wilderness and were reminded once more of just how limited their access was to God because of their sins.
Now, the preacher says, the promise of Jeremiah’s prophecy has come true. Now the once-for-all activity of the Son of God has created unlimited access. The barrier of sin has been removed. Relationship with God has been restored! The way is now opened into that heavenly throne room. For those who have believed in Jesus, there is forgiveness that goes more than skin deep, forgiveness that goes beyond just deciding to ignore the pain and the shame, forgiveness powerful enough to break the bonds of secrecy and face paint, forgiveness powerful enough that church no longer functions as just another reminder of how sinful I am, forgiveness so empowering that one really can stop sinning.
True forgiveness! A cleansed conscience! Promises of unlimited access to Creator God. Full access into the heavenly realm where the pioneer of our faith already has gone. Those are the promises the preacher holds up to his audience. And yet, as we will see next week, and as we already saw back in chapter six, he has great fears that his audience will lose heart and lose faith. He fears that his audience will miss out on the realities of full access with God because they otherwise have become distracted by their present suffering. The way of the pioneer of their faith was not the way of easy access or easy living on this planet. It was not the way of material wealth and success and freedom and fair treatment. It was unfair! It came with great human suffering and identity loss and even shame and humiliation among peers.
Their obstacles were not our obstacles. Theirs were borne out of suffering already being endured. Ours most often come from false images we create for our material world, our earthly circumstances. I remember a lady having the honesty one time to tell me that she had absolutely no desire to go to heaven or to pray, “Lord, come quickly,” because she could not imagine any circumstance of existence being better than her current reality. She was happily married, had wonderful children, great friends, plenty of money, great house, great church experiences—it couldn’t get any better than this. Three years later, when he husband had an affair and left her for the other woman, and her world crumbled around her in every possible way, and when church life disintegrated because they didn’t tolerate divorce, she walked away from church and God—an angry, bitter woman.
The preacher knows that his audience must believe that the reality of full access to God is a journey from Shadowland to the heavenly realm. They must believe that any losses incurred in Shadowland are worth the glories of the heavenly realm. They must believe that even when it does not seem so now, their access to God already is assured because of the once-for-all activity of Jesus. They must live as people with a perfected conscience, rather than as people constantly aware of their sins. The awareness of full access is not a get-out-of-jail free card. It is not a decision by God to simply see Jesus every time he looks at us. Yes, I know the power of that image and it is absolutely true that our righteousness is his righteousness. It is not our own. We are the recipients of covenant promise through his death and resurrection and exaltation. But unlimited access has to do both with seeing and being seen. It is not a matter of me continuing to live and sin but its okay now because God only sees Jesus. Sin still blocks my sight of God. The promise of a cleansed conscience means the power to see as well as be seen. And when our eyes are God, when our eyes are fixed on Jesus, the one through whom we now can see God, there is indeed strength for the journey.
Does God remember my sins? Somehow I don’t think that Jeremiah or the preacher in Hebrews think, much like that little flashlight in the movie, “Men in Black,” that whenever one flashes the light there is an instant mind wipe that erases memories. It is not that the memories of God or our own memories suddenly disappear. But they are transformed. Their power to separate us from God has forever been removed. Their power to haunt and frighten are destroyed. They become tools on the journey of faith and sight. Past failures are freed to become good teachers rather than shameful nightmares.
I still can see in my mind those monsters that used to attack me in my bedroom in the night. But I’ve learned they were only shadows, shadows cast by my own movements. Shadows that have no power to change anything they touch. Shadows that no longer hold any power to frighten or terrorize. Now I smile as I remember and am so thankful to have moved on! Is it time for you to leave Shadowland as well?
Delivered at Woodmont Hills, November 3, 2002.
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