Daily Liturgy and Scripture

What is being written to the Hebrew audience is bringing together the old covenant and the new: the faith that Jesus introduced has been part of the story all along, as has the quality of Kingdom citizens. To live in this new Kingdom is a matter of faith, and that faith is familiar to the people God has called his own even in the past.

As we remember today the tax collector who became an apostle of Jesus, we can take a note from his first event as an apostle: throwing a party filled with the wrong kind of people. And yet, Jesus came. The guest list wasn't who the religious leaders would have chosen, but it certainly seems to be exactly the people Jesus wanted to hang out with.

Not only do we have a high priest in Jesus who is seated at the right hand of the Father, but we also have a sacrifice for sins that is eternal. To the Jewish audience who received this letter, this would be a pretty big deal. The regular offering of sacrifices would have been familiar, and to say that those sacrifices were at an end was significant. It changed the way the people understood their...

The sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross is more than a one-time special event, it is the fulfillment of the previews shown through the centuries that came before him. The high priest operating in tents and even permanent buildings is a shadow compared to our High Priest, the Son of God, who resides permanently in the true court of God.

It's kind of conventient that we get a passage about the first temple with this passage from Hebrews about the new one today. The two periods of God's history with God's people are definitely conneected: even in all of its grandeur, all of the glory that Solomon brought to the temple was still just a shadow next to the new Kingdom of Jesus and our eternal high priest.

What has come before in Hebrews leads to this: who Jesus is, what he did, and who he continues to be is the culmination of our high priest. Seated at the right hand of the Father, God made man, who knows our struggle because it has been his own.

It seems that the writer of Hebrews wishes to fully remove the way of Jesus from the way of the Law, so there are some pretty serious Old Testament throwbacks here: not only pointing out that Jesus was from a family that was outside the traditional Jewish priestly race, but calling Jesus a priest of the order before a priestly race even existed. Pretty strong case. Of course, Jesus is also the Son...

We are not brought into the Kingdom of Jesus to continue conducting business as we did before. With the Spirit as our guide, we are changed. Otherwise, we are "land producing thorns and thistles" and the Kingdom cannot grow.

Both high priest and sacrifice: that is Jesus's unique idendity. What he did, nobody else could do. What he continues to do, only God can do. As we remember the way in which he died today, let us also remember that it was God's plan, playing out in exactly the way God ordained it.

Interesting that, right after a section on Jesus, the writer of Hebrews turns to talk about Sabbath rest. (Spoiler: the next passage goes BACK to talking about Jesus!) Since the writer has also been comparing and contrasting the law and the new covenant, could be be that Jesus is our rest, that through the Spirit we are seen fully, more than keeping the Law could ever expose? It's not about av...

The writer of Hebrews, addressing a mostly Jewish audience, has talked about who Jesus is. Now the message shifts to what Jesus is doing: as a high priest, he supercedes Moses and the law. The house that God started building with Moses, Jesus is now Lord over. This is where we live as believers, and the Spirit is among us to continue the work in and with us.

The writer of Hebrews continues fleshing out our Christology: now we establish that Jesus became like us, but was not always like us. This makes Jesus both our high priest and the highest offering. In fitting with God's plan of redemption, this is important: it was always God doing the work.

Jesus was not an angel, he was God. He was God become man, but he was still God. An angel would not have been the proper way to God, only God is the way to God. To see Jesus is to see God, and he remains God today. He always has been. This is a heavy helping of Christology, but what we believe about Jesus matters: if Jesus was not God, then all his teaching and sacrifice is in vain.

The discipline of submitting to one another goes beyond husbands and wives, as we read yesterday. It also goes among children and parents, slaves to masters, and masters to slaves. This new way of thinking that Paul rolls out, inspired by the Spirit, is a radical step backward for those who want to follow Jesus.

Much has been made about the submitting Paul is discussing, and trying to figure out who should submit to whom is the wrong approach. If wives submit to husbands but husbands take their cues from Christ himself, then Christ models going first and submitting himself. Laying aside his crown, walking among us, and walking the road to the cross is some pretty heavy submission.

Faith was never intended to be a private gift that we keep to ourselves. The citizens of Jesus' Kingdom have different qualities, an essential trait if we are to show what life in that Kingdom is like and might be like.

Having found ourselves in the fortunate place of the Kingdom of Jesus, our order of business is to conduct ourselves as citizens of that Kingdom. Forgiveness and love are the hallmarks of that place, and perhaps those two are difficult enough to be the whole list of objectives. They aren't an end in themselves, though. We are aiming for new selves, a preview of the newness that will come with...

Holding together any group of people for any length of time can prove diffiucult. How is this done in the Church? Hopefully, this passge by Paul is that method: unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, equipped by our Lord for the work that is is his own.

Paul certainly has a sense of purpose, not only for being one of God's people, but for the plans and purposes of God playing out at just the right time. The way God was understood when Jesus came, because now we know that Jesus is how God looks. Paul was one of many who had to change their view of God.

What brings the Church together is nothing of human doing, it is all God. Circumcision is no longer the covenant sign between us and the eternal, but is Jesus himself, the eternal embodied.

The initiative of our salvation comes from God: showing mercy sending the Son, making the way to the Father through his death, seated with Christ because of what he did. None of that was our work, it was all God's, because setting things right is what God is about.

Paul finishes his view of who Christ is: not only our example, not only the Son of God through whom we claim our inheritance, but also the fiber that holds all things together. This is more than a man who came to earth and preached sermons: it is who God is, and what God looks like.

Paul considers Christ more than the life that walked on earth to show us what God is like, he is also the one who seals us as God's children. The heirship of the Son of God is ours as well, because it is his redemption that set us right with God.

Philemon had a fair claim over Onesimus, and probably wasn't a bad master. Paul seems to have confidence in him as a believer. However, Paul isn't asking Philemon to do something within his rights, but to consider Onesimus as a fellow brother. This would have been somewhat radical, and would have required a sacrifice on the part of the owner. We don't have an answer from Philemon to Pa...

Paul is casting a vision of a different kind of community, bringing masters and slaves closer to equality. (More about that tomorrow!) He also paints, with this list of names, a picture of how that community was already working: Luke, who wrote; Epaphras, the prayer warrior; Nympha, a woman who hosted a house church. The Spirit was at work to do more than just eat bread together.