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Good morning. It’s still the season of Easter…so
I can say to you again,
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!
Nice to come together, isn’t it?…after a week
in a world that increasingly seems fuzzy and vague, where
nobody can agree on anything…to come together and
for just a moment to join together, to agree together, to
be bolstered by not just the voices around us…but
the voices of millions of Christians down through 20 centuries,
to agree and affirm this one pivotal thing:
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!
This morning we plunge into the New Testament book of Hebrews.
I’ve called the series “Final Answer,” with
no apologies to any television shows, because Hebrews over
and over talks about Jesus in terms like these: ultimate,
complete, final: Jesus as God’s
final answer.
What are we getting ourselves into in this letter? It’s
important to know a few facts about Hebrews, things you can
get from any good commentary…but important things
to understand. The Bible isn’t magic that explains
itself to us when we open the pages. It needs to be mined,
thought about, studied, prayed through. Hebrews is sometimes
a puzzling book:
We’re not sure who wrote it (early on it was attributed
to Paul…later to associates of Paul’s like Barnabus,
or Apollos, or Priscilla and/or Aquila). It is written in
the most beautiful Greek of anything in the New Testament,
but the bottom line is we don’t know who wrote it.
The early Christian writer Origen said of it,
“Only
God knows who wrote Hebrews.”
When was it written?
It talks about the persecution of Christians,
which we know happened under the Roman Emperor Nero in 64
AD. But despite being filled with conversation about the
Jewish sacrificial system, there is not a word about the
destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, which happened in
70 AD. So a good guess is probably in the late 60s AD. That
would make it about a generation after Jesus. The recipients
would have been people who hadn’t been with Jesus in
his life on earth.
Who was it written to?
It seems likely it was to a small
Christian group, perhaps a house church in Rome. And it’s
likely they were Hellenistic (Greek) Jewish Christians. This
educated writer could both speak to people from a Greek background…coming
out of a culture filled with the likes of Plato, who thought
that the physical world was just a shadow of what true reality
was, which if available to humans came through human reason.
And he spoke also to Jews who had looked to the sacrificial
system but not found there access to the living God.
While Christianity started as an offshoot of Judaism, increasingly
it was clear that those who believed in Jesus as God’s
Messiah were seen as outside of the Jewish faith. There was
pressure to return to that faith. Before they became Christians,
they were engaged in an ancient institution with rites, passages,
symbols, history, ceremonies. Now they find themselves clinging
to the cross, which spoke only of a shameful death.
It’s
hard. The community seems to be discouraged from the suffering
they encounter. There is confusion over why, if Christ
was the Messiah, sin and suffering are still so prevalent.
There are two threads which constantly wind through Hebrews:
- to remind and clarify what God had done in Jesus…that
in Jesus the promise of human access to the living God
is made true and clear
- and exhort them to hold their course
in following Him in face of many pressures.
So the author goes back and forth
between explanations of Jesus’ work…and a sort
of excited exhortation. Repeatedly, the letter turns into
a sermon that seems designed to re-energize people, pump
them up…people who are
tired and questioning if they really believe why Jesus came.
Read Hebrews 1:1-4
It’s very, very clear to
me that we live in the age of uncertainty. If the age of
modernism (19th & 20th centuries)
was marked by a belief system of certainty or at least the
confidence that truth could be figured out…our “postmodern” age
is marked by uncertainty and a lack of confidence that much
of anything can really be known. At best, I might know something
for myself, but it has little to do with you. The role God
might play in a world view like this is by definition very
limited.
If we can’t know anything with certainty, how do we
know anything about God whom we can’t see?
Right now our country is racked by so many different efforts
to eliminate the belief or language of God from the public
arena that I can’t count them all or keep up with them.
Already, of course, it is not only politically incorrect
but mostly illegal for public schools to practice prayer,
mention God, church or anything else vaguely religious. If
things continue in the direction court cases and interest
group pressures are heading, “In God we trust” will
no longer appear on coins.
Last week, of course, one of the
State of Washington members of the House of Representatives,
Jim McDermott, took his turn at the meeting of Congress in
leading the Pledge of Allegiance. He took it upon himself
to modify that statement on the spot by reciting only “One
nation,” rather than “One
nation Under God,” and
when he was chastised, according to the newspaper he said, “that’s
how I’ve always said it…I support my country
and that’s it.”
I’m not jumping up and down on any one of these things,
just noting that, at least in our country, one of the certainties
of years gone by…the belief and reminders of God’s
presence in everyday life, are rapidly disappearing.
But replaced by what?
In terms of faith, we might track this same movement towards
uncertainty by the vastly increased usage in the term “spirituality.” As
I talk with friends and neighbors, most people in our culture
are far more comfortable talking about “spirituality” than
they are about faith, religion, God or most certainly Jesus.
Spirituality is, in present day usage, a very general, vague
term.
Eugene Peterson notes that it maintains a slim connection
to the idea of transcendence, something bigger than ourselves,
and to intimacy, what goes on inside of us at our deepest
core. “Spirituality” hints that there may be
a link between the Beyond and the Within…but it is
so vague that there’s no way of telling what that link
might be.
Two years ago, I started my Easter sermon by quoting, with
what I thought was tongue-firmly-embedded-in-cheek, from
a “classic” yellow and black book called “Spirituality
for Dummies” (there’s a whole series of these
Dummy books). Much to my surprise, I shortly thereafter received
a letter from the author of that book, who apparently searched
the Internet and found the quotation in my sermon. (I’ve
never been totally convinced that this wasn’t a practical
joke from one of you, but though I have accused several of
you, no one has ever admitted it). The note said,
“I heard that you enjoyed my last book, Spirituality
for Dummies, so much that you recommended it to your
congregation!”
Even more to my surprise, the author enclosed, at no charge,
her next book, and wrote on the inside cover:
“To Rev Dan Baumgartner, who I’m sure is
no dummy!”
I can only hope you share her opinion.
This new book is called “Secrets of Spiritual Happiness.” One
of the “secrets” found all the way towards the
back of the book is “Always Deal with God.” And
here’s the first paragraph of the section:
“…if the word 'God' doesn’t
accurately represent your personal image and relationship,
then please feel free to replace this word with any He, She,
It, form or formlessness that works for you. I’m using
the term “God” in its general sense, and not
as described by any one religion or tradition. The word “God” in
this book refers to generic God -- in plain white wrapping,
and ready to be dyed and decorated by your own creative worldview.”
Now, I don’t read this because it is such an anomaly,
but rather I think it is quite common in this age of uncertainty
that we are struggling in. As our culture seems to increasingly
flounder, people are wandering around looking for some compelling
vision of life that makes sense. Nothing is sure or certain,
and since we are busy removing the possibility of knowing
personally a grace-filled God from the equation, we are thrown
into a very volatile world of trying to figure out who we
are all by ourselves. None of our creative decorating and
dyeing seems to quite fill the bill.
- We move from one relationship to another, searching for
the person that will “meet my needs” the best.
- Studies show that increasingly we move from one job to
another looking for the one that will make us happy.
- And even more rapidly, the studies say, we move from
one house to the next, looking for the one that will finally
feel like home.
- We move from one philosophy to another,
one world view to another, cutting and pasting spiritualities
to find one that will work for us.
Many people are pretty aware that a solid
foundation is missing. I had coffee this week with a 62-year-old
acquaintance who quite poignantly told me, with a look of
immense sadness in his eyes, that his life so far had just
not turned out the way he’d hoped.
Douglas Coupland is a well-known new generation novelist.
In his book Girlfriend in a Coma, he tells a story of a woman
who falls into a coma in 1979 and wakes up 20 years later.
When asked her impressions of life at the turn of the century
she re-enters, she says that what she notices is
“A lack. A lack of convictions -- of beliefs, of wisdom…no
sorrow, no nothing…the people I knew…when
I came back they only, well, existed. It was so sad.”
The pressures are heavy on a person trying to live out an
authentic faith in Christ in this environment.
If God is not being eliminated all together, he is being
replaced by this vague spirituality. And even when we know
the scripture claims: that we have an identity and it is
as God’s
beloved people…we are bombarded by this sense that
nobody can really know much of anything. And though we may
believe that Jesus died for our sins, sometimes we don’t
feel very forgiven, sin is still rampant, the battle is always
waging. Sometimes it just makes you tired. Tired to the point
you might want to give in, find your own spirituality and
let the world go to hell in a handbasket.
Though the reasons may have differed, I think that’s
how these people that Hebrews is written to felt.
- Overwhelmed.
- Tired.
- Uncertain.
- Discouraged.
And so the writer plunges in:
“Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various
ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken
to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through
whom he also created the world. He is the reflection of God’s
glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being,
and he sustains all things by his powerful word.”
It’s refreshingly specific. And direct. No address,
no preliminaries, no greeting, no anything but this rather
ringing assurance:
God spoke. God has spoken.
The writer to the Hebrews starts with the Old Testament, “God
spoke.” This is a past tense meaning God spoke over
a long period of time, a process that I think started way
back in Genesis.
- God spoke the world into being, “And God said,
let there be light…and there was,”
- spoke
through the prophets,
- spoke to the ancestors of Israel.
In all of those ways and
more, God has revealed Himself, here and there, glimpses
and sightings. God was busy communicating.
But then the writer ties it to the New Testament times,
“in these last days he HAS spoken,”
a different kind of past tense. This is not a “process” word,
but one that is finished and done, the pieces are complete.
God has spoken. We don’t need anything else. Don’t
need to look elsewhere, don’t need to look for more.
In Jesus Christ the Son, God spoke. With certainty.
God spoke through a Son, his heir. An heir with an inheritance,
scripture will claim many times, is no less than all the
nations. Everybody.
This Son is, quite simply, without comparison. If you were
from a Jewish background, words like ancestors and prophets
would have brought up images of people like Isaiah, like
Jeremiah, like Moses. These were the great leaders, the ones
who spoke God’s truth, the ones who lived out the faith.
Among humanity, there were none greater or more worthy of
honor.
But if you wanted to somehow stretch even higher, you would
talk about angels. Angels are very present in the Old Testament
from the very beginning. It was an angel who spoke to Moses
out of the burning bush that started the whole thing, after
all. Jewish tradition even had angels giving Moses the ten
commandments. Active on the earth, but tied to heaven, angels
were God’s direct and divine servants. You could stretch
no higher.
Until the Son. Nothing compares with the one of whom God
would say,
“This is my Son, the beloved.”
Jesus, God’s Son. The one who radiates God’s
glory to the point he is indistinguishable. Like the sun’s
rays and heat are indistinguishable from the sun itself.
The one who is the exact imprint of God’s very being.
It’s not vague. It’s specific.
What is God like? We know Him in Jesus, the ultimate expression
of God. In finality.
What is God like? We know Him in Jesus, who brought together
all of the glimpses from before, mostly God’s judgment
and wisdom and power…and somehow held them together
with grace and mercy.
What is God’s heart like? Look at Jesus, who stood
outside the tomb of Lazarus his friend and wept.
How does God feel about us? In Jesus he calls us beloved,
he says forgive them they didn’t know, he is like a
father waiting for his long lost child to return, scanning
the horizon every night and longing for him to return. God
is crazy about you. About you. Not vaguely, but specifically.
On my worst days, when the world doesn’t make a lot
of sense, when God may seem far off, I cling to this notion
and passages like this. I remind myself of times when God
has seemed near. And I’m so glad that God came specifically.
Not vaguely, not a sort of happy feeling that covers the
earth. Not in a way hidden so that we couldn’t understand.
And not just generally, for all the people of the earth (though
also that)…but for me too.
It’s as though the writer of Hebrews thought about
his audience, looked at the tiredness, the fear, the confusion,
the wandering and said, “What do they just have
to have?” The answer was not a bunch of vague suppositions
or personal religion.
It was the Son, Jesus Christ.
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various
ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken
to us by a Son.
Let’s pray.
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