Let’s play a little Bible trivia this morning. If you don’t see yourself as a Bible scholar, there’s a pattern that you’ll quickly pick up on:

Question: Which Old Testament king was also a priest?
Answer: Melchizedek.

Question: Which Old Testament king’s name means “King of Righteousness?”
Answer: Melchizedek.

Question: Which Old Testament king appears eight times in the New Testament, all in the book of Hebrews?
Answer: Melchizedek.

Question: Which mysterious, complicated and theologically puzzling Old Testament king did Jeff Van Duzer promise last week that I would totally explain this week?
Answer: Melchizedek.

Which only goes to show that Jeff does not know everything!

As we continue our series in the New Testament book of Hebrews, this morning we’ll look into chapter 7. I’m going to read the first four verses, skip to verse 11 and then down to verse 23. read

If we’re going to understand the significance of this chapter, and this king, then we’ll have to go on a bit of a journey together. There are some vocabulary and concepts that seem very foreign to us today. You’ll have to really hang in there with me. And as we go on this journey for understanding, I’m going to tell you about a journey I took last week.

Monday was my day off, and I went hiking with Jeff up by Alpental, on Snoqualmie Pass. We were heading for an area called Kendall Peak, near a connection to the Pacific Crest trail. When we hike, we like to get at least some decent elevation, a good workout and a nice view.

Neither of us knows much at all about hiking, but I had done a little research and the report on this place sounded pretty good, although theoretically there was still enough snow reported that would probably keep us from reaching the top…so we weren’t sure that it would give us exactly what we wanted. But we thought it might be good enough. [I’m going to leave you there at the bottom of the trail for a moment.]

The community that received this letter to the Hebrews, around 68 AD, was a group of people from a Jewish background that had come to believe in Jesus. But as we have made our way through this letter, it seems increasingly clear that at least some of the members of the community were sliding back towards what they believed and lived before they heard about Jesus.

• Perhaps they hadn’t totally understood Jesus’ gospel.
• Perhaps there was specific pressure for them to return to the synagogue.
• Perhaps it was just flat out hard to be a Christian, surrounded by people who were not.

Regardless of the reason, they were sliding back to where they had come from: to a culture of priests and sacrifices. Maybe it would be good enough.

Many of us have had times in our faith journey—maybe right now?—where we have drifted backwards. Back into old habits, back into old relationships or patterns that you know darn well aren’t what your heart really wants…but they are comfortable or feel easier. Sometimes this having-a-relationship-with-God stuff can be downright difficult.

Yesterday was a Men’s Breakfast here at Bethany. As we shared stories around tables, we heard several stories of men beginning to walk with Christ, but at some point(s) just sliding into the way life had been before. Often it wasn’t from a change of belief…it just seemed more like the path of least resistance. And it always left a longing.

From the time Adam and Eve hid in the garden, longing for intimacy with God, wanting to walk with Him in the cool of the day but being ashamed and in hiding…human beings have longed to know God, and be known by Him. And from the earliest pages of the biblical story, they have found intermediaries, go-betweens.

Moses led the people Israel out of slavery. The people repeatedly begged Moses to communicate with God on their behalf, even head up the mountain and talk with God because they were afraid. But Moses was actually not a priest. It was Moses’ brother Aaron who was actually appointed by God to be the priest. Aaron’s direct descendents would fulfill the office of high priest. And others of Aaron’s tribe, the Levites (Leviticus, Levitical law) would become the ordinary priests.

Among other duties, priests were involved with the rites of purification. A person who had certain physical ailments or received a disease was banished from the community, and called “unclean.” Or a person found in moral sin also became “unclean.”

A priest stood as mediator, giving instructions, teaching, or undertaking the rites of purification that could move a person from being unclean, back to clean. Through the rituals of sacrifice, a priest could help a person be restored to the life of the community, or back into right standing with God.

A priest, then, stood as a kind of bridge, standing on the border between earth and heaven and provided some access to a holy God. These rites involved the gifts and sacrifices which came to be centralized in the temple in Jerusalem. There, the rites could be administered by the Levitical priests, with the most sacred handled by the high priest.

Once each year, the high priest went into the most sacred place in the temple, the debir, the Holy of Holies, where God was actually present behind the curtain. He offered there sacrifices…for his own sins, knowing he himself was sinful. And also sacrifices for the sins of the people of Israel.

All of this background was well known to this wavering Christian community back in 68 AD. It was what they had grown up with. And as they slid back towards it, perhaps they began to think: “It’s probably good enough.”

Jeff and I hiked uphill for about three to four hours, switching back and forth. We teased each other that we were “fording dangerous rivers” (translation: streams about two feet across going down the mountain) and “braved avalanche shoots” (translation: walked across a few patches of snow).

As it approached one o’clock, we were now a long way up the mountain. When we looked back down to our left where we had come from, you could see how much progress we had made. It was pretty…though the view of Mt. Rainier was tempered by the simultaneous sight of I-90! Now as we walked, we hit fairly constant snow, and it would be heavy slogging from there on. It seemed that we had about as good a view as we were going to get on the left, and on the right we were walking parallel with a large wall of snow that extended about 8 to 10 feet up in the air.

Looking ahead, the trail just paralleled the snow wall as far as we could see, and walking was getting tougher. It looked like we’d come as far as we could. It would be a great spot to sit and have lunch and call it good enough.

The writer to the Hebrews gives the readers some reasons for their gnawing unease. The priests administering the law of sacrifices and gifts…could function only periodically. They dealt with the things that were external: physical, or behavioral. But the things that were most unsettling were internal. Motives, secrets, deception, rebellion…matters of the heart. And the relief offered through sacrifice was temporary.

But day after day, year after year, action by action the priests had to again try to stand between a person and God, creating a point of access. And, of course, the high priest would one day die, and be replaced by another high priest. And so they lined up, day after day and year after year, to see if they would experience that access to God, trying to get themselves cleaned up so that they might be close to God.

At this point in Hebrews, you run smack into the answer to all the trivia questions, Melchizedek. About all we know of him is what we read in Genesis earlier. Hebrews uses him as a signpost. Really Melchizedek’s only function is to point ahead and say to us, “There is something more!”

He hints just enough of a priesthood different than the Levitical and high priests of Israel…to be interesting. His priesthood was not based on having the right lineage (ancestor, etc.), since his family was unknown. Since his birth and death were unknown, he is a hazy figure beyond the limitations of time. His immense stature is shown by the fact that Abraham, the great patriarch Abraham, would bring an offering to him, something only done to one’s superior.

Melchizedek offers just enough to realize that there truly is something more. And what the writer of Hebrews is getting at is that the “something more” is Jesus. The Hebrews do not have to be content with settling for “good enough.” In Jesus, the one they had begun to follow, there is something “better.”

“Better” is a word used more often in Hebrews than in the rest of the New Testament combined. The writer is not saying the sacrificial system was bad…only that in Jesus is something far greater. Melchizedek is like a great stone statue that points ahead to Jesus, the “better hope through which they might approach God.” Jesus is the better hope, the guarantee of a better covenant; he will lead the way to a better country, a better resurrection, a better promise.

Jesus is the high priest not in the way of the very limited priests scurrying around the temple, but in a far better way, closer to the order of Melchizedek. Jesus is called to be a priest not because of lineage, but because of an appointment by God Almighty.

His priesthood is permanent, because he has defeated death and lives again. Jesus need not be diverted by his own sin as he ministers to others, because he was sinless, holy, blameless. He is our access to God because he is eternal, is in fact the God Himself who has stepped towards us.

Now obviously, today we do not go and offer sacrifices to try to get right before God. We might giggle at the idea of a priest who must stand between God and us. The fact is, however, that most of us try for most of our lives to function as our own priests, trying to make unclean into clean.

• Sometimes we do that by only dealing with the external parts of life…polishing things up to look pretty good on the outside…but aware that internally in our hearts and thought life, we are a long way from God.
• Sometimes we do that through good things like spiritual disciplines or ministry, trying to prove ourselves to God, to become good enough for God to love us…rather than letting ministry flow out of the grace we have been shown.
• Sometimes we just stay busy, and try to cover over that nagging place that longs to be filled with God.

The writer of Hebrews reminds us…that in this high priest, Jesus, God is available, accessible to us continuously. It is why Jesus came. We don’t have to wait until Sunday to confess. At any moment, we can walk with God, turn our hearts and cry out,

“Lord, I’m not the person I want to be.”

No need to wonder if forgiveness was really granted. We look at the cross. No need to have the nagging doubt. God longs for us to draw near, because he has himself given us access in Jesus Christ. Christ, Son of God, God-Man, stands in the two worlds, heaven and earth… life, death and after…on our behalf.

Jeff and I stood there, 5400 feet up in the air, looking at each other. Lunch? Good enough? The funny thing was, there were a couple of footprints that climbed up and over that high snow wall on the right. Was there anything there but snow? It would be hard to scamper up that wall…and harder getting back down. What do we do?

Maybe we had learned a little from our last hike. Using the footprints as a guide, I kicked into the wall and scrambled up. Finally I could get my arms and head up above the top of the wall. On the other side…was a miracle.

Because the sun was on that side of the mountain, all the snow was gone. And now we could see we were actually right on the ridge, and on that side it dropped off into a huge bowl-shaped valley, dropping thousands of feet. Other peaks were everywhere, you could see for miles…everything except…I-90.

I said, “Jeff, I think you’d better come up here.” We had lunch there, and sat for an hour, moved by the sheer beauty, and prayers that seemed to well up naturally and gratefully. This was better. Far better. And to think how close we had come to settling for “good enough.”

Hebrews says: Don’t be discouraged. Yes, following God can be difficult. No, God does not always act how we want and sometimes he seems to have disappeared just when we need him the most. But don’t be tempted to go back to where you were before.

A long time ago, some other followers of Jesus found themselves in a difficult time. Jesus was still with them, but his teaching was making it clear that following after God was not the guarantee of an easy life, or material prosperity or even a happy disposition. The rewards that came were from being in the direct presence of the living God, in this life and after.

Some of the group left Jesus, and went back to their old lives, saying, “This is too difficult.” Jesus looked at those remaining and asked, “What about you? Are you leaving as well?” And Peter, good old Peter said,

“Lord, where else would we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

He might have said:

“Lord, we have tasted you…and nothing else is good enough.”