The book of Hebrews has been our topic for some weeks now. It is not an easy book to understand. It is not an easy book to preach, because there is so much Old Testament groundwork that must be laid before we can understand it. And then even if we do understand it…we don’t always want to hear what it has to say.

We might call Hebrews “the book of contrasts.” As I read this morning, I want you to hear the words of contrast in our short passage: but, not, how much more, etc.

Hebrews 9:11-15

Long ago, when Anne and I were first married, we bought our first home over on the west side of Queen Anne. It was a cute little house, and one of the nice features was the new, plush, wall to wall carpet. It looked great. The seller moved out, and we proudly took possession. Before we moved anything, we walked in…and found that we had to immediately begin a rather technical testing procedure we called “the sniff test.” You see, the seller had cats. Undisciplined cats.

We thought maybe we could just steam clean the carpets…but soon, had to take up some of that beautiful carpet from the living room. And then the dining room. Soon the carpet from every room was lying in the front yard. But it still wasn’t over. The liquid damage from the cats had gone right through the rugs to the old wood floor. The floors had to be sanded down and refinished.

What looked good on the outside was just façade. We could have dealt with it on a surface level; it would have helped a little. But ultimately, things far deeper had to be dealt with.

The writer of Hebrews has spent chapters giving us the contrast between two poles. On one side is:

• the old (first) covenant,
• Old Testament law written on stone tablets,
• temple,
• endlessly repeating sacrifices,
• priests and high priests,
• the symbolic, the ceremonial, the time-bound and the temporary.

On the other side is:

• a new covenant, written internally on hearts and minds,
• Jesus Christ as the great high priest,
• the real, the effective,
• one sacrifice for all time and all people,
• the ultimate, the eternal.

On the one side is the old. On the other side, in Christ, is the new. And at every turn, the writer tells us: the new is better, it is more effective, it has superceded the old, it is incomparably more valuable. Everything, everything is different in Jesus.

The last two weeks we’ve talked about covenants and priests. This morning’s passage talks about sacrifices. It again compares the old with the new. And so the writer explains a few of the things of the sacrificial system:

• the blood of goats and calves,
• the temple or tabernacle made with human hands,
• the sprinkling of ashes and the purification of flesh.

The images are the those of the sacrifices at the temple. These were elaborate rituals that required careful procedures that represented several things:

• offerings to God that were good and unblemished to represent the people giving all of themselves to God.
• sacrifices of the life of an animal to represent a request that God rescue his admittedly wicked and sinful people and spare their lives by receiving the life of the animal.
• washing rites designed to bring those physically “unclean” back into fellowship with others and symbolically with God by making them “clean.”

Perhaps a way of summing them up the old system of sacrifices is that they were practiced in an attempt to gain a fresh start with God. And, as far as they went, they had some effect symbolically, or in bringing external things back into line.

But what about the internal? We have to go deeper. What about the heart? What about the conscience? Why did people still carry around guilt, and longing and despair within them? Why do we?

It’s the same question that Jesus pushed people to answer. It’s not about what goes into a person that makes them unclean, Jesus said…it’s what comes out of the heart. In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he essentially goes right down the list of the Ten Commandments and says,

“it’s not just about how things look on the outside… but what goes on on the inside.”

And so Jesus says,

“Yes, the Ten Commandments say don’t murder. But you can also murder someone in your heart or with your tongue. The commandment says don’t commit adultery. But adultery with someone in your imagination is no better.”

It’s why one professor of mine used to say to each class, “I tell you what, I’ll make you a deal: I’ll live up to the Ten Commandments, you take the Sermon on the Mount.” He, of course, had the much easier deal.

And so the businessman goes on a trip, checks into the hotel and despite not wanting to, is tempted into spending half the night channel-surfing the sexually explicit television stations. Wakes up the next morning feeling dirty. I know what that feels like. What to do? Just resolving to do better next time doesn’t eliminate the heaviness that weighs on you.

A teacher at a school gets put in an awkward position…finds herself talking after the staff meeting with a couple of colleagues who are lambasting one of her friends, and joins in the fun. As she walks away, she feels vaguely guilty on the inside.

You see, the writer of Hebrews was actually quite realistic about human beings. If he sees one thing clearly, it is that God takes human reality so very seriously. Things are so often not what they seem with us on the outside. God needs to deal with us at the deepest level.

I had a discouraging week. For a while I thought it was the state of things in the world. Each day it seems there is more discouraging evidence about the U.S. in Iraq. This week the Senate actually has to vote on writing an amendment to the Constitution to define marriage. The civil war in Sudan. Lots more. But I realized I needed to go deeper.

Then I thought I was discouraged because of my work as a pastor. So many painful things going on in peoples’ lives…several families losing loved ones, bitterness in a marriage, anger in a relationship. Lots more. But it went still deeper.

I’m disappointed with myself this week. My times with God were rushed and shallow. I missed some opportunities of the moment, including some with my kids…because I was busy thinking of the next thing I was doing. I shorted my family on time. Exactly the person I don’t want to be. On the inside, my conscience, my heart…I know it. It’s heavy.

What do you find when you start peeling back the layers? Or do you ever take the time to do it? If you are like me…there’s a heaviness that settles on you. And without even knowing it we can just add to it.

In my old basketball training days, we used to have “weight vests.” Literally, you’d strap on a vest that had 15 pounds or so of weight in it and work out, on the theory that you’d get stronger and feel lighter and quicker. I’m sure an athletic trainer today would probably cringe. (All it did for me was decrease my jumping ability from 10 inches to 5!)

Imagine you are walking around with that weight vest, incapable of unzipping it and removing it. Or unsure of exactly what you’re carrying around as weight, internal weight…sometimes we call that guilt. Hebrews calls it “dead works,” things that pollute on the inside.

Where do we turn? Today’s positive thinking or fatalistic acceptance can’t change what goes on inside us. The sacrifices of the first century temple, this writer to the Hebrews says, can only try. They can be a pale pointer. They can deal with external regulations. But, the writer says…how much more the blood of Christ…will purify our conscience from dead works…to worship the living God.

When Jesus gave his life on our behalf, it was totally different. Pure, willing, permanent, one time for all time. Jesus took on himself and was crushed by…our sin. But for a reason, a purpose. Our forgiveness. To purify our consciences, in this writer’s words.

This is a place we need each other desperately. Because most the time, we don’t receive God’s forgiveness by ourselves. Oh, it is readily available. But so often we need to hear someone’s voice say,

“You are forgiven, in Jesus’ name.”

My phone rang one night, and a longtime friend was distraught. He had made a bad decision that went against everything he felt God was teaching him. He didn’t know what to do, or even exactly why he was calling me. So we talked for awhile, and I said, “Have you turned towards God with this?” He said yes. And I said, “I know that in Christ’s name you are forgiven.”

Each time that happens to me, whether on the receiving end or the giving, my voice trembles a little. It is sacred ground we stand on. And, if the Protestant Reformation was about anything at all, it was about this thing called the “priesthood of all believers.” We are ministers of the gospel, one to another. But, perhaps you would say, “Dan, how can you sound so sure? How can you assure someone that God’s forgiveness is there?” And I say, with Hebrews, it is the blood of Christ that purifies us.

God held nothing back in providing for our forgiveness. That empty cross is just a reminder to us of that fact. The cross says God has forgiven us. It is already there. Dorothy Sayres says,

“God does not require our confession (repentance) to GIVE forgiveness…but WE need to confess (repent) to RECEIVE it!”

It is ready for us, but through our confession we get to enjoy it. And in it we are brought closer to the person God made us to be in the first place.

With the forgiveness of Christ, something happens inside of us. Truly happens. Our conscience is purified from dead works, it says. Dead works are the things, the practices and attitudes that belong to the way of death, that lodge between ourselves and God, that pollute on the inside. As long as we allow them to remain…we are choosing death. We may look good on the outside, but a layer or two down it looks bleak.

Will we turn towards the grace already held out to us? Choose this day, life…or death, Moses said in the Exodus passage.

I think my favorite book of C.S. Lewis’ is The Great Divorce. It follows the story of a bunch of ghost-like people who get on a bus and leave the gray city they live in—which, though they don’t realize it is actually hell—and journey to the base of a mountain. There each of them encounters a different journey towards the top of the mountain.

One of these ghosts has a lizard firmly attached to his shoulder, its claws sunk in deeply. It treats him terribly, and harps at him to get them back “home”…which is hell. There is an angel who stands waiting to kill the lizard, but won’t do it without the man agreeing. It is a huge dilemma, because he has grown so used to it…but eternity depends on his choice. Finally, he realizes he cannot really live with this destructive appendage…and in a leap of faith tells the angel to get rid of it. In a blinding flash, the lizard becomes a white horse, and whisks him up to the mountain top. In the middle of this, Lewis writes,

in the end there are really only two kinds of people — those who say to God “Thy will be done,” …and those to whom God finally says “THY will be done.”

Choose this day…life or death. In Jesus, the Great High Priest, the New Covenant, the forgiveness and grace of God is held out, to rid us of the guilt of dead works, layers down…and free us to worship the living God.

And so we can come to worship…not to have our needs met, not to analyze the service, but to worship—literally, to bow down— before the living God. And not just on Sunday morning in this room, but throughout our lives, as we go about our work, or go to Indonesia or go next door, we are free to worship God.

Choose this day, death…or life. And whether for you that looks like the mountain top, or taking off the weight vest, or as with me yesterday…a rush of cleansing tears, your forgiveness in Jesus Christ is held out to you. Choose this day.

Amen.