Monday, August 27, 2007

Hebrews 8:6-13

Remember the 8-track tape?
These monsters were going the way of the CD while I was young. They've long since been replaced by cassette tapes, which were ousted by CDs, which now seem to be giving way to iMusic.
Ah, progress. Smells like a brand new car.

But seriously, music fans. Why did the 8-track have to go?
If you've ever listened to an old 8-track, you know the answer to this question. If you've ever seen an old 8-track, you probably have a pretty good idea. They were huge, sounded so-so, and did not age well. Listening to an old 8-track tape is a lot like listening to an electric chainsaw band.
As opposed to digital music, which is uber-transferrable (much to the music companies' chagrin), high-fidelity (unless you're seriously into vinyl), and practically free to produce. We get a song over the internet from the comfort of our couch without having to browse those silly music stands at the store. We store the song on our hard drives, dump it onto a flash drive, or put it on our MP3 players. The song doesn't get old or grainy, it doesn't skip beats, and the MP3 player never eats our tapes...
In short, digital music is way, like, totally better. Who'd want to go back to 8-tracks? I mean, honestly!

That's the new covenant. The first covenant was broke. It didn't work. It showed people that they were bad, sure, but it didn't make them perfect. People tried to follow the old law, but they couldn't.
So enter Jesus, the Son of God, to initiate a new covenant, a new promise. And the new promise (which had been promised to the prophets, by the way) was better than the old one.

This is one of my favorite verses. "No longer will a man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying: 'Know the Lord!', for they will all know Me, from the least to the greatest of them," says the Lord. Isn't that awesome?

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Hebrews 8:1-5

What is a shadow?
If you were to look only at my shadow, you'd have no idea what I looked like. My shadow is not a representation of me, it's only an effect made because light can't pass through me. It doesn't show the color of my hair. It doesn't show whether I'm skinny or overweight. It doesn't even truly show how tall I am.
The author doesn't say the law is a reflection of the things in heaven--a reflection is inaccurate and sometimes imprecise, but it at least gives you a good idea of what the original thing is. But a shadow? You can tell the relative outline of an object from its shadow, and that's all.

Think about a new moon. When the moon is full, you can see the entire moon. As it wanes, we see the shadow of the earth on the moon. The shadow has the curve of the earth, so we know the earth is curved. The shadow covers the entire moon, so we know that the earth is close to the moon. But from the shadow of the earth, that's about all we can tell.
That's the way the old law was. We can tell a few things about heaven from the law, but not much. Looking at the law and imagining heaven is like looking at the crescent moon and imagining the earth: it's not very effective.

Now contrasted to this simple light-trick that is the law is the "radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being", which the author calls Jesus in 1:3. It's this perfect image that establishes the new law, as opposed to the weak shadow of the old. The difference between the new law and the old law is the difference between a 10 megapixel photograph of God's will and a cave painting.

Now that's what we're called to serve: the real thing. That's what the author of Hebrews is saying: we're not called to take part in a shadow play any more--we're called to be a part of the kingdom of God, plain and simple, and we've got the one-and-only Son of God leading us in this new kingdom.
Isn't it amazing? Praise God!

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Hebrews 7:23-28

Because we believe in Jesus, we can see that He is better than the priests of the old law: Jesus is eternal, and Jesus is perfect. He will always be there to go to God for us, and He his intercessions will never be tainted by His own sins, because He is without sin.
What arguments do you make about priests? What kinds of things do we say about preachers and pastors today? We see them shouting at a waiter in a restaurant and we say to each other, "Uh-huh. Look at Pastor So-and-so. He's hellfire and brimstone, all right..." Or we see them going into an R-rated movie theatre and we say, "Look at Preacher So-and-so! He likes the same kinds of movies we like! What makes him so tight with God?"
I'm not saying all waiters are saintly or all R-rated movies are bad, but you know the kind of situation I'm referring to because you've seen them yourself. We see our preachers and our spiritual leaders doing bad things and we say to ourselves, "What makes him so much more spiritual than me?"
That's not Jesus. In order to find something bad to say about Jesus, the priests had to make something up -- and they couldn't even do that right! They had a crowd full of witnesses and no one could agree on a single bad thing to say about the Son of Man. Now that's impressive!

I get disillusioned sometimes. Does it ever happen to you? I feel like the world should be one way, like people should be one way, and when it really isn't and they really aren't, sometimes I get disappointed. And what's the worst is when it's someone you look up to and truly respect.

Jesus is not going to let you or me down, brothers and sisters. Jesus is going to be there for us, and He's never going to not be there for us. He's never going to fall down. No one is ever going to take Him down a notch. He will never fail nor disappoint.
That's what it means when it says Jesus is eternal, and Jesus is perfect.

He's our king. And He's the One that pleads our case with God when we sin against Him.
We can take comfort in that.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Hebrews 7:11-22

A logical argument, this--I like it: If the old system (like MS-DOS?) was so good, why did it change?
And did it change, you ask? Of course, yes; observe: the old priesthood came from ancestry of the line of Levi. But this new priest is not a Levite; he's from Judah. And if He is from Judah, then He can't be a priest under the old system. (Ironic, isn't it, that Jesus the Christ was not qualified for priesthood under the law of God passed down through Moses? But that's what the author of Hebrews is saying!) But He is a priest, as it's prophesied: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek."
Now you and me are thinking, huh what? How do we know this is talking about Jesus anyway? It's from Psalms!
Aha, but take a look at the distinctive quote in its own context, in Psalm 110. David says in verses 1-3,
"The LORD says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.' The LORD will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies. Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn you will receive the dew of your youth."
He's clearly talking about the king, isn't he? And yet, verse 4 throws in a surprise: "The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind: 'You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.' "
So what's this? Saul was a Benjamite and David from the tribe of Judah. Neither Benjamite nor Judean was authorized to become priests--and so, when God declares here He'll suddenly decide to make the king a priest, as well...
Well, what else can it mean? The priesthood is going to change!
I just wonder if that's part of the reason the high priests really wanted Jesus dead. The gospel says that the high priest had a vision that one man should die for the sake of many, but I just wonder if this passage wasn't in the back of his mind: God's going to make the king priest, instead of the Levites. Where would that put the priests of the day, anyway? Some of them loved the power they had over the people, and I'm sure they didn't want to give that up. So when Jesus came out and started preaching with authority, saying to people "You've heard this about the Law of God [from the priests and the teachers of the law!], but I'm telling you it means something different!" Other rabbis argued and bickered and quoted other rabbis and scriptures, but Jesus was giving what seemed to be His own interpretation of the Law. What's worse, it was the right interpretation--Jesus spelled it out so clearly that even a fisherman could understand it!
Is it little wonder, then, that men who loved power moved to protect their power?
Anyway. God declared about this king, "I am declaring you priest!"
This was new. And yet, if Jesus was the King--and everyone thought He was; they'd been willing to crown Him during His ministry. Look at what they called Him in the triumphal entry: "Son of David". Son of the Great King! In our language, that means prince. For them, it meant king.
And it was this king of whom David spoke--who else could it be? No other king had been a priest. When Saul tried, God forsook him; and yet, it's God that appoints Jesus as king and priest.

And, this having been said, we come back to the point of the matter: If there's a new priesthood, there must be a new law. If only Levites could be priest under the old law, and if Jesus is not of Levi, and if Jesus is a priest, then the old law must have been replaced.
And why? Because it was weak and useless, and because there's now something better.

Jesus is something better. He was coronated by God, lauded by angels, worshipped by men, murdered by men, raised by God, and now lives to intercede with God on our behalf, waiting at His Father's right hand for God to crush all enemies under His feet, just as He promised.

And what of us that worship Him and that strive to follow Him? Are we waiting for God, too? Have we forgotten what we're waiting for?
It's so easy to forget. Someone gets ahead of me in traffic, and I'm not waiting patiently on God--I'm busy cursing my brother. I see a beggar on the street, and I'm not waiting on God--I'm too busy crossing over on the other side of the road. Someone says something that hurts me, and I'm not waiting on God--I'm too busy lashing out and trying to hurt him back.
But we mustn't. Jesus died for us. Don't we want to live for Him? Don't we want to serve Him? And if I do want to serve, how then shall I serve? How, in my life, will I be faithful?
How will you?

Monday, August 20, 2007

Hebrews 7:1-10

Remember when Abraham met the mysterious priest Melchizedek? It's only the one time in Genesis 14, and then he's alluded to in Psalm 110. Remember the circumstances?
This bible story plays out like a Steven Seagal action flick. The king of Sodom and four other kings had been ruled by Kederlaomer of Elam for twelve years, and then they rebelled. So now king K is coming back to knock them down a peg and take away their cities. King K, along with three allies, goes up against the five kings in a valley filled with tar pits. Kederlaomer, of course, wins the fight, and men of Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboyim and Bela run away, falling into the inky tar and never being seen nor heard from again.
Sounds just like Hollywood, yes?
So enter Abram, the humble Hebrew. He finds out that his nephew Lot, who chose to live on the fertile plains of Sodom, has been kidnapped by these conquerors. Abram saddles up his camel and brings along 318 of his best men to go up against the bad guys and save his nephew.
Now don't think that Kederlaomer was any kind of pushover; after all, he had just come back from soundly whipping the rebels and carrying off their women and possessions. (Well, think about it. If you beat a guy and carry off his stuff, he'll have sons and they'll come and beat up you and your sons when you get old. If you beat a guy and take away his stuff and his women, he won't be able to have sons to come after you later. And you get more women for the men in your town or tribe to have sons with. It seemed like a win-win situation at the time.) Kederlaomer is a tough cookie, and Abram is going up against this cat with his own men and no allies. And is Abram scared of ticking off this Canaanite king? No way. He's in hot pursuit.
Can't you just see Seagal standing there with his shepherd's staff? "Now, you don't wanna make me mad."
End of story? Abram plans an ambush and has the bad guys running away with their tails between their legs in time for Oprah.

Okay, now. So to-be-Father Abraham is coming off a big win, and then he comes to Melchizedek, the "priest of God Most High". And what does Abram do? Abram gives the first part of the spoils to God, no questions asked.
This is a very cool thing.

Think about it. Have you ever worked really hard for something, maybe for a long time, put everything you had into this and maybe even took on some big personal risk to get it? That's Abram all the way. Abram just put up his own men, the men in his house, the men he ate dinner with; he put their lives and his on the line to win this battle. He fought smart--this was no Gideon, where the bad guys were stabbing each other in fear. Abram used solid tactics and hard training and a lot of gumption to win this fight.
We would say that Abram deserved that win.
And yet, his response is to give the first part to God, though His priest Melchizedek.
What he does after is even better, but I'll leave that for you to read. Let's leave it with this:

Abram paid honor to God through Melchizedek the priest. Whoever Melchizedek was, the author of Hebrews says, that's what Jesus is like: He's God's first, best priest. Better than Aaron. Better than Levi. Jesus is the One that goes to bat with God for us.
When we win the major victories in our lives, we have a Melchizedek in Jesus. Do I pay honor to Jesus, like Abram did to Melchizedek? Or do I decide to keep the spoils for myself? Do I remember to thank God for the things I earn with my own sweat? Or do I feel like these things belong to me, that God doesn't deserve credit for them?
Ah, but friends. It never belittles us and our efforts to give glory to God, because God gives us the greater glory. Sometimes we have to wait for it, but we have a reward waiting, if we stay true to Him.
Let us give God the first part of our triumphs, me and you, and see how He also takes part in our sorrows! Let us trust God with our lives, broken and torn as they may be, and see how He gives them back to us, shining and new!
Let us give glory to God!