The Epistle to the Hebrews Week 1: The Color Purple

Describe purple!

You almost have to begin with something we already know such as "Purple is like..." or  "Purple looks like..."  Even that will certainly not be enough.  RED and BLUE make PURPLE, but how much of each one.  There are hundreds of different shades and hues between red and blue on the color wheel and if you had a bit of yellow, the variations increase exponentially.  And what's the difference between purple and violet?

But in my mind's eye, there is a color I call "purple" most often and if you ask me to describe it, I will give you an answer from my experience of purple.  It will take me a while and even when finished there will likely be more to say.  My experience of purple will be somewhat different from yours.  Together we may change our personal and individual understandings of purple.  Yet, with each shade of purple, it just won't be quite perfect.  So we have to keep imagining and sharing and re-describing the color of purple.

This is how The Epistle to the Hebrews works.  In between Philemon and James is a book that is not really an Epistle and almost didn't make it into the Bible.  Many think it is found in the Old Testament. I don't remember studying Hebrews in any great detail in seminary and our preaching professor once suggested you just can't preach a good sermon on Hebrews.  After 60 years as a Christian and over 25 years as a priest, I decided it was time to tackle the subject.

I will be teaching this class at St. Matthias.  I expect it will take 4 weeks, but it could be more depending on how many times I go off on my usual tangents.  Any original thought will be totally accidental and I am using William Barclay's commentary from The New Daily Study Bible and the Hebrews volume of the Interpretation Commentary.(1)

We don't know who wrote Hebrews.  Tradition has it that the Apostle Paul was initially given credit just so Hebrews would make it into the Bible in the first place.  Some have suggested Luke might have been the author.  Others have proposed a disciple of Paul.  The Christian theologian and Greek scholar, Origen of Alexandria, probably got it right when he wrote in the 3rd Century, "...but who wrote the epistle, in truth, God alone knows."(2)  

It also is not an Epistle.  While Paul's letters are clearly intended for the Christians in a particular city or a particular person, Hebrews begins, "Long ago, God spoke..."  The author describes his writing as a "word of exhortation" and the style has all the characteristics of a homily preached in the early Christian Churches.  It is "rabbinical in design, Christian in context, and heroic in length."(3)  If we all knew Biblical Greek, we would be really impressed by the author's flawless command of the language.  He is well-educated in Christian thought, the Jewish tradition and Hellenistic philosophy.

Now the first thing we need to understand and highlight in big bold letters when it comes to the book of Hebrews, is the word Relationship!  We are called into the presence of God as God's people and the only way for us to come into the Divine presence is through Jesus Christ.  The writer of Hebrews carefully builds his case around Jesus as the High Priest in the Order of Melchizedek (which we will get to in the 2nd week).  First, however, it is important for us to take a quick review of Greek philosophy and the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament.

Now, this is going to be really basic Platonic thought, but you don't want me to drone on for pages when just a quick paragraph will do.  The Greeks loved Plato!  Plato 101 (even remedial Plato) teaches us that this world is an imperfect copy of an ideal perfect world (think Heaven).  All we see and know here on earth is a shadow of what the world is really supposed to be like.  We could get into a long discussion about Plato's theory of forms and how somewhere in the perfect world we come to understand "chairness" but that would take too long so instead look up Plato in Wikipedia.  But, as you might imagine, this is important because Jesus comes as perfect humanity and therefore can come into the presence of God and lead us there as well even though we are imperfect.

Which leads us to the Levitical priesthood.  Remember the 12 Tribes of Israel?  Well, one of those tribes came from Levi who was Jacob and Leah's third son (go back and read Genesis again for the whole story).  Fast forward 2 generations and Levi has 2 grandson's - Moses and Aaron.  Moses (aka Charlton Heston) leads the Israelites out Egypt along with his brother Aaron who is Moses' right-hand man and chief spokesman.  Now when the Israelites are in the wilderness, God appoints Aaron the first High Priest and declares that all priests and High Priests will come from Aaron and his descendants.  If you were from any other tribe, you could not be a priest which causes certain problems addressed by the book of Hebrews because Jesus comes from the Tribe of Judah!

The job of these priests and the High Priests was to offer sacrifices for the people.  This was all part of the relationship with God.  Now there are several things to make clear about sacrifices in the Old Testament:

1. Not all sacrifices were made because someone sinned.  Some sacrifices were to give thanks.  Some were required if you were unclean (which is not the same as sinning), and some sacrifices were required on this or that high holy day.
2. Just part of the animal was sacrificed.  In fact most of the time only a small part was burned.  The rest was given to the priests for food and you might have eaten some too if it was a large animal like a cow or a sheep.
3. Sacrifices had to be made over and over again.
4. It wasn't just animals.  Sacrifices could also consist of grain, meal, wine, or incense.

Now, this is likely about as far as I will make it on Sunday, so this is a good place to stop.  Next week, we will begin with Melchizedek.



1.  William Barclay, The New Daily Study Bible: The Letter to the Hebrews (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2002) and Thomas G. Long, Interpretation: Hebrews (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 1997).

2.  A. Louth ed. & G. A. Williamson trans. [Origen quoted in] Eusebius, The History of the Church (London: Penguin, 1989), 202 

3.  Long, 2