Hebrews Week 2: Monk...

 Apologies for taking so long to get these notes on the web.  Teaching and writing what you taught are different.  It's like a sermon - sometimes it hits you and other times it takes a while.  The lesson took a while.

Did you expect monks as in monasteries.  Sure, they have written many wise things about Hebrews, but at this point I want to turn to another Monk, the obsessive-compulsive private detective played masterfully by Tony Shalhoub.  

For Monk, the detective, nothing could be out of place.  His foot would not touch a crack in the sidewalk.  Cleanliness was Godliness.  He saw the smallest details and would piece together the logic of a killer and a crime scene when everyone else (especially the police) were stumped.  

Now if Monk had a favorite book of the Bible, it would likely be the Epistle to the Hebrews.  The writer takes the smallest, seemingly most confusing details about sin and sacrifice and forgiveness and lines them up in a logical order.  I can just see Monk with his hand in the shape of an "L" looking at the text and thinking, I know this all makes sense when it comes to Jesus and how forgiveness and salvation work.

Since the beginning, the Israelites had always managed to separate themselves from God.  

Adam and Eve had the whole garden and yet obsessed about one tree.  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all doubted God at one point or another in their stories.  And of course, there was the famous Golden Calf the Israelites created just because Moses took a while on Mt. Sinai talking to God.  


So, the system of sacrifices evolved as a solution to the problem.  The short lesson is that from time to time you would go to the temple and offer your sacrifice for unintentional sins you had committed.  The priest would take your offering of a dove, lamb, grain, or whatever and offer it for your sins as a peace offering to God and you would be good for the time being.  However, first, the priest would have to offer a sacrifice for his own sins before offering yours.  If the priest was separated from God (which he was) due to his own sin, then it would be necessary for him to restore his relationship with God.

Then came the big day when the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies, the inner most chamber of first, the tabernacle, and later, the Temple, and offer a sacrifice for the whole of Israel.  In this one move, the relationship between God and God's people was established.  All was right in creation until the Israelites would get cocky and think they could run the show and the whole cycle would start again.  Think Golden Calf!

This cycle of sin and sacrifice continued throughout life.  Keep in mind this was intended for those unintentional sins you committed without thinking.  Intentional sins required sacrifice, restitution to those injured, and amendment of life (read Leviticus). But the primary problem was that a sacrifice of an animal or grain or whatever couldn't change you.  It just restored the relationship with God until it was broken again.  

Something had to change!

Heavenly Rest   

Nothing beats a good nap - on the couch - when it is raining out side - or not!  But that's not what the writer is talking about.  Too often we think that the 7th day of creation was so God could take a nap after working so hard on all of creation for the previous 6 days.  Not so!  Rather, in the case of Genesis and Hebrews, the word "REST" means it's all done - its complete!  Creation was complete and now forgiveness must be complete!  

The old system of sin and sacrifice never reached a point of rest - of completeness.  Hebrews encourages the readers to seek completeness in God and the only way that could happen was to restore the relationship in a new way.  Enter Jesus the Son of God, the Paschal Lamb, whose death was the atoning sacrifice and whose blood would be the sacrifice for eternity. 

Next we turn to Jesus in Hebrews and how the Resurrection changes us in a way no Old Testament sacrifice ever could!