Tag Archives: Hebrews 10

Let me walk with you a while..

Leave a reply

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.  Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God [He] will come with vengeance; with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”

(Isa 35.3&4)

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

(Gal 6.2)

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings.. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful and let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the day approaching.

(Heb 10.19-25)

Between local in person bible study, online church bible study, online prayer groups, in person prayer and facetime prayer I seem to have spent a fair bit of the last five days alongside other believers in this work of encouragement – mostly on the receiving end of it, which is wonderful. As we read God’s word in community, we grow in wisdom and understanding; as we listen to one another’s stories and pray together, we grow in love and trust.

I fully believe that one of the principal ways in which God works to sustain us in the trials to which he calls us, is through one another. We are called to be his voice, his heart, his hands and feet to touch and aid one another. We are made in his image, and as believers, we are made new, set free by his overwhelming love for us to show that love to others. We are blest both in receiving and in giving, as God wonderfully binds his children closer to one another in affection and trust.

It takes humility to admit that life is hard, to accept that we cannot do it alone. But we are not meant to! God designed us in his image, and he lives in eternal community as Three-in-One, a relationship of delighting and harmony. We are made to be known, and once we realise that in Christ we are completely accepted as we are, we can open up to others, to love them and be loved by them. The gifts of God are to each one individually, for the blessing of the whole body of Christ – you have things which I need, and I may have things which can bless you. We need to be willing to both give and receive.

The passage in Isaiah is associated with a band of pilgrims, on their way home at last and with a vision of the glory awaiting to sustain and encourage them. But they are weary with the journey, wounded from struggles and long-carried burdens. And so the prophet’s words exhort them to encourage one another, saying, “Look!! The Lord Almighty is on your side, he is your Father and Champion, and is entirely for you.” If we walk alone, who can encourage us?

Are you willing to walk with someone a while? To be a fellow pilgrim, not a lone pioneer?

Let us not neglect opportunities to meet together, in small or large groups, so that we might encourage our fellow pilgrims by listening to their stories, sharing their joys and sorrows, bearing their burdens – walking in their shoes for a little way if we can. As we make ourselves available to be used by God in his church, we ourselves are encouraged and bound more closely to people who will in turn support and watch out for us lest we stray, who will pick us up when we fall, and bear our burdens when we have no strength or words to intercede for ourselves.

May God grant us increasing love, patience and gentleness as we walk together on the road, that we might be good for one another; keeping our eyes fixed on him and trusting that he will keep his promise and bring us safely home.

Gathering clouds…

Leave a reply

The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!..”

(John 1.29)

Moses said to them, “Go..and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood…and put some on the door-frame…When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the door -frame and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

(Exodus 12.21-23)

Jesus took the twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be turned over to the Gentiles. They will  mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.” The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.

(Luke 18.31-34)

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves. ..those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins….But when this priest [Jesus] had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God..because by one sacrifice he has made perfect for ever those  who are being made holy.

(Hebrews 10.1, 3, 12&14)

As a boy growing up in a Jewish family, Jesus would have celebrated the Passover many times before the night in Jerusalem when he shared that final meal with his disciples. Do you ever wonder at what stage he began to discern that it was to be his privilege and pain to become the ultimate Passover lamb, The One who would die once and for all, so that God’s wrath against sin might be turned away from all who accepted the offered sacrifice?

The only scriptures he had were those of what we call our Old Testament, and that in itself should encourage us as 21st century believers to take those books seriously. In them, Jesus found mapped out the path which he was to take – as he reminds his disciples when he says that he is going to Jerusalem so that all that the prophets had written about him should be fulfilled. In the book of Genesis, he found the first promise of the coming saviour, and the assurance even then that suffering would be involved. In the story of Abraham and the covenant promises, he found that God’s blessing was intended for all the peoples of the earth. In the miraculous Exodus narrative, he found the decisive image of a sacrifice to avert destruction, and later a whole structure of temple worship which demonstrated that the wrath of a holy God against sin could not simply be set aside; that there was a price which must be paid; and it was a blood price.

I grew up in churches where the Old and New Testaments were held together, taught together, and I am so thankful for that heritage, which means that the oldest stories are full of symbolism, fore-shadowing what was to come, and that all through the wandering, rebellion, exile and restoration, the fine line of God’s faithful promise can be discerned.

As Jesus approached Jerusalem for this last time, after all these years of celebrating Passover in peace, he knew that his time was come, that there would never again be any need for sacrifice of lambs or any other beast in the temple, after his body had been broken and his blood poured out. These days were the culmination of centuries of God at work in his people, they were the centrepoint of time and the object of all His Father’s loving plan.  If the angels and heavenly beings had been “on the edge of their seats” at his birth, how much more were the host now intent upon the drama of the coming days? What weight of expectation lay upon those human shoulders, and coloured all the thought and actions of the son of Mary?

As we approach the season of Easter, and remember particularly – and fittingly – all the events of that last week of Jesus’ earthly life, I am humbled and drawn once again to worship this God-made-man, in his incredible love for humankind, and his complete submission to his Father’s will.

Worthy, worthy is the Lamb, all praise and glory to the One who walked unwaveringly into death, that we might live!