It is a marvelous feeling when you are able to complete a project and know that it is finished, once and for all. I feel this way on Sunday mornings after I have delivered (for better or for worse) a sermon that I won’t ever have to look at again. After hours and hours of research, study, writing, rehearsing, and refining, I am ready to be well and truly done with it. I also look forward to that moment when I am able to hit “send” and submit a manuscript to my United Methodist Publishing house editor, knowing that it is finally off my assignment desk once and for all. The relief that comes when you know a task has been completed satisfactorily and won’t have to be attempted again is one of the best feelings in the world. Do you feel this way when you reach the end of a work project? I think we all do, which explains why everyone hates doing the laundry. There absolutely is no “once and for all” when it comes to doing the laundry.

Our lectionary passage today teaches us about the best once and for all we will ever experience when we give our lives to Christ. He is the ultimate once and for all. With him, we need never go back to a wandering, wondering, sinful life, but instead are able to put ourselves under his authority and live according to his will.

The writer of Hebrews is anonymous. Scholars used to think that Paul wrote it but didn’t put his name on it, but other theories have arisen, including an interesting one that suggests that Pricilla (along with Aquila) wrote it and hid her identity because it would have been controversial to have a female writer at the time. (I’m glad we’re over that, once and for all!) In any case, the writer focuses on God and God’s imminently superior perfect sacrifice as it was embodied in Jesus Christ:

Hebrews 10 (Common English Bible)

⁴ because it’s impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

⁵ Therefore, when he comes into the world he says,

You didn’t want a sacrifice or an offering,
    but you prepared a body for me;
⁶ you weren’t pleased with entirely burned offerings or a sin offering.
⁷     So then I said,
    “Look, I’ve come to do your will, God.
    This has been written about me in the scroll.”

You may recognize these words from our recent devotional about Psalm 40. Jesus is quoting that psalm as proof of his messiahship, which had been written about by the prophets. In his action on the cross, the old covenant was forever replaced with the new covenant of Jesus’ once and for all sacrifice.

⁸ He says above, You didn’t want and you weren’t pleased with a sacrifice or an offering or with entirely burned offerings or a purification offering, which are offered because the Law requires them. ⁹ Then he said, Look, I’ve come to do your will. He puts an end to the first to establish the second. ¹⁰ We have been made holy by God’s will through the offering of Jesus Christ’s body once for all.

Two things to mention about verses 8-10, which also give us our call to action today. First, Jesus sole and primary mission was to do God’s will. Second, all are made holy by God’s will through Jesus.

What is God’s will for you today? May you be made holy by following his will through Jesus.

A Pure Offering by Michelle Robertson