Hebrews 10

This is Christmas

Posted on by Betsy

Let’s talk about Christmas movies. Which one is your favorite? I love a lot of the old ones, and every year I especially enjoy Miracle on 34th Street (only the original!), It’s a Wonderful Life, and Christmas in Connecticut, if only for the marvelous outfits worn by Barbara Stanwick. Every once in a while a new movie will be added to my list, and this year I was pleased to add This is Christmas. I knew it would be good when my oldest daughter texted her dad and me emphatically recommending that we watch it. You can find it on Amazon Prime.

This is Christmas tells the tale of London train commuters who sit in the same railcar every day as they go to work. I read a review that argued that this is impossible. That lady has never been to church. You know you all sit in the same pew on the same side every Sunday! People are creatures of habit. But this is a necessary plot device. A young commuter named Adam realizes that he sees the same faces every day but knows nothing about his fellow travelers. He especially wants to know about a traveler named Emma. So one day he boldly stands up and addresses everyone in the car, inviting them to a Christmas party he was going to put together.

The story enfolds from there as we see people making real connections with each other and form a true community. The party takes shape as each one offers to contribute their unique gift to the event. Paul would have been pleased. They become a true Romans 12 community:

Romans 12 (Common English Bible)

3 Because of the grace that God gave me, I can say to each one of you: don’t think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. Instead, be reasonable since God has measured out a portion of faith to each one of you. 4 We have many parts in one body, but the parts don’t all have the same function. 5 In the same way, though there are many of us, we are one body in Christ, and individually we belong to each other. 6 We have different gifts that are consistent with God’s grace that has been given to us. If your gift is prophecy, you should prophesy in proportion to your faith. 7 If your gift is service, devote yourself to serving. If your gift is teaching, devote yourself to teaching. 8 If your gift is encouragement, devote yourself to encouraging. The one giving should do it with no strings attached. The leader should lead with passion. The one showing mercy should be cheerful.

They become a “found family” for each other and actually get to know one other. Ask yourself this: How well do you know your neighbors? Your co-workers? The people who wait on you every day in the store, coffee house, or restaurant? I have been guilty of knowing every dog’s name on my street but not every dog parent. We can do better!

This ‘journey on a train’ story becomes a journey into what makes us truly human. Forgiveness, solidarity, understanding, and redemption play a big role in the movie, just as in life. Obstacles and hardships, old hurts and new pain are all overcome by the compassion and warmth of people who now identify as a group that belongs to each other. The writer of Hebrews captures this idea of interdependent community best, offering this suggestion:

Hebrews 10 (Common English Bible)

24 And let us consider each other carefully for the purpose of sparking love and good deeds. 25 Don’t stop meeting together with other believers, which some people have gotten into the habit of doing. Instead, encourage each other, especially as you see the day drawing near.

Let us make that our rallying cry today. Consider others carefully. Spark love. Spark good deeds. Meet with friends and neighbors and get to know them. Encourage others.

After all, this is Christmas.

Community Fountain

Once and for All

Posted on by Betsy

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

Fall to the Ground

Posted on by Betsy

Our last devotional dealt with the call of Samuel and how he mistook God’s voice for his mentor Eli. As you recall, he eventually recognized that it was God speaking, and responded in obedience and faith by saying, “Speak, Lord. I am listening.” We are challenged to do the same thing in our lives … to finely tune our ears for the voice and command of the Lord.

What Samuel heard probably came a bit of a shock to the young boy. Even God acknowledged that it would make people’s ears “tingle.” The proclamation was devastating.

1 Samuel 3 (New Revised Standard Version)

11 Then the Lord said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. 12 On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. 13 For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. 14 Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.”

Hophni and Phinehas were terrible sons, and Eli was a terrible father/high priest in that he neither restrained nor corrected them. They were guilty of stealing, embezzling, taking meat intended for sacrifices, and committing immoral acts with the women of the Temple. Eli had been warned about their apostasy and rebellion and did nothing. God had had enough. (See 1 Samuel 2:12-36 for the entire salacious story.)

Because they were given an opportunity to repent and save the house of Eli and rejected it, God shut off any chance of expiation by sacrifice or offering. This may raise a question for you about whether or not God would do the same to Christ-followers. I direct you to Hebrews 10:26, where the offense of rejecting the work of Christ Jesus for us would also result in no longer being able to access his sacrifice of our sins. Salvation and forgiveness are gifts of the cross, but you have to accept them.

Hebrews 10 (The Message)

26-31 If we give up and turn our backs on all we’ve learned, all we’ve been given, all the truth we now know, we repudiate Christ’s sacrifice and are left on our own to face the Judgment—and a mighty fierce judgment it will be! If the penalty for breaking the law of Moses is physical death, what do you think will happen if you turn on God’s Son, spit on the sacrifice that made you whole, and insult this most gracious Spirit? This is no light matter. God has warned us that he’ll hold us to account and make us pay. He was quite explicit: “Vengeance is mine, and I won’t overlook a thing” and “God will judge his people.” Nobody’s getting by with anything, believe me.

So Eli demanded that Samuel tell him the truth about what God had said:

1 Samuel 3 (New Revised Standard Version)

15 Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. 16 But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” 17 Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” 18 So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.”

Eli declares defeat. Samuel becomes the last judge and first prophet of Israel. The Lord was with him and let none of his words “fall to ground.”

19 As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord.

Friends, when we listen and obey God’s word, none of our words will fall to the ground, either. Is God calling you to share your faith with someone before they reject the work of Christ?

Don’t delay.

God Calls by Michelle Robertson

Perfecting Imperfection

Posted on by Betsy

Our journey through Hebrews continues this week as the writer again makes the case for Jesus’ superiority as the once-and-for-all sacrifice for our sins. He points out the futile efforts of the human priests, who can’t make a dent in the sin problem, and the single sacrifice made by Jesus that wipes out sin forever. 

Hebrews 10:11-18 (Common English Bible)

11 Every priest stands every day serving and offering the same sacrifices over and over, sacrifices that can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, he sat down at the right side of God. 13 Since then, he’s waiting until his enemies are made into a footstool for his feet, 14 because he perfected the people who are being made holy with one offering for all time.

15 The Holy Spirit affirms this when saying,

16 This is the covenant that I will make with them.
After these days, says the Lord,
I will place my laws in their hearts
and write them on their minds.
17 And I won’t remember their sins
and their lawless behavior anymore.[a]
18 When there is forgiveness for these things, there is no longer an offering for sin

In Eugene Peterson’s The Message, verse 14 reads like this:

 “It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people” (Hebrews 10:14 The Message). Preach it, Eugene! We are indeed some very imperfect people. The Holy Spirit affirms our condition of imperfection and points us toward a new plan. This new covenant will be placed in our hearts and written on our minds. Thanks be to God!

The imagery of God’s new plan being written in our hearts goes a long way toward a deeper understanding of the depth of God’s plan. God desires this covenant to be engraved not just on our hearts, but in our hearts… in other words, the deepest, inside part … of our hearts. God does not desire a superficial relationship with us but wants us to present the most inner part of our souls. We are invited to love God from the “inside-out.”

 Let’s take this in a different direction now. If God provided the perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins, can we really be unforgiving toward each other’s sin? And if we continue to hold grudges and refuse to forgive one another, what does that say about the power of the cross? It seems to say that our stubbornness is greater than the blood that was shed there. Everyone loves to be forgiven but we sure can be measly when it comes to forgiving others. Does that make sense? In this passage, God promises to not remember our sins and our lawless behavior anymore. This is the way we are to respond to one another, even in those situations where the offender has not asked for forgiveness.

 God calls us to forgiveness and Jesus made it conditional in the Lord’s Prayer when he said, “Forgive us our trespasses AS WE FORGIVE those who trespass against us.” The phrase “as we forgive” means that we must give as good as we have gotten. And sometimes that is very, very hard.

 Is God calling you to forgive someone today? Remember that often the burden of unforgiveness is hardest on you, not the one who hurt you. Jesus’ perfect offering wiped your slate clean. Maybe it is time for you to wipe clean all the other slates in like manner..

Old Buoy by Michelle Robertson

The Real Thing

Posted on by Betsy

For twenty years I lived in a town just south of Atlanta, Georgia, which gave me a deep appreciation for a man named Asa Candler. Candler was the founder of a soft drink company known as Coca-Cola, but what many people don’t know is that he was a generous philanthropist who donated millions of dollars to Emory University and what later became the Candler School of Theology, a Methodist seminary. I am a blessed recipient of that generosity, as Candler was where I attended seminary. To borrow a slogan from Coke, Asa Candler was the “real thing” when it came to giving generously.

In our reading today, we see a well-articulated treatise on why the world should accept Christ as the real thing when it comes to the sacrificial messiah that God had promised, and the prophets had foretold. Prior to Jesus’ arrival, animal sacrifices were made in an attempt to blot out one’s sins and transgressions. But the best that could happen was that the animal blood “covered” the sin but could not erase the sin … thus the adherence to the Law that required such sacrifice was only a shadow-form of a much greater atonement yet to come. It needed to be repeated once a year, thus proving its inefficiency in actually making sin go away. 

Hebrews 10:1-10 (Common English Bible)

10 The Law is a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the real things themselves. It never can perfect the ones who are trying to draw near to God through the same sacrifices that are offered continually every year. 2 Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered? If the people carrying out their religious duties had been completely cleansed once, no one would have been aware of sin anymore. 3 Instead, these sacrifices are a reminder of sin every year, 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.”


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.

 Beginning in verse 5, the writer recalled a time when Christ quoted Psalm 40:6-8 and drew out the validation of his own sacrifice on the cross as the final and complete offering for the sins of the world. “Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—I have come to do your will, my God.” Jesus made the case that God never desired burnt sacrifices and sin offerings from humanity, but rather a heart that was obedient and redeemed by the shed blood of the real atonement of his crucifixion. 

Obedience versus shallow offerings is the lesson for us today. When you offer your time, talent, and tithe, do you do so out of a sense of obligation, or as an act of obeisance? Do you mentally calculate the cost of your service and your witness before you respond? Do you nitpick the “law” regarding Christian behavior or are you all in?

 The book of Hebrews is a study in why Christ was the ultimate offering on our behalf, and it calls us to respond accordingly. We acknowledge that Jesus was indeed the “real thing” and recognize that his death and resurrection means that our response as Christ followers should be just as real and meaningful.     

Ponder this today as you go about your routines. Is God calling you to “get real” about your behaviors, attitudes, actions, and thoughts? Jesus gave it all on the cross. May we do likewise.

Jesus went all in, too.

Clean Slates

Posted on by Betsy

Our journey through Hebrews continues this week as the writer again makes the case for Jesus’ superiority as the once-and-for-all sacrifice for our sins. He points out the futile efforts of the human priests, who can’t make a dent in the sin problem, and the single sacrifice made by Jesus that wipes out sin forever:

Hebrews 10 (The Message)

11-18 Every priest goes to work at the altar each day, offers the same old sacrifices year in, year out, and never makes a dent in the sin problem. As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it! Then he sat down right beside God and waited for his enemies to cave in. It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people. By that single offering, he did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process.

You just have to love Eugene Peterson’s creative writing ability in this passage. ”It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people.” Preach it, Eugene! We are indeed some very imperfect people.

The Holy Spirit confirms this:

This new plan I’m making with Israel
    isn’t going to be written on paper,
    isn’t going to be chiseled in stone;
This time “I’m writing out the plan in them,
    carving it on the lining of their hearts.”

Again, the imagery of God’s new plan being written on the lining of our hearts goes a long way toward a deeper understanding of the depth of God’s plan. God desires his covenant to be engraved not just on our hearts, but on the lining … in other words, the deepest, inside part … of our hearts. Peterson reminds us that God does not desire a superficial relationship with us, but wants us to present him with the most inner part of our souls. He literally wants us to love him from the ”inside-out.”

He concludes,

I’ll forever wipe the slate clean of their sins.

Once sins are taken care of for good, there’s no longer any need to offer sacrifices for them.

Let’s take this in a different direction now. If God provided the perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins, can we really be unforgiving toward each other’s sin? And if we continue to hold grudges and refuse to forgive one another, what does that say about the power of the cross? That our stubbornness is greater than the blood that was shed there? Does that make sense?

God calls us to forgiveness. Jesus made it conditional: ”Forgive us our trespasses AS WE FORGIVE those who trespass against us.”

Is God calling you to forgive someone today? Maybe it is time for you to wipe clean all the slates.

Blustery Day by Michelle Robertson