Hebrews 4:14 - 5:10
Over the next few months, our morning gatherings will be working through the book of Hebrews, and our evening gatherings through the book of Daniel.
Readings for this week May 29 - June 4
Click here for a pdf of this week’s readings
Day 1 – The Power of the Ascension
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 4:14-15
Jesus has ascended to the right hand of his Father; he is the one “who has gone through the heavens.” This passage affirms that Jesus now serves as the Great High Priest, interceding on our behalf and working for the salvation of his newly adopted siblings – us. Jesus may be seated on the throne, but he is not silent. As Romans 8:34 says, “Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” Sometimes the Ascension is seen as the junior cousin of the incarnation, crucifixion and the resurrection. But the Ascension is just as important. It establishes the fact that Jesus now reigns and rules. He sits at the right hand of the Father. He is alive. He is active. He speaks for us.
All that we do is completely dependent upon Jesus, the one who lived, died, rose, ascended – and who now intercedes for us before God. And he intercedes for us from a position of deep knowledge of what it means to be human and to struggle and to strive. His time among us means that he intercedes for us as one of us – as someone who has faced the same longings and temptations and fears that we face and who knows exactly what strength and encouragement we need in order to persevere and conquer. The ascension was not unimportant, and neither was it the end of the story. It is the gateway to so much that is now possible.
Questions to Consider
Why is the Ascension important? What is your view of it? How has its reality impacted on your life and faith?
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your son and his intercession on our behalf, his continuing work for our benefit and the benefit of the world. We thank you that he has ascended and sits at the Father’s right hand. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 2 – Be Confident!
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 4:16
Sometimes prayer is hard. (Well, it is for me. Perhaps I’m the only one…) Sometimes the praying bit isn’t the issue, it’s believing that praying makes a difference, believing that God hears our prayers and will respond. With so much wrong in our lives, with so much so badly askew in our world, with bigger and bigger issues affecting more and more people, it can sometimes seem as if praying is the least effective thing to do. When worship seems an empty grind and prayer a waste of time; when our own limitations and the confines of the world seem bigger than the victorious one we follow, the author of this passage would have us know that this is not the reality of the kingdom we inhabit – a kingdom that is coming, with growing signs all around us, and that is guaranteed to one day arrive in its fullness.
Here we are reminded that even until that time we can be confident in our faith, we can approach the throne of God, not with trepidation at our reception, not with doubt at whether we will be received, but with the firm conviction that mercy and grace await us, that our concerns and needs and prayers will be addressed, and that the one who loves us and died for us is right there – our high priest interceding for us. We can have confidence that we are not alone and that there are more resources available than just our own. There is grace and mercy aplenty for us while we wait – and work – for his kingdom, if we have faith and confidence in the one who loves us and who continues to offer himself on our behalf.
Questions to Consider
What gives you confidence to approach the throne of God? How do you maintain such confidence and remind yourself of it?
Prayer
Heavenly Lord, thank you for being so open to my approaches and so welcoming of my presence with you. Help me not shy away from seeking you but rather seek you all the more. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 3 – The Priestly Role of Leaders
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 5:1-3
For lots of reasons I won’t discuss here, priests – of whatever stripe – have a spotty reputation at the moment. In our contemporary world, appalling scandals have rocked the priesthoods in multiple denominations; Christians tend to look down their noses at the ancient Israelite priesthood as the purveyors of an ancient (imperfect) sacrificial system done away with on the cross. And the Protestant emphasis on the priesthood of all believers tends to undermine the value of any authority supposedly positioned between the individual believer and their God. But the writer of Hebrews values priests, the role they play and the leadership they offer.
The Israelite priests didn’t just offer sacrifices and administer the Temple. They carried out all the usual pastoral functions we associate with priests and pastors: offering encouragement, and counselling, acting as a conduit between the people and God. They were chosen from among the people to represent the people, just like the leaders in the early church and just like our leaders today. They are called to lead and to serve. In a world that is leery of authority, they have a God-given mandate to lead, to guide, to care. And they know our weaknesses because they are subject to them as well. We’ve all been called to follow – some have been called to lead the followers. But we’ve all been tasked with working together, leaders and followers, teachers and students, visionaries and those working to bring the vision to life. We – leaders included – do not carry the burden alone.
Questions to Consider
What does ‘high priestly’ servant leadership look like? How is this embodied in Jesus? How can we support our leaders?
Prayer
Lord God, bless our leaders. Give them wisdom and courage as they seek to lead and guide and encourage. Give them sensitivity in pastoral matters and reveal your love through all they do. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 4 – The Humble Son
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 5:4-6
These few short verses contain quotes from the Psalms. The first reference is from Psalm 2:7, the second from Psalm 110:4. (We’ll get back to Melchizedek in a few weeks’ time – he turns up again in more detail later in Hebrews.) The quote from Psalm 2:7 puts us in mind of the baptism of Jesus, and the voice declaring from the heavens, “This is my Son whom I love; with him I am well pleased,” and links us back to the earlier chapters of Hebrews when the writer was extolling the divine nature of Jesus and how he was God’s ultimate word to us, greater than Moses, greater than the angels – the embodiment of God himself.
But another passage that this verse reminds me of is Philippians 2:5-11, a very well-known passage – some see it as one of the earliest hymns – in which the servant-like, downwardly mobile humility of Jesus is fully displayed. There we are told that Jesus did not grasp for glory, he did not seek equality with God, but he humbled himself, despite being in very nature God. Here in Hebrews, we see those sentiments echoed. He did not seek after nor take upon himself the role of high priest even though he was himself God in the flesh: “You are my Son; today I have become your Father” – such unambiguous identification of the Father with the Son. Jesus was the humble Son, the humble priest, one who came to serve and suffer and redeem a world that scorned him and killed him. He was the one who offered the sacrifice and the one sacrificed. He was God in the flesh, flesh that could – and did – suffer greatly for us.
Questions to Consider
Why is humility so important yet so hard to maintain? How do we do so?
Prayer
Loving Father, keep me humble. Show me ways in which I can let go rather than hold on, bow down rather than seek acclaim, give away rather than keep, and give honour to others rather than seek it for myself. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 5 – Where We Find Jesus
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 5:7-10
We come back to suffering again. Ubiquitous, ever-present, and yet so crucial in the process through which God rescued us and is restoring all things back to himself, redeeming creation and bringing it to its final rest in him. We might wish all suffering away; we might shrink from it ourselves, but it is guaranteed we will experience it at some point – in a still broken world this is what a human life entails. Even Jesus himself – God in the flesh – faced suffering, and yes, he shied away from it too. Yet he ultimately turned towards it, enduring it for our sake, not that we might never endure it ourselves, but so that when we did – as we will – we would know that we were not alone in our pain and would be able to find him in the midst of it.
Jesus suffered. And he deliberately lived a life that meant he would encounter much suffering, in others and for himself. This is part of the gospel path. Pain and suffering are not intrinsic parts of God’s plan for his world; they are not eternal because they are not part of God’s loving nature. They are deficiencies, absences. But on the way towards the final consummation of the kingdom, when every tear will be wiped away, suffering is capable of being a place where we can find him with an intimacy unknown before. To try and live a life without suffering is to try and live a life without Jesus. In suffering – ours and others’ – we find him and the love that ultimately conquered all pain and death, along with the grace to endure it until pain’s final end when God will be all in all.
Question to Consider
How has suffering – yours or others’ – been a channel through which you have experienced a deeper level of God’s love and grown closer to him?
Prayer
Gracious God, be with me in my suffering so that I know how to be with others in theirs. Thank you that we do not suffer alone, that you know our pain and will one day wash all pain away. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)