Current Live Weather

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Jesus Is More Than Able

A Sermon based upon Hebrews 7:22-28
Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, Pastor
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
October 28, 2012, Lectionary:  Proper 25


When I was a child in church, we often sang a popular children’s song: 
He's able, He's able, I know He's able,
I know my Lord is able to carry me thru.
He healed the broken hearted and set the captive free,
He made the lame to walk again and caused the blind to see;
He's able, He's able, I know He's able,
I know my Lord is able to carry me thru.   (By Paul E. Paino)

Cute song, but how do we know?   How can we know and trust that Jesus is able to “carry us thru”?   The most important question of all our lives is simple as that.  

After lunch, some of you will go hiking, but you may hike into unknown territory or on walk on untraveled paths.  How do you keep from getting yourself lost?   You will have to follow a well-marked path that someone has prepared.  But can you trust them?  How do you know they are marked correctly?  How do you know someone hasn’t come at night and changed the signs?   The same question of trust comes when you are getting on an airplane.  When you enter the plane, sometimes the captain is standing there at the door and you can look him in the eye.   But what if you don’t like what you see?  How can you know to trust that he is a good pilot?  What do you do if you feel like turning around?   What about your doctor?  You’re getting ready to undergo surgery.  Can you trust the surgeon’s training or steady hand?  “Doc,  did you rest well last night, I heard one of you ask recently?”  How can you know and sing with confidence, “He’s able”?  Is he?  

When we are children, it’s not so hard trust the people around us.  But when we get older, when we have experienced broken promises, when we know human failures, or when we have known one too many charlatans, one too many swindlers,  it can become more and more difficult to trust   How can we still sing through life with confidence: “He’s able!”  In a world that has so much potential for trust, where we have been told that God is all powerful and caring, how can we still sing songs of trust when difficult, terrible moments come which make us wonder, is God able?

The Hebrews were asking themselves the same questions.   They were hoping to renew their trust to sing:  "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you." And again, "I will put my trust in him." (Heb 2:12-13 NRS).  Did you catch that last adverbial phrase, “And Again….”?  The Hebrews were wondering whether or not to trust God “again”.   They had suffered wave after wave of persecution for their faith.  They were doing good things, believing good things, even suffering for all the right reasons, but it was becoming too much to bear.  They felt vulnerable, defenseless, and alone.   When it seemed God was not there for them, they wondered whether they should stay with God.   The book of Hebrews was written as a sermon to encourage them to stand resolute in their commitment.   Over and over, the major theme of the book of Hebrews resounds and re-sings, “He’s able.  He’s able, I know He’s able.”  You may not be able, but God is able.   But how can we know and how can we tell?

Jesus Is Forever—He Is Always There
One of the mountain top texts of Hebrews in found in chapter seven, where there is a discussion going on about the need for a greater and more sufficient priesthood.  

The passage opens with a discussion of one of the most mysterious priest-kings of the Bible; Melchizedek, King of Salem.  He was a priest who visited Abraham long before there was ever an Israel or a priesthood in Israel  (Heb 7:1 NRS).   No one knows exactly where Melchizedek comes from or where he goes, but he remains forever in the mind and hearts of people (Psalm 110:4).  He was forever in their minds because he was the first and foremost King and priest at the beginning of their history.   When others Kings fought against Abraham, King Melchizedek choose to bless.  Even more importantly, he chooses also to bless the name of the “most high God” (Genesis 14: 18-20).  The writer of Hebrews makes the point that this Melchizedek resembles none other than “the Son of God” (Hebrews 7.3) and comes from a “superior” priesthood outside of the whole earthly ancestry of Israel  (7: 6-7).  Thus, this mysterious Melchizedek is said to belong to a “forever” priesthood and to a whole different ‘order’ of kings or priests (7.11).  Although Israel’s priest came and went with great fanfare and failure, the order of Melchizedek remained in the background, but never failed to marvel or mystify their hearts and minds---all hoping that someway, somehow, he might just show up again to bless.

Of course this idea of priesthood is foreign to most of us and in our culture.  If we have a problem, a struggle, a crisis, we go to a counselor, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, many may call a ‘shrink’.   At least that’s what’s often projected and rejected in the popular media.   Who needs an intercessor?   Who needs a ‘counsel’?   But in the ancient world, when people felt guilty, alone, forsaken or burdened with life, they went to a priest.   They would take their burdens, their sins, or their problems to a priest in the form of an “offering” and the priest would make intercession and sacrifice in their behalf in order to make things “right” again.   We have almost nothing like that today.   Even the priesthoods we do know about, are no better and perhaps worst, and bring us more bad news than good.   So what do we do?  Either we keep our burdens, our pains, our guilt and all our stuff to ourselves, or we deny them, or we think nothing can be done at all.   Too many live lives of “quiet desperation”, as the Thoreau once said.  We’d rather live broken lives and die hard than face the pain of truth that brings healing, health and hope. 

But in Jesus, there is something “better” we can do.   This is what Hebrews is about.  We can take our burdens, our pains, our hurts, and our sins to God, not through a priest, but on our own and by ourselves.  This is exactly where Hebrews is going.    While other priests come and go, live and die, Jesus “holds his priesthood permanently” (7.24) and “continues forever”.  Jesus belongs to a whole different order of priests, like Melchizedek.    Jesus still lives in our hearts and always continues in his “office” (7.23).   Because Jesus is a forever priest, he “able for all time to save” any who “approach God through him”.  Residing at the very seat of divine power Jesus “always lives to make intercession” for us (7.25). 

Of course, all this is religious language is very nice, but how is it true?  How is Jesus “forever” for you and for me?    In the business world, where people pretend to need capital and ideas, not offerings or prayers, one might get a clearer understanding of why people still need Jesus as a “forever priest”.  In business, it is said that the most critical feature of a leader’s success is their longevity.   Great companies are almost always led by long-term leaders who stay.  Leaders who come and go and lead through a revolving door, seldom establish community or bring solid success.   It is for this very reason that Jesus is also able to heal, help and save us, exactly because he stays with us as we stay with him.   The prophet Jeremiah found comfort precisely because God “knew him in his mother’s womb” (Jeremiah 1.5).   People who have known Jesus their whole lives and stay with Jesus every day, all day long, are better able to deal with whatever comes, what they must bear, or what burden is placed on them.  If we know God in our childhood, and in our school days; even in all our silly mistakes and in all our false starts, and if we know him in our adulthood as we establish and maintain our careers and work, we too will have a much better chance of longevity, stability and success.  The Christ made known to us throughout our whole life history reminds us in his permanence that he is always able to save.

Jesus Is Our Forgiver---He Offered Himself
In the old Levitical code among the Jews, before a priest could offer a sacrifice for someone’s sins, he would first offer a sacrifice for his own sins.   He would begin by washing his hands, his feet, and then he would clothe himself in a spotless, white linen.  The other attendants would bring him a bull the priest had purchased himself.  Placing his hands on the animal’s head, he would thereby transfer his own sins with a word of confession:  “Ah, Lord God, I have committed iniquity; I have transgressed; I have sinned, I and my house O Lord, I beseech thee, cover over the sins and transgressions which I have committed, transgressed and sinned before thee, I and my house.”  (See William Barclay’s Daily Bible Study Commentary, The Letter to the Hebrews, 1975).

Jesus never had to offer this kind of sacrifice.   He was the sacrifice.  He was a priest “unlike the other High Priests” (7.27a) in that “he offered himself” (7.27b).   He was both the priest who offered a sacrifice for all sin and he is the sacrifice; the blameless, spotless,  perfect, flawless sacrificial lamb who laid down his life for all sin, for all time, one sacrifice offered once and for all for every person, every sin, and for every situation and  condition.   Jesus does this kind of forgiving in God’s behalf and on our behalf, which God has “exalted” as and “intercession” (7:25) and forgiveness above all and for all time (7.26).    

A woman once visited a plastic surgeon about her husband. She told the doctor the tragic story of his injury while attempting to save his parents from a burning house.  He couldn’t get to them and they both were killed. He suffered terrible burns and disfigurement. He had given up on life and gone into hiding. He would not let anyone see him—not even his wife.    The doctor assured the woman that he would be able to reconstruct her husband’s face. She explained that was not her request.  Her husband would not agree to the surgery.  He believed that God had disfigured him for not saving his parents. SHE HAD COME TO ASK THE DOCTOR TO DISFIGURE HER FACE.  She thought that if she could share his pain then he might allow her back into his life. While deeply moved by the woman’s willingness to sacrifice her physical appearance the doctor refused her offer but gained her permission to talk to her husband.

When the surgeon visited the couple’s home, he knocked loudly on the husband’s door, explained who he was, and what he intended to do. The husband did not respond. The surgeon called out again but again his plea met silence. The doctor paused and then said, "Your wife wants me to disfigure her face, to make her face like yours in hope that you will let her back into your life. That’s how much she loves you. That’s how much she wants to help you."   After a brief pause, footsteps were heard and then the doorknob slowly turned. The husband opened the door. His wife’s offering set him free from the prison of his soul and his room   (From Maxie Dunnam in “This Is Christianity”, pp 60-61, as told in by John Pavelko).

Jesus Is Our Future ---He Guarantees A Better Promise.
“Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him” (Heb 7:25 NRS)---so says this text, because, as our passage asserts at the very beginning, “Jesus has also become the guarantee of a better covenant” (Heb 7:22 NRS).  When we say that Jesus is with us forever and will always forgive, these are indeed things we want to say, need to say, and desperately try to believe, but what is the guarantee?  Forever is a long, long time, isn’t it?   It is hard for us even to fathom forever, just as it is nearly impossible feel or grant forgiveness?  How can we still say that Jesus is able to give the guarantee of the best promise for our lives?  

The meaning of the phrase “to save” or “salvation” points the way we can know. In the book of Hebrews, “salvation” a most important word because of the pressing question, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” (Hebrew 2.3).   It also gives the definitive answer declaring Jesus to be “the pioneer” of salvation, whom God made “perfect” through his suffering (Hebrews 2.10).   In this way, Jesus “became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (5.9).   The meaning of salvation in the New Testament is more than going to heaven when we die (which we mean we say “I am saved”), but New Testament salvation also includes the rescue from evil, the healing from diseases, and the deliverance from any and all things that threaten life here and now.   Whenever we are faced with a crisis situation beyond our ability to save ourselves, we must turn to someone, and ultimately to God, as the “source” that is greater than ourselves.  But again, the question comes: How can we know that “He is able to save?”  

Few astrophysicists did more to popularize stargazing than Carl Sagan.  He was a classical, "show me" scientist. Unless a concept, idea, or thought could be proven through established scientific inquiry, he would not accept the possibility of it being true. However, during the last year of his life he had to depend on the presence of something intangible and unprovable—the love of his family.  Yet, even that love could not convince him of an eternal love or eternal life.  After he died, his widow reflected on their life together, "we were wonderfully happy for over 20 years together but for Carl, there was no doubt that when we said goodbye it was for all eternity (www.homileticsonline.com/October22,2003).

We can know that Jesus is able to give us a future because there is no one else.  Carl Sagan was right about that.   Without Jesus there is no forever, no forgiveness and no future.   Through scientific wisdom, there is a dead end.  But Hebrews tells us that the God who “puts eternity in our hearts” (Ecclesiastes 3.11, NIV), “guarantees” eternity though Jesus Christ.   It is for this reason, most of all, that we can know that Jesus is able.  We can know Jesus is able, because no was else is able.  To give us hope, there is either no hope, or there is Jesus---THERE IS NO ONE ELSE.    Jesus is always here.  Jesus offers himself.  Jesus is our only hope. The truth is as simple as that.  He is able.  He's able.  I know he's more than able.  I know my LORD is able to carry me (and you) through.  Amen.

No comments :