When we come to church, we usually do not come primarily to learn about doctrine. We come to find inspiration, to lay our hurts at the altar, and to draw strength from the fellowship. Doctrine can seem kind of dry. Doctrine causes arguments and who needs more of those? The book of Hebrews has been committed to the idea that a proper understanding of doctrine sustains our faith and keeps us from drifting away from it. Our passage for today has something important to say about how we understand Christ, and why it matters for our faith.
Hebrews is a puzzling book. We have no idea who wrote it. Even though the end of the book names some of Paul's associates, the author doesn't think or write anything like Paul. Father Origen, a second-century theologian and Bible scholar, famously said that only God knows who wrote Hebrews. We don't know for sure who first read it. It is not addressed to any particular group like Paul's letters, which are addressed to specific people or churches. We are not even sure what it is. We often call it a letter, but it doesn't start like a letter. Some people think it was a sermon, a rather long sermon at that.
If Hebrews is a sermon, the preacher is winding up by chapter 13. We are almost to the closing hymn and then racing to get in line at the restaurant. Experts at communication tell us preachers that people remember the beginning of a sermon and the end of a sermon. What's in the middle kind of fuzzes out. At the end of this sermon, the preacher announces how the gospel he has proclaimed affects the way Christians should live. That is a typical pattern for some of the books of the New Testament. Most of Paul's letters follow such a structure. First Paul describes our situation, the trap of sin we are caught in. Then he announces what Christ has done for us, how Christ has set us free. Finally, Paul declares the great "therefore." Therefore, live your lives this way. Hebrews has repeated a certain pattern throughout the book. He announces who Christ is and then exhorts the readers to do something about it. Now he has come to the end of the sermon. He has marshaled every argument to try to keep his readers from drifting away from the faith. Now he is finished, and he closes with a series of admonitions about what a Christian life should look like.
He starts with what Jesus called one of the two greatest commandments: that we love one another. We can never hear that too often in the church! Love sustains us. How many times has a hug or a kind word lifted our spirits? In how many ways has the love of a congregation kept a grieving person from collapsing? Love smoothes over differences, love brings reconciliation, love causes us to go the extra mile, and love creates friendships between people who have nothing in common. "Let mutual love continue" the preacher says. How much we need that!
He exhorts them to show hospitality. Hospitality is sort of a branch office of love. Hospitality is love for someone you don't know. Hospitality blazes a new trail of love, creating a relationship that wasn't there before. Let us never underestimate the power of hospitality. A young Hispanic boy, the son of immigrants, became a street child. He did what he had to do to survive. Living on the street, with no one to look after him, he became addicted to drugs. His life was headed nowhere. In an act of pure hospitality, a Presbyterian pastor took in the young street child, nurtured him, and put him back on the right path. That young street child grew up to be Reverend Harold Recinos, Ph.D. He is a United Methodist pastor and a professor at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Texas. Hospitality saved a boy's life, created a new person, and gave a gift to the church through Recinos' teaching and writing.
The preacher narrows hospitality down even further. He admonishes us to visit those in prison. The church is called to go into prisons. We are called to visit places of despair and seeming hopelessness. We are called to bring light to darkness. He tells us how we are to go into the prisons. We are not to go in judgment or in condescension. We are to go as those who are in prison ourselves. We are to look into the hearts of those we visit and imagine ourselves in their shoes.
The author of Hebrews could never have known how relevant his next message might be to American Christians in the twenty-first century. He tells us to minister to those who have been tortured. How can our country, which has claimed such a legacy of Christian influence, have allowed itself to get caught in the web of torture? What Hebrews calls us to is so necessary for us, in case we ever are tempted again. He says that we should see ourselves in those being tortured. If we see a fellow child of God in our enemy, we will know not to torture. We will also know that if we torture another person, our leaders open that door and pay for it with our money, then we will be the ones who are changed. The danger of torture is not so much what it does to the one being tortured, but what it does to the one committing the torture. Let us open our ears and hear these words.
He follows these exhortations with teaching about sex and money, two important ways that we are called to be faithful. We all know how much hurt is caused by sexual infidelity. We see the pain splashed across our television screens, as celebrity marriages crumble from unfaithfulness. Let the church demonstrate to the world that we can practice self-discipline and build committed relationships.
What we do with our money is a reflection of our faith. Do we give to God in gratitude? Do we give to our neighbor in love? Do we center our lives around Christ or on money? Hebrews calls us to show the world our faith by how we live.
In the midst of these ethical teachings, verse 8 stands out. Sort of out of nowhere, verse 8 announces a deep statement of theology. In this case, it announces something important about who Christ is. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." We could chew on that statement for several sermons, but let us reflect on it for this one sermon.
I want to suggest that, based on the book of Hebrews itself and our own life experience, we should have a two-handed response to this statement from Hebrews. We hate two-handed responses! They sound wishy-washy, as though we can't make up our minds. One of our presidents said that he wished he could find a one-handed economist. Every time he tried to get information about fiscal policy from economists, they always answered, "Well, on the one hand the economy might pick up; on the other hand, the economy might go soft." He wanted an economist with one hand.
I have a two-handed response to Hebrews' assertion that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. On the one hand, we rejoice in what that statement affirms. We need a sense of stability in our lives. We Christians need something to unify us. We need something we can count on. The world seems as if it changes overnight. Technology, world events, oil prices, and a host of other things all seem to want to pull the rug out from under us.
In the midst of all that change, Christ gives us an anchor, something to keep us from being tossed about by all of the change. No matter how modern we become, or how sophisticated, we still look back to a man who lived 2,000 years ago as the pioneer of our faith. Jesus the Christ never drove a car; never used a land line, much less a cell phone; never turned on a computer; or sent a text message. Yet this man defines who we are, what it means that we exist at all, teaches us about God, and reconnects us to God.
When we worship, we draw on traditions that go back centuries. We read scripture written as much as 3,000 years ago or more. We recite prayers from ancient cultures that still speak to our hearts. We unite ourselves with Christians through the ages. Some version of the Lord's Prayer came from Jesus' lips. Taking the bread and cup go back to the upper room. The Apostles' Creed goes back to the second century. All of these things give us roots and stability in a changing world. We can look back and see how the risen Christ has guided the church over the centuries. We see the mistakes and the obstacles the church has overcome. Other Christians have shared our experiences; they have been through what we have been through. The risen Christ has been there for them. That assures us that Christ is here for us. So, on the one hand we celebrate and rejoice in the statement from Hebrews that Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
On the other hand, the book of Hebrews itself pushes us to find new ways to interpret, understand, and explain who Christ is. Hebrews is as clear as any book in the New Testament that Christ is divine and human. Every way that we understand Jesus the Christ has to include those aspects of Christ's nature. So, in that way, the book of Hebrews is traditional in the way it presents Jesus. Hebrews also ventures out into new territory in explaining who Jesus was for the particular people who first read the letter. Hebrews names Jesus Christ as the great high priest in the order of Melchizedek. This is a complex idea in Hebrews, but at its essence, the presentation of Jesus in this book asserts that Jesus as the great high priest was without sin and made himself the sacrifice for our sins. Melchizedek was an obscure figure in Genesis 14 and Psalm 110. He was a priest, but was not from the right family to be a priest. Psalm 110 calls the king of Israel a high priest in the order of Melchizedek. If Jesus is prophet, priest, and king, then he, too, is a priest in the order of Melchizedek. Why might the author of Hebrews go through all of this explanation for his readers? Perhaps they missed something about the old priesthood. Perhaps they felt a sense of assurance about the daily sacrifice of the priests or the Day of Atonement every year. The regularity of that may have provided them a sense of assurance. Perhaps, they found a sense of security in Judaism, which was a more established religion in Greco-Roman society and provided more authenticity.1 Whatever the reasons, the author of Hebrews explains Jesus to his readers in a way that meets their needs, that helps them understand their lives. If the priesthood is important to you, then Jesus is the great high priest. He is sinless and has atoned once and for all for your sins. Hebrews interprets Jesus in ways the congregation can understand.
That is what we in the church must do. If we go to the average person on the street today and say that Jesus is the Messiah, that person will not understand. It will not resonate. Holding on to Jesus as both God and human, we must explain Jesus in ways the world can understand, and in ways that meets the world's needs.
One theologian who helps us to do this is Luis Pedraja. Writing from the Hispanic perspective, Pedraja says that those in Hispanic culture understand that Jesus knew the pain of poverty and oppression and so can identify with the suffering they experience. On a deeper level, Pedraja writes that Hispanic culture is a mixed culture. Most Hispanics in the United States blend languages, ethnic identity, cultural roots, and genetic makeup. He calls Hispanics mulato and mestizo people. Then, he declares that in the incarnation, where Jesus combines divine and human natures, Jesus is a mulato and mestizo. "In this sense, the Incarnation incorporates divinity and humanity into each other, creating a new reality. Just like mestizaje and mulatez combine in Hispanics different traits, cultures, and races without dissolving their differences into sameness, the Incarnation joins human and divine natures without dissolving their differences."2
This is why doctrine matters. We need to understand Christ rightly. Hebrews teaches us of a Christ who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We rejoice in that stability. Jesus still reveals God to us, still takes away our sins. Hebrews also teaches us of a Christ who speaks to us in ways we can hear. Let us open ourselves to the ways Christ speaks to us now. What need do we have? What pain are we carrying? In what ways do we need to grow? That is where we will find Christ. Hebrews teaches of a Christ who is always the same, but who will meet us where we need to be met. Amen.
1. Victor C. Pfitzner, Hebrews (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997), p. 29.
2. Luis G. Pedraja, Jesus Is My Uncle: Christology from a Hispanic Perspective (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), pp. 82-83.