Originally, our Scripture reading for today was going to begin with verse 14 of chapter 4. However, I want to look back on two verses from last week, in part because verse 14 begins with the word, "Therefore," which obviously connects to something said before, and because verses 12 and 13 of chapter 4 are two of my favorite verses in all of Holy Scripture. So, beginning with verse 12: "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." When I’m praying for someone who is ill, I’m praying with this verse in mind—that the very word of God would penetrate through joints and marrow…penetrating to that cancerous tumor, that broken bone, that infectious bacteria or virus—and bring God’s healing. Also, when I preach or teach I’m reminded what J. Vernon McGee once said. McGee was an elderly, folksy Presbyterian pastor who had a radio program called Through the Bible, which, by the way, opened and closed each program with the chorus of "Jesus Paid It All" that we just sang a moment ago. But, about this verse in Hebrews, Mcgee once said: "Remember, the word of God is a two-edged sword. It cuts toward your audience, but an edge is pointing at you also…it cuts toward you as well." I don’t ever want to forget that and those who hammer others with the word of God ought to remember that as well.

Then, moving on to verse 13 and listen to these words: "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account." Imagine what life might look like if we took that verse seriously! Nothing is hidden from God. Everything is uncovered before him…the One to whom we must give an account! What was it Abraham Lincoln said? "You can fool some of the people all of the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time. But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time." One could add to that, "And you can’t fool God ever!" Everything is laid bare before him…and we must give an account for our actions. And that section, "…laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account," incorporates a Greek word that was used of defendants standing before a judge for sentencing. The process this word invokes was one where a sword was placed under the chin of the defendant, the point of the sword pointing upward so that the defendant could not lower his head—in shame, or disgrace, or whatever—and avoid the eyes of the judge. He had to look into the eyes of the judge as he received his sentence. What a sobering thought as we ponder the truth that nothing is hidden from God and someday we must give an account…and we won’t be able to avoid the eyes of God as we give that account. What a powerful image! Yet, as sobering an image, as terrifying an image that may be, there is good news in here…because of what follows. (Read Hebrews 4:14-5:10)

The good news is…when we stand before God we have one who stands with us, Jesus the Christ. That is why we have entitled this entire series on Hebrews, "Christ the Advocate." To stand alone before God, giving an account of our lives, is an image to terrifying to consider. To come as an unholy person, full of sin and unrighteousness, before the holy throne of God, on our own, is not only too terrifying to consider, it is impossible. An unholy, unrighteous sinner cannot enter into the holy, righteous sanctuary of Almighty God. But we can enter in through a holy and righteous advocate—Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest.

Remember that the writer of Hebrews is writing to…Hebrews, Jews who have come to accept Jesus as the promised Messiah, Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Yet, whether through persecution or the pressure of family and peers, they are tempted to go back to the former practices of their Jewish faith, particularly the practice of sacrifices for sin. Those sacrifices could not be offered by themselves. Instead, the sacrifices had to be offered by the high priest. The role of the high priest, simply stated, was to bring the people to God…and bring God to the people. Yet, the high priest himself was not without sin. In offering a sacrifice for the sins of the people, the high priest had to include himself because he too was a sinner. That was the practice in place for the people of God…until Jesus Christ. The earlier practice of sacrifices for sin was sufficient for the people until the appointed time of God sending His Son to make the final, perfect sacrifice for sin. In doing so, Jesus is our Great High Priest, the One who connects us to God because of His sacrifice. No other high priest is needed. Why would you want to go back to an inferior system, the writer of Hebrews is asking, when the perfect High Priest has made the perfect sacrifice? Jesus has all the credentials of a high priest—selected from among the people, appointed to represent the people before God, called by God—yet is superior to all previous high priests in that he does not need to make a sacrifice for His sin. Tempted like us in every way, yet He was without sin. Again, as we saw earlier in Hebrews, Jesus empathizes with our human condition because He experienced it also. He was tempted like us in every way. There is no temptation that has come to you that Jesus doesn’t understand because He Himself experienced it. In fact, I would submit to you that the temptations Jesus faced were greater than what we face because He never gave in to them. We face temptations that bring terrible pressure to bear, but too often we give in to that temptation. We relieve the pressure of temptation by giving in to it. To be sure, we then experience the horrible consequences of that temptation. We don’t have to look very far in the news of recent days to see the truth of that statement, something about which we’ll have more to say next week. But, we relieve the pressure of temptation from our shoulders by giving in to it. Jesus never did that. Jesus never gave in to the temptations He faced. In doing so, He stood up under greater temptations than you or I have. And, in doing so, Jesus fulfilled the purpose of humanity. In Jesus, we see the perfection to which human beings were created, but lost in the giving in to temptations. Jesus knows very well and very intimately the temptations you face…and have given in to.

That is why He is the perfect High Priest. No other sacrifice for sin is needed. As we sang earlier, "Jesus paid it all."

I don’t know if you’re a watcher of the Today Show or not, but it is usually on as Kim and I are getting ready for work. One of the "schticks" the Today Show periodically uses is to send Matt Lauer somewhere in the world. On Friday, they began a segment entitled, "What is It?" that was based upon a series of enticing statements like, "It brings great peace, yet wars have been fought over it." "What is It?" And the answer is faith. Matt Lauer is in Jerusalem, focusing segments around the issues of faith in each of the three great world religions with roots in Jerusalem—Judaism, Islam and Christianity. One of the segments dealt with the question of is there a heaven and, if so, how does one get there according to those three faiths. I taped Friday’s show to see what they would do with that. They ended up looking at that question about heaven only from the perspective of Judaism. I’m assuming they’ll be doing more on the topic in upcoming shows this week—which I’m going to have to tape! However, it was very interesting—in the light of our journey through the letter to the Hebrews and, specifically, the topic of the high priest and sacrifices for sin—to see their segment about heaven and Judaism. Specifically, in response to the question, "How does one get into heaven," the responses from representatives of Judaism—rabbis, scholars and the like—went like this. First of all, Today created a "checklist" to mark off in order to know if you were going to get into heaven or not. Some of the statements on that checklist, which came from rabbis and scholars: "Do good deeds on earth." "Basically, you repent every day because you don’t know the day you die." "Everything we do is recorded. When we die, it is before us. For example, were you faithful in business?" "God says, ‘I’ve got the door to heaven. Now, let me ask you a few questions and let’s see how you did.’" One of the checks was this, "Set up three couples who get married." I didn’t know that was a part of Judaism’s view toward making it to heaven! They showed one woman who cited the fact that she had set up two couples, so, she said, "I’m halfway there. We’ll see." Other statements on the checklist included, "Judaism is about actions. What you do matters." "Make life here a better place and you will make it into heaven." That was the Today Show’s take on Judaism and getting into heaven. I was sorry they didn’t address on Friday Islam’s and Christianity’s take on the question of making it into heaven. Again, I’m assuming they’ll do that this week and I’ll report on it next Sunday.

In any event, I think the writer of Hebrews would say our status for heaven, our status with God right now, rests upon our Great High Priest, Jesus Christ. We can approach God, that moment when everything is laid bare before God and we must give an account, we can approach God "with confidence" because we have a great high priest in Jesus Christ. Christ’s advocacy for us as our great high priest is not just a future relevancy, however. We can "approach the throne of grace with confidence" today because of Jesus Christ. Christ’s advocacy for us as our Great High Priest opens the door today, and every day, for communion with God. Jesus’ action as our Great High Priest invites us to greater depths in our prayer life—bringing deeply raw and honest emotions in our prayers to God. Jesus himself "offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears," and we are invited to do so also. Not because we are holy or worthy of such an approach to God, but because Christ our advocate is holy and worthy. We can live our lives better connected to God and His purposes for us because our connection to God is not based upon our worthiness, but upon Christ’s. "Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe."

The image I’d like to leave you with is this. Many of you know my father had hip replacement surgery on Wednesday. This was the surgery he was scheduled for back in August. However, he suffered cardiac arrest four days before the surgery so, naturally, the hip replacement had to be postponed. He’s recovered well enough now that they were able to do the hip replacement last Wednesday. I went to see him before the surgery and one of the procedures needing to be done in prepping him for the surgery was to turn off the defibrillator they installed back in August with his cardiac arrest episode. I didn’t realize they needed to do that, but it makes sense when you think about it. Anyway, this technician came in to turn off the defibrillator about five minutes before they were going to take dad into surgery. They wanted to wait until the last possible moment to turn the defibrillator off, then planned to turn it back on as soon as possible in the recovery room. This technician had this machine that looked like the old portable typewriters, but with a screen like a laptop computer. Attached to this machine was a flat, microphone-like device that he placed on dad’s chest at the site where the defibrillator is. The technician then started typing in a bunch of info, then paused, typed some more, got a puzzled look on his face and said, "Hmmm, you’re defib isn’t speaking to my machine. What brand did they install?" Turns out dad had a different model of defibrillator than the company this technician worked for. The defibrillator and his machine weren’t "communicating!" They had to call a technician with the company that was the brand of my dad’s defibrillator and tell him to come to the hospital and get it turned off. Delayed his surgery by about an hour. Not a good thing to have the surgeon sitting around with his arms crossed for an hour! But, the tech with the right company finally got there, turned on his machine, put the little flat microphone thing on dad’s chest and got the defibrillator turned off.

The image I want to leave you with is this—that’s what Jesus, our High Priest, does for us. He’s the right person, the right model—if you will—to bring communication between us and Almighty God. Without Jesus mediating as our advocate between God and us, communion with God is as fruitless as that first technician’s attempt. The tech’s machine was working properly. Dad’s defibrillator was working properly. They just couldn’t communicate with each other no matter how hard anyone tried. They needed the right connection between the two. Jesus, our High Priest, is the right connection between us and God. As the source of our salvation, Jesus makes it possible for us to withstand God’s examination of our lives when we’re called to account. More than that, Jesus makes it possible, here and now, for us to approach God with bold and honest prayers, our experiences, our temptations laid bare and open before God…because our great High Priest knows our experiences and temptations as well. Because of the sacrifice offered by our High Priest, the throne of judgment has become a throne of mercy and grace. And Jesus makes it possible to live a life that is pleasing to God, fulfilling God’s purpose for each one of us in our unique relationship with Him. Indeed, we can speak of a relationship with God only because we have the perfect High Priest connecting us to God. "Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe."