Sermon 40
Sermon by John Metcalfe on Sunday 27th
August 2006
At St John the Baptist, Wonersh
Series -: Hebrews 4 – Jesus the Great High Priest.
As we sit, let’s pray: “Lord, you are our Great High Priest, sitting
at God’s right hand – speak to us today, guide us, transform us, so that
through your Word we might know you better.
Amen.”
So we continue exploring the book of
Hebrews, which Liz started just 4 weeks ago by
focussing in part on the first words in Chapter 1: “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many
times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by His
Son, whom he appointed heir of all things”.
The writer of Hebrews used a couple of great titles there for Jesus –
His Son, and His heir – both titles that we understand and are familiar with.
In the passage we’ve just heard from
Hebrews– it’s on page 1203 if you want to follow it – Jesus is called the “great high priest who has gone through the
heavens”. I find that a less
familiar picture – I see the High Priest as a majestic aloof figure, decked out
in fancy golden robes – not at all the image I have of Jesus. The writer of this letter first used
described Jesus this way in chapter 2, verse 17: “For this reason, he (Jesus) had
to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful
and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make
atonement for the sins of the people”.
This is clearly an important description of Jesus, at least for the
Hebrews to whom this letter was written, but why?
Well, within the Jewish religion, the
highest position that could be held was that of the high priest, and in the
days of the New Testament, the office of high priest held a lot of power – he
was the head of the Sanhedrin, which was the supreme court of
Picture the scene. The first rays of the morning sun are
breaking across the Mount of Olives, and a priest standing on the Pinnacle of
the
At the proper time, the high priest takes
the cup and enters the
A single piece of furniture dominates the
room – the Ark of the Covenant. It’s a
wooden chest overlaid with gold, and it has a lid of pure gold. The lid’s known as the Mercy Seat, and on
each end of the Mercy Seat is the golden figure of an angel, bowed inward and
facing the centre of the Mercy Seat. The
Mercy Seat represents the throne of God.
Here in the dim light of the Holy of Holies, the high priest sprinkles
blood onto the Mercy Seat – and in so doing, he provides atonement for the sins
of the people. That’s the role that
Jesus has now taken on.
Let’s
look again at verse 14: “Since we have a
great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let
us hold firmly to the faith we profess.”
Over the years there’d been many high priests. Generation after generation had served this
exalted office, and each year, for over a thousand years, a high priest had
entered the
1) Jesus is alive;
2) he is with God above the
heavens; and
3) he is the Son of God.
Let’s look at
these one at a time …
1) Unlike all the other high priests that
ever lived and died, Jesus lived and died and
rose from the dead never to die again.
This is why the whole Old Testament system of the priesthood is
over. Jesus is the final priest between
man and God because he’ll never die.
Look at Hebrews
7:16 – we have “one who has become a
priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of
the power of an indestructible life.”
We now have a priest who is alive – and indestructible.
2)
He’s also with God above
the heavens. The high priest of the Jews
passed through the veils into the inner part of the
3) He’s the Son of God. He was not merely a
human exalted to this priestly place.
He’s the divine Son of God who created the earth and the heavens. This gives his sacrifice its infinite
worth. Jesus doesn’t take the blood of
bulls and goats into the heavenly temple.
He doesn’t even take the blood of a human. He takes his own precious blood, the blood of
the Son of God – Hebrews 9:12 tells us that “He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he
entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood”. And when God the Father sees this sacrifice for my sin, he
says, "That’s enough. The debt has been paid."
So
our High Priest is alive forever more; he’s with God above the heavens in the
holiest place in the universe; and he’s the very Son of God, pleading my case
by his own blood. And in verse 15 we
learn that, however exalted our High Priest is, there are three other important
truths about him:
1) he was tempted in all the
kinds of ways we are;
2) he never gave in and sinned;
and
3) he is therefore sympathetic
with us in our weaknesses.
We
don’t have a high priest who is unsympathetic to our weaknesses, but One who’s
been tempted in all things as we are.
Fifty years ago C. S. Lewis
imagined someone objecting to this: "If Jesus never sinned, then he
doesn't know what temptation is like. He lived a sheltered life and is out of
touch with how strong temptation can be."
And here’s what Lewis wrote in response to that possible objection:
“A silly idea is current that good people
do not know what temptation means. This
is an obvious lie. Only those who try to
resist temptation know how strong it is. . . .
A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know
what it would have been like an hour later.
That is why bad people, in one sense know very little about
badness. They have lived a sheltered
life by always giving in. . . . Christ,
because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only
man who knows to the full what temptation means – the only complete realist.”
Jesus
can sympathise with us in our pain and our dying, because he experienced
excruciating pain and death himself. He
can sympathise with us in our temptation, because he was tempted …
§
to
lie (to save his life)
§
and
to steal (to help his poor mother when his father died)
§
and
to covet (all the nice things that Zaccheus owned)
§
and
to dishonour his parents (when they were more strict than others)
§
and
to take revenge (when he was wrongly accused)
§
and
to lust (when Mary wiped his feet with her hair)
§
and
to pout with self-pity (when his disciples fell asleep in his last hour of
trial)
§
and
to murmur at God (when John the Baptist died at the whim of a dancing girl)
§
and
to gloat over his accusers (when they couldn't answer his questions)
§
Jesus
knows the battle. He fought it all the
way to the end, and defeated temptation every time. He was tested as we are and the Bible says he
is therefore a sympathetic High Priest.
So, this all
leads us to a great, practical, relevant, twentieth century conclusion. Because he’s alive, and in the presence of
God with the sacrifice of the blood of the Son of God and full of sympathy for
his people, then:
1)
in verse 14: "Let us hold firmly to
the faith we profess", and
2)
in verse 16: "Let us then approach
the throne of grace with confidence".
This faith is
simply our unshakable hope that God is for us and will work to bring us into
his final rest and joy. You must hold
firmly to that hope: God is for you. You
have a great High Priest. He is
alive. He is in the presence of
God. He is the Son of God. He is sympathetic.
But so
what? What should we do as a
consequence? That's the point behind
verse 16: “Let us then approach the
throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to
help us in our time of need”.
These words are
incredibly important. Every one of us
needs help. We are not God. We have
needs. We have weaknesses. We have confusion. We have limitations of all kinds. We need help.
But we also
have something else – we have sins. And
at the bottom of our hearts we feel that we don’t deserve the help that we
need. So we feel trapped. So what can I do? I can try to deny it all and be a superman
who doesn't need any help. Or I can try
to bury it all and throw myself into life’s pleasures. Or I can simply give way to the paralysis of
despair. But God has a gospel message
for us – Jesus Christ became our Great High Priest to shatter that despair with
hope, and to humble that superman or superwoman, and to rescue that wretch
who’s drowning in despair.
Yes, we all need help. Yes, none of us deserves the help we
need. But No to despair and pride and lechery. God tells us that because we have a great
High Priest, we can approach God’s throne of grace. And the help we get at that throne is mercy
and grace to help in time of need. We do
not get deserved help, but gracious
help.
The
whole point of the Old and New Testaments is that God planned for a High
Priest, a Saviour, a Redeemer, a gracious Helper. We’re not trapped, but we do need help. We don't deserve it. But we can have it – right now and
forever. If you will receive and trust
in your great High Priest, Jesus the Son of God, and draw near to God through
him.
Let’s close with a prayer:
“Loving Lord, our great High Priest. You
understand our weaknesses, because you too have experienced our temptations and
our fears; you experienced pain and death.
Now you sit with God our Father – there to intercede on our behalf. We thank you for your provision for us, and
for your mercy and your gracious love and care, available for us all at your
throne of grace.