Pastor Jonah Sage preached from Hebrews 9:11-15. He taught that Christ is our Most Holy Place. In him, we have all we need and will one day become all he made us to be. Lector: Lisa Tant
Pastor Jonah Sage preached from Hebrews 9:11-15. He taught that Christ is our Most Holy Place. In him, we have all we need and will one day become all he made us to be.
Lector: Lisa Tant
In 1993, a German engineer named Rudolf Gantenbrink built a robot named Upuaut 2 for one purpose: exploring bizarre shafts in the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Shaft picture
In the two main chambers of the pyramid, there are a series of shafts that just…go.
Square, clean, precise, at a specific angle…and no one knows why.
In comes Gantenbrink and Upuaut 2. Robot climbed up for 213 feet. 65 meters!
And this is what it found:
Gantenbrink’ s door
A limestone door with two copper handles. WHAT?! What is it? How did they build it?
NO ONE KNOWS! After this discovery, he was kicked out of the pyramid.
20 years later, National Geographic Society drilled a hole in one door, put a camera through. They found…another door. And they were kicked out after that, too.
Oh what I would give to go there. The mystery gnaws at my soul.
If you’ve ever wondered what I think about lying in bed at night, it’s this.
The pyramid, the mystery, and the fact that I can’t go there. Laugh if you must.
After hard weeks, I fantasize about becoming an Egyptologist.
What would it take to get into the pyramid? Not as a tourist, but an insider.
Back to school. Make connections. Apply for permits.
Hope the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities let’s me in.
Didn’t let Gantenbrink or NATGEO back in. But maybe they’ll let me in…right?
Do you have a place you long to be? What would it take for you to get there?
What would I have to sacrifice to get there? My career and ministry.
My friends. My home. My family’s friends, my children’s school. Our income. Stability.
We all have a place we long to be, an inner circle, and there are sacrifices to get there. And nearly everyone of us, in some form or fashion, try.
Because getting to that place means something for us. Think of it like this:
Where do you long to go, and who would you become if you got there?
I’ve so often wanted to be in the inner circle, in-the-know
I’ve wanted to feel important, seen, desired. That’s one reason I’m drawn to mysteries.
It’s not just knowing about the pyramid, it’s what it would mean about ME.
Where do you long to go, and what would it mean for you to get there?
Last Sunday, Travis talked about one of my least favorite words: limitations.
There are places we cannot go. Some limitations don’t feel that significant.
Costco, or even chambers of the pyramid. But many limitations are indeed painful.
Maybe you long to go back to the way it was, but you can’t.
Go to a safe relationship, go to a parent or a child, but you can’t.
Maybe your body is limited, maybe someone has passed or changed, maybe you’re too old now and there’s not enough time.
For some of us, it seems that the way is shut to the place we long to be. There is no sacrifice great enough, and perhaps we’ll never be who we could.
Again this morning, we hear about Jesus as our High Priest.
Again, we hear about this tabernacle, this Most Holy Place.
This was the place the people of God longed to be in, because it was the place where they could become who they most longed to become.
It wasn’t the place as much as it was who was there.
It was the place where the presence of God could be found.
Getting God meant a return to Eden. It meant forgiveness, reconciliation, shalom.
In the presence of God, we would be healed and made whole, forgiven and purified.
We would find peace with God and with each other.
It was the place we could be seen and known and loved, defenses come down and satisfaction could be found.
Do you know that’s what you’re longing for?
Do you know that hunger, that divine desire, can only be satisfied by God himself?
Listen to the story again here in Hebrews 9. Pick up at 13:
Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and ashes of a heifer could cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity.
-Hebrews 9:13
What we longed for requires a sacrifice—all journeys do, all change does!
Blood is required, goats and bulls and ashes from burning our offerings.
One man would go into that holy place, once a year, and our bodies were made clean
But a clean body does not mean a clean conscience.
Clean clothes don’t change a life, and so the soul remains unsatisfied.
Some of you here have made the sacrifices and been to the room you long for.
You’ve learned it did not work. The relationship was not what you hoped for, or another loss and limitation took away the joy you thought you would find.
You were still overlooked, you were still selfish or scared or angry…
All sacrifices, all man-made rooms, offer at best a few moments in clean clothes.
The blood of the purest goat offers temporary purity for one man to enter that most holy place once a year.
Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. That is why he is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God promised them.
-Hebrews 9:14-15
The old priesthood was limited because the priests were limited. They sinned and they died.
The old sacrifices were limited because the blood of animals is limited.
Even if we’ve never called upon a priest or made a blood sacrifice, we’ve experienced these limitations in our lives.
The sacrifices we make cannot get us where we’re going, and the place we long to be will not make us who we long to become.
These have all been preparations for the one would would come, the Christ, the atoning sacrifice, the great high priest who would not enter into a temple made by human hands, but into that heavenly tabernacle.
He would not make us clean with the blood of animals, but on the cross he would shed his own perfect, limitless blood for us.
Notice the language used in these verses here.
Christ’s blood purifies our consciences, not Just our bodies.
This isn’t ceremonial purification, it’s a soul-filling purification.
This is not new clothes, it’s new life.
By the power of the same Spirit that made all that is, Christ offered a perfect sacrifice.
Not a temporary, once-a-year, wait-and-see sacrifice.
His is a once-for-all PERFECT sacrifice.
His blood knows no limits, his power has no bounds, his life is eternal.
That’s made clear when the text says he mediates a new covenant between God and people.
That’s present tense, he’s mediating now. Because he’s alive. He is risen.
We don’t need new sacrifices because we have a perfect one in Christ, and we don’t need new priests because we have an eternal one in Christ who still mediates between us and God.
And this secures for us an eternal inheritance, ensures we receive God’s promised eternal life.
Too many of us come to Church thinking we are bringing a sacrifice.
We come to church to get baptized again, to recommit, to re-dedicate, a fresh start.
This way of thinking may be understandable, even common, but it is not the gospel.
Whenever you find yourself thinking “I must do this to regain favor with God, I must do this to be made clean…” another gospel has invaded your thinking.
You are clean. You are forgiven. The room is open to you. The place you most long for, the place that can actually heal you and restore you is open to you, because it’s not a place at all, it’s a person and It’s a people.
Christ is who you long for, and he will make you his church.
It is completed and you are secured.
Now the question for many becomes “well why do anything at all, if it’s all been done?”
Maybe we just keep on sinning and doing what we want because we’re all forgiven!
The Gospel announces to you that God delights in you.
He does not just love you, he likes you and enjoys you and rejoices over you.
Nothing you do changes that. Do you understand?
Coming to church does not make God love you more.
Obeying God does not make him love you more or want good things for you more.
Nothing you do changes anything about God. Do you understand?
Obeying the invitations of God is about you, not about God.
It changes YOU, not God.
We are no longer striving for peace with God or purity of soul…if you want to know what living that way feels like, listen to your dad who loves you.
Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant.
-Hebrews 9:15
YOU ARE FREE! You are free. Nothing you do changes that.
We’ve lived so long as slaves, though. So long we have lived afraid, like dragging a ball and chain on our feet.
We’ve been walking with a limp, dragging that leg behind us for years and years.
Christ has come and broken every chain that slows us down and holds us back.
IT’s broken, and you are free and forgiven. But beloved, you are still dragging that foot behind you like the chain is still there.
Christ comes and says love your enemies, not because this will make you free, but because this is how free people live, and beloved you are free.
He tells you to give, and to forgive, and to be merciful, and to serve, not because these things will make God happy with you, but because you need to learn how to walk without a limp again.
We can receive the pain of worldly limitations as invitations to rest in the promise of our eternal inheritance.
We can receive the struggle against present sin as invitations to rest in a conscience cleansed by Christ.
We can receive even those times of dissatisfaction as evidence that our hearts indeed were made to be satisfied in Christ alone.
Christ, our great high priest, is our Most Holy Place. In him, we have all we need and will one day become all he made us to be.