Commentary on the Letter to the Hebrews from “First Impressions”

Since early October the second reading has been from the letter to the Hebrews. Reginald Fuller says that the letter is addressed to Christians in Italy who have stagnated in their faith. It sounds less like a letter and more like a sermon, for it lacks the epistolary style of the other letters. It appears to be a “series of pep talks” addressed to a church that is like the ancient Israelites, a people who are wandering through the desert. Like the Israelites, they have been freed from slavery, but have not yet entered the Promised Land. That generation of desert wanders, along with Moses, had failed to enter the Land because they lacked faith. For Christians, Christ has delivered us; but we still await the complete freedom we will have when he returns. This epistle will exhort its early readers and us not to lose faith on the way, lest we too fail to enter God’s promise. Hebrews is addressed to stagnated Christians who have grown bored with the routine of their faith. I wonder if this doesn’t describe a lot of us church goers and the routine we can get into. Faith can become merely a matter of fulfilling customs, but lacking the fire that gives vitality and direction to daily life. We can expect the church to be there for us when we need it for key transitional moments like births, deaths and marriages, but otherwise life is little affected by what we profess each week at this Eucharist.

When Christians first gathered, they celebrated a faith in the risen Jesus that gave an entirely new direction to their lives. Their worship gave them a chance to celebrate their new life; to share the Word that illumined their faith, to break a bread that would strengthen the days ahead and keep the memory of Jesus alive for them. Each time we assemble, as we do today, we share the same life the first Christians knew in their gatherings, we celebrate common rites of passage, everyday joys and struggles, our responsibility for each other and our common holy days. If this is not what we feel when we gather, then the letter to the Hebrews is addressed to us, as it was to those for whom worship had become a routine. Hebrews reminds us that Jesus is at the center our lives. While we may be stagnated in our faith, his sacrifice on the cross is a constant source of new life for us—a way of invigorating us again and again. What had to be done for us, we are told, was done by Jesus. We don’t need to go elsewhere to find a guru or new method or religious tradition to quicken our spirits and satisfy our thirst for meaning to our days. The author of Hebrews wants us to look again at who we are, what our needs are and how Christ, who shared our human state, can now raise us up to a renewal of our faith. He is our “high priest” whose sacrifice has and always will bring us life.

The message about Christ’s priesthood is introduced early (2:17) and dominates the section from which today’s reading is taken (4:14-10:31). According to Hebrews, Jesus has two “priestly qualifications”: he has been faithful in serving God and has “been tested as we are”( 4:15) and therefore, he can sympathize with our struggle. So, rather than present an other-worldly Christ for our worship and admiration, Hebrews affirms early that He was very much of this world. He knows from his own experience what we are up against in life. In his humanity, Jesus showed us what is possible for us, he opened our eyes to the dignity and fullness we humans can have. His life death and resurrection enable for us a new way of living we could not achieve on our own, but is now offered to us through faith in Christ. In Hebrews, Jesus is shown in solidarity with humans, he was “tested” through what he suffered, “beset by weakness “ (5:2). Sometimes we need to be reminded that Christ is not above us, but readily shared our lot. At these times we turn to him, as we do today, as a sign of what is possible for us. We are reminded that, despite present difficulties and frustrations, through him we are “saved,” we are able to endure our present trials and one day we will together enter “God’s rest.”

The other aspect placed before us in Hebrews is shown in today’s reading. Jesus is now above the fray. While he knows our human limitations, he is no longer subject to them. But he is available to us to help us overcome what we are not able to do on our own. He has passed through the trials and is ready to help us do the same. Unlike the levitical priests. ( those select few from the tribe of Levi who we part of the upper class in Israel because they inherited the lucrative job of being priests in the temple) whose priesthood lasted only as long as they lived, Jesus’ priesthood is eternal, and his sacrifice “once for all.” Hebrews sees Christ as called and found acceptable to God and able to accomplish the task of being mediator for us. As our high priest he has passed beyond the grip of death and is “holy innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens.”

We have limitations and are sinful, but because of Jesus and his sacrifice, permanent relationship with God is available to us. No need to shrink from God. No one need feel he or she is inadequate or too much a sinner to pray to God. Sometimes people express a sense of unworthiness, asking that a minister, priest or sister do the praying for them. Asking others to be a part of our community of prayer is one thing; not feeling worthy to pray for ourselves is quite another. If we need assurance of God’s disposition towards us we have as proof God’s sign of compassion, Jesus our high priest.

The letter, with its priestly and temple imagery puts the reader into a “temple mentality.” If priests offer sacrifice in temples and if, by our baptism, we share in the priesthood of Jesus (“priestly people”), then we can see our lives in priestly terms. Now--we are already in the presence of God, offering gifts. Now---we are in the temple and all that we do is done as offering to God, the totality of our lives in this faithful community is a sacrifice to God. Now--- God dwells here with us, and where God is, so is the temple for worship. We too have roles similar to that of Jesus—our lives of sacrifice, our daily attempts to be faithful to our roles, are pleasing in God’s sight. These lives are public worship, visible signs to others that we look upon our world and our work in it in reverential ways. When we serve “the least,” seeing Jesus in them, we are doing worship in a public temple. When we give of our time and suffer the inconvenience of interrupted schedules, we are making public sacrifice at the altar. When we remain trusting, despite sickness or limitations of old age, we are proclaiming the Gospel from a worldly pulpit. When we resist daily temptations and dishonest shortcuts at work, we are making present to all around us the holiness of our one “high priest”—“holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens,” who is “always able to save those who approach God through him....”

By Jude Siciliano, OP