With Christmas just a matter of hours away, I am struck by a passage of scripture unrelated to Jesus' manger-laden birth, yet fundamental to his reason for being born...
"Think about that first covenant for a moment. Even that covenant had rules and regulations about how to worship and how to set up an earthly sanctuary for God. In the Book of Exodus, we read how the first tent was set aside for worship--we call it the holy place...Behind a second dividing curtain, there was another tent which is called the most holy of holy places...
Here's my point: When all is prepared as it is supposed to be, the priests go back and forth daily into the first tent to carry out the duties described in the law. But once a year, the high priest goes alone into that second tent, the holy of holies, with blood to offer for himself and the unwitting errors of the people."
You see, the priest, being human with a heart just as prone to sin as his people, needed his own atonement before offering any atoning sacrifices for his people. This was a never-ending cycle. The priest was appointed by God to this office, but in no other way was he made or exempt apart from the law and its demands. The priest had no special way of attaining cleanliness, apart from the same rituals through which he guided other worshippers.
"As long as that first tent is standing, the Holy Spirit shows us, the way into the most holy of holy places has not yet been revealed to us. That first tent symbolizes the present time, when gifts and sacrifices can be offered; but it can't change the heart and conscience of the worshipper...
When the Liberating King arrived as High Priest of the good that comes to us, He entered through a greater and more perfect sanctuary that was not part of the earthly creation or made by human hands. He entered once for all time into the most holy of holy places--entering, not with the blood of goats or calves...but offering His own blood and thus obtaining redemption for us for all time. Think about it: if the blood of bulls or of goats, or the sprinkling of ashes from a heifer, restores the defiled to bodily cleanliness and wholeness, then how much more powerful is the blood of the Liberating King, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself as a spotless sacrifice to God, purifying your conscience form the dead things of the world to the service of the living God?
This is why Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant: through His death, He delivered us from the sins that we had built up under the first covenant, and His death has made it possible for all who are called to receive God's promised inheritance. For whenever there is a testament--a will--the death of the one who made it must be confirmed because a will takes effect only at the death of its maker; it has no validity as long as the maker is still alive. Even the first testament--the first covenant--required blood to be put into action...Under the law, it's almost the case that everything is purified in connection with blood; without the shedding of blood, sin cannot be forgiven."
Here we are reminded that what is most real, what is most true, is the unseen reality. Take the temple in Jerusalem, the holiest place on earth. It seemed real enough, with its massive stone construction, constant flurry of rituals, and daily offerings. But the writer tells us that it was merely a copy or shadow of another place, the heavenly temple. Whatever took place in this shadowy temple could not change the realities of alienation from God, sin, and death. Whatever else seems real around us can't shade the fact that the truest part of our selves lies within, our heart and soul, which cannot be hidden or changed apart from the one who created us.
Every year on a most special day, the Day of Atonement, the high priest would don his priestly garb and enter the most holy of holy paces in the temple. His task was profound, his duty dangerous: he must appear before God carrying the sins of his people. All the sins of Israel were concentrated in him as he carried the blood of the sacrifice into the divine presence. But there was another day, a Day of Atonement unlike any other, where Jesus, the Liberating King, concentrated in Himself the sins of the world, hanging on a cross not far from the temple's holiest chamber. Indeed, for a time, He became sin. But unlike the high priest in the early copy of the temple, the crucified and risen Jesus entered the true temple of heaven and was ushered into the divine presence. He who had embodied the sins of the world carried His own sinless blood into the holy presence. Jesus' death was the sacrifice and his resurrection was the entrance into the holiest of holies, the true presence of God, wherein he carried the sins of the world as the ultimate atoning offering. At that moment, everything changed.
"The Liberating King did not enter into handcrafted sacred spaces but into heaven itself, where He stands in the presence of God on our behalf. There He does not offer Himself over and over as a sacrifice (as the high priest on earth does when he enters the most holy of holy places each year with blood other than his own) because that would require His repeated suffering since the beginning of the world. No, He has appeared once now, at the end of the age, to put away sin forever by offering Himself as a sacrifice...
We have seen how the law is simply a shadow of the good things to come. Since it is not the perfect form of these ultimate realities, the offering year after year of these imperfect sacrifices cannot bring perfection to those who come forward to worship. If they had served this purpose, wouldn't the repetition of these sacrifices have become unnecessary?...These sacrifices actually remind us that we sin again and again, year after year. In the end, the blood of bulls and of goats is powerless to take away sins"
Picture this: the worshippers come to the temple everyday, greet the priest they see everyday and hand him their daily sacrifice. He goes in, takes care of business, and comes out. "See you tomorrow, " they say to each other as they part ways. Just that scene is a clear reason why we need a once-and-for-all solution to this sin problem. I wonder if these people groaned, ached with the painful knowledge that these sacrifices, while required by God, would never be enough to thoroughly and actually cleanse their hearts and free them from the burden of sin. God asks of us obedience, and a contrite heart...steeped in the knowledge that no earthly action or routine of our own will ever be sufficient to heal our broken souls.
"In the first covenant, every day every priest stands at his post serving, offering over and over those same sacrifices that can never take away sin. But after the Liberator stepped up to offer His single sacrifice for sins for all time, He sat down in the position of honor at the right hand of God...When there is forgiveness such as this, there is no longer any need to make an offering for sin."
From the letter to the Hebrews, chapters 9 & 10
In this Christmas season, Easter must not be far from our minds. God willingly, lovingly, and joyfully sent His only Son to earth. He entered as any man would, in the form of an infant. He came and lived to fully know the human experience. And He came and lived with the full knowledge of His ultimate purpose.
He was born to die. He came to serve as the only atonement that we would ever need. How his heart must have broken as he looked upon the people he loved and lived among, knowing how deeply they needed the healing that only He could offer. But how his heart must have rejoiced knowing that the generations of partial sacrifice could end. How his heart must rejoice now to see that His mission to earth, from babe to grave to resurrection, was not in vain. And he calls at this time, from a cradle in the hay, to those who will hear and respond. He calls to come, join Him in the truest way of life.
Come, follow the baby who brings us peace and grace.
