Holiest of Holies

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.

the one about race

first it was going to be a post about obama. and how historic this moment is in our country. i was just going to write about how heartened i was to see a candidate who my neighbors believed in. but then it became something more.

this past may i attended a conference and one of the workshops was entitled "would jesus vote?" this was my question. we examined isaiah 61.1 and asked which candidate would truly be a leader who would preach good news to the poor and bind up the brokenhearted. we argued over what that might mean and look like in our country and world today and asked if it was even possible within the social structures we have created. mostly i listened. i was troubled, as i usually am with political debate. politics is politics, i knew. talk is cheap, until the votes come in. and then....well, then, the winner will do what the winner wants to do. maybe its from living in new orleans, maybe not--i feel we have little recourse when it comes to holding our leaders accountable. furthermore, it is easy for me to postulate what one candidate could do versus another. but looking deeper i realized the privilege that even comes with being able to ask that question. i wondered who my neighbors would vote for. i wondered why they should even care. i wondered what those issues were that would inform their decision. the workshop left me partly discouraged and partly encouraged. i knew that politicians werent speaking to my neighbors. it's common sense really, you make promises to the people who will vote. so in a democracy, the people who dont vote are nearly as good as invisible. and essentially powerless. that was the discouraging part. the encouragement came in the vision that began to grow of the empowerment that could take place among my neighbors. imagine if they had a voice, imagine if they rallied together about the things that mattered. i think its easy to think that nothing matters to my neighbors. but do they know that they could possess the power to effect the things that matter? have they ever been told that THEY, in fact, matter?

so, barack obama. and my neighbors. i think that my neighbors truly saw a bit of themselves in obama...or perhaps a bit of what they could imagine themselves aspiring to be. forget the fact that perhaps obama's achievements and successes could have been the same as any white candidate. it was the fact that he is black AND had those successes that connected with my neighbors. it was like they were finally willing to believe the cliche that they've perhaps never been told--you can be anything you want to be. let's be honest--a person cannot be anything they want to be by simply wanting it to be. and without resources or encouragement, its hard getting it to be a reality. so as it came down to the wire, i was more confident in my decision for obama specifically because he seemed to be the candidate of my neighbors. no i didnt base my choice solely on that fact...but it mattered to me that this was someone they could believe in. it mattered to me that it suddenly mattered enough for them to want to vote. it mattered to me that this was someone they could relate to, feel comfortable representing them as americans. that mattered to them, so it mattered to me.

and then, he won. and the historical significance is not to be understated. he's the first black president of america. he will be the face of america to the world. and the majority of voting americans chose him. that is big.

i heard some analysts talking the morning-after about which came first: the chicken (obama getting elected) or the egg (the change in attitude of america). one guy made the point that blacks have always in this country had to work twice as hard to prove they are just as good as whites. and that is precisely one of the things that obama had done. i think he is extremely qualified to be president, though i wouldnt wish the job on my worst enemy, but are we not just a little bit more impressed because he is such an accomplished black man? with the same credentials and hope-laden rhetoric, and white skin, would we be just as impressed? or is his brand of hope somehow more believable, and less political, because his black-ness represents something beyond what we've seen in america?

this evening i went to see "the secret life of bees." i did not know anything about the movie, nor the novel, though had heard it was good. i dont want to give away too much because i think you all should go see it. but i will tell you i cried like a baby. perhaps because i saw it this week, after watching history being made in my own living room, or because i'm constantly surrounded by people who dont look like me. whatever the reason, the racial theme of the story resonated with me. i found the characters wholly believeable and maybe it was a glimpse into the civil rights era that i had never seen before. but i cried. i cried because of what was happening to the characters and the injustices they faced. i cried because then with the passage of the civil rights act, and now with the election of our first black president, these acts can be mere formalities without the commitment to reconciliation and long-term change in attitude. i cried because i know that there are people in our country, our country which we are so proud of at this moment, who might do the very same thing to their darker-skinned neighbors today. i cried because we are so far from equality, and in the moments when it sinks in deep enough to overwhelm me, all i can do is cry.

shelby steele wrote a compelling article in which he says: It is an American cultural habit to endure our racial tensions by periodically alighting on little islands of fresh hope and idealism. But true reform, like the civil rights victories of the '60s, never happens until people become exhausted with their suffering. Then they don't care who the president is.
and that made me wonder if we are yet truly exhausted with our suffering, or even truly aware of our neighbor's suffering.

i dont know what the historians will say about this moment in 10 years, 20 years, 40 years. i dont know how the landscape of racial attitudes will change in america in the next 4 years. but i do know that black men are still killing black men in my neighborhood, and neighborhoods like mine across america. attitudes of inferiority and hate have permeated minds and culture and have become ingrained. the lies of inequality have been believed and internalized. i know that i have privilege in my neighborhood, in my city, in my country, simply because of the color of my skin. i know that my neighbors believe that this is as good as it's going to get.

but i also believe that the differences among us serve to make us stronger. i pray that we choose to believe what is true about ourselves instead of what is false. i hope that we are not so intimidated by being created in the image of God to embrace the truth that, in fact, our neighbors have been created in that same image as well. i also know that the promise of a Beloved Community is true, firm, and real. i know that one day we will see it in full and we will not recognize ourselves. i know that it is beyond the power of any man, woman, or child to bring about--whether the president of america or the president of the block club. i have seen glimpses of it here and by the grace of God i hope that you catch those glimpses too.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:22-25)

it's really hitting me now. next sunday will be my last time to attend regular worship at Redeemer for as long as i can tell. its a strange feeling because i'm not leaving the city, yet i will be leaving the body, the community, that i have worshipped with for the past 2 years. i have never been a part of a church body for that long, ever.

if you had told me, before i came to new orleans, that i would end up in a church that looked like redeemer, i would have told you you were crazy. yet, God is crazier!!! God brought me into this body, this family of believers less than a year after its post-katrina re-start. what struck me and kept me was the people, since you know, they are after all what God uses to build his church here. it was the people--their welcoming spirit, their encouragement, their love for me. it helped that nearly everyone i met there was also a new transplant to the city. but the way God answered my prayers through this body has been amazing. i have grown deeper in my relationship with God and in my ability to love this city because of Redeemer Presbyterian Church--without a doubt. i never really knew what a presbyterian was before i got here; now i am proud to align myself with this group of people. were it not for my Redeemer family, i probably would not have stayed in New Orleans beyond my first-year commitment.

at the same time, i have been part of God's work planting a new church in the 8th ward. being part of St. Roch is so exciting to me and has also provided so many answers to my prayers. this is a body and a family like i have never known--the Lord is so good!!!

at first, it all worked out so nicely--Redeemer in the morning and St. Roch in the evening. but now, the inevitable has come. our sanctuary at st roch is nearly completed and we will be moving to morning services beginning on oct 25. less than 2 weeks away! while i will still participate in redeemer community group and hope for my friendships to continue to grow and flourish, for me it means the end of corporate worship with my Redeemer family. this saddens me very deeply. at times when i have left the city, i have felt a tangible separation from the community that the Lord has given me here. one of the most beautiful things i have witnessed in my 2+ years of living here was the service at Redeemer on the sunday following hurricane gustav. i cant explain it but being reunited with that group of people, and being reminded of God's sovereignty, grace, and beauty in all the unexplainables of our world moved me deeply.

none of this is to discredit my commitment or love for my st. roch church family--i know there is much excitement and anticipation for all that is to come, but for now i am very sad that i have just one sunday left with my redeemer family.

it's not just a game

how can i explain this to make you understand? if you are a part of the demographic who grew up with a strong loyalty to a particular team in a particular city that, some might say, exceeds normal fan-ness, then i dont have to explain. and if you were not so lucky then you do require an explanation. because it doesnt make sense, doesnt seem worth it, irrational perhaps. and on most days i would agree. this team owes me nothing, i have done nothing to contribute to their success on the field and honestly most days when the final out is recorded, i can leave it at that. but those are the days when there is a tomorrow . those are the days when that game didnt end all the hopes for that season.

and this season has been different. this has been the first season in a long time that i actually followed for most of the year. i really felt a part of the movement this year, even after having been a fan for 26 years. this is not just something i decided one day to go along with; this was a condition that i was born into. inheritance, genetics, whatever--there was no avoiding it.

and this season was different not just because of me but because it was really happening. they had their best season in a long time . they had the best record in the national league. everyday was a new hero. and now, its all over. this team was favored to WIN the world series. you dont just build up hope and expectation like that without having some sort of effect on people. when it doesnt happen, its a major let down.

no i've never met these athletes and no i probably never will. but they poured their heart and soul out onto the field every game for the last 160+ games. it's just so hard to wrap my mind around what we watched over the past few days. how did it all go so terribly wrong? caring about this is no longer in the realm of something i've chosen. i care, and i'm not sorry that i care. like when a good friend lets you down, i feel it. it makes me sad. it is baseball AND it is something serious. no i havent lost my appetite and no i havent given up on life. though i'm sure there are some who have and i understand that completely.

so if you dont understand, dont say anything. dont ask questions or attempt to lessen the significance to the affected party. this too, sigh, shall pass. wounds will heal and next year we'll try again. but this one really hurt and the memory of a cubs fan can be a dangerous thing.

nonstop action!!

well, if you're still keeping track of my movements then you hopefully figured out that i made it back to new orleans safely on friday afternoon. it was smooth sailing the whole time, no traffic problems. thanks again to all who sent their well wishes and thoughts and prayers and encouragement while i was in evacuation mode. while we tried to lighten the mood, there were many many tense moments. i'm sending out my love in thanks all over!!!

as soon as i got back i got to packing up all my stuff to move over to the new apartment, which i had intended to do last weekend. i am really amazed at how quickly it all happened!! needless to say i couldnt have done it all without some amazing help from my church family--they really did all the big heavy stuff, i sort of meandered around trying to give instructions =) my stuff is slowly making its way out of bags, boxes, and piles into some sort of order in the new apartment, but it will be a slow process i'm afraid.

all this and we're also keeping an eye on hurricane ike!!!! i really hope it stays away from us. i've been thinking a lot about haiti, with all these recent storms. we think here that we are somehow immune from a second storm after we've been hit by one but there's no reason why we're out of harm's way. haiti has been hit by gustav, hanna, AND ike. i think it probably got hit by fay last month too! anyway, i recently finished reading "mountains beyond mountains" which tells some of paul farmer's story of starting several health clinics in rural haiti and his philosophy of preferential treatment for the poor. this is not intended to be a book report, though i highly recommend it, but rather a backdrop for my thoughts on the country. we talk about how katrina revealed poverty and brokenness in new orleans but as i was reminded by reading the partners in health website, haiti never had any levees to hold water back. while its bad when the levees fail, imagine if we never had any kind of structure to keep the waters away. and talk about a foundation of poverty and no infrastructure--while new orleans seems like third world sometimes, it is still a part of the world's richest country. haiti is probably a lot farther down on the list...