Tag Archives: Hebrews 9

The Sober Truth

March 14, 2022 Tom Vander Well 4 Comments

Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many…
Hebrews 9:27-28a (NIV)

This past week I began listening to an audiobook recommended by a friend, entitled Imagine Heaven by John Burke. The author was a self-avowed skeptic who spent some 30 years gathering and studying stories from all over the world of those who have had a Near Death Experience (NDE); Individuals who were clinically dead, briefly experienced what comes next, and then were sent back.

Here’s the truth: I’m dying. I’m not sure I could begin my week with a more sobering observation, but it is true. According to the scientists who study these things, I reached the pinnacle of my physical development between 25 (muscle strength) and 30 (bone mass). From that point forward, despite the fact that I am probably more fit for my age than I was back then, my body is in slow but steady decline. Fortunately, the mind, psyche, and spirit can still grow and develop through the life journey despite my brain processing power peaking at age 18. Nevertheless, I cannot escape the fact that my body is making a persistent and irreversible descent towards death.

In today’s chapter, the author of Hebrews continues to compare the covenant and sacrificial system that God prescribed for Moses and the Hebrew people to the new covenant established by Jesus through His sacrificial death. At the beginning of the Great Story, Adam and Eve’s sin ushered in the reality of death:

“By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
    and to dust you will return.”
Genesis 3:19 (NIV)

From the beginning, humanity has, by and large, fought death, feared death, and sought to escape death. Along my life journey, I’ve observed that most people living a life of relative wealth, freedom, and affluence tend to distract themselves from thinking about it at all. Some are so enamored with the distractions that their indulgence leads to the very thing they were trying to distract themselves from thinking about. Then I’ve observed a few are so dissatisfied, wearied, or wounded that they prefer death to empty distractions.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about death as a follower of Jesus. Today’s chapter lays out quite plainly that Jesus suffered His horrific death in fulfillment of a once-and-for-all sacrifice that not only made Moses’ old sacrificial system obsolete, it completely transforms my perception of death. Jesus taught that death is the gateway to Life. Death is no longer something I need to fight but something to welcome. It is no longer something to fear, but to celebrate. It is no longer something to escape, but to embrace. The many testimonies of those who experience NDEs concur. One of the common themes of those who were given a taste of heaven is the fact that they didn’t want to come back.

If I truly believe what I say I believe, and death is not something I need to fear or ignore via distraction, how does that inform what I do with my life today? For me, I find that it frees me to live more intentionally with the eternal in mind. My physical descent towards earthly death is ultimately leading toward an ascent to eternal life. My purpose each day on this earthly path of descent is to love God with everything I’ve got while loving others as I love myself as Jesus laid out as the way of trust, lament, humility, justice, compassion, right motive, peacemaking, surrender, and radical love.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Foreshadowing

July 13, 2017 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own.Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.
Hebrews 9:24-26 (NIV)

Foreshadowing is a literary term that refers to a device in storytelling both in print and in film.

Those who read the first book in the Harry Potter series would have completely glossed over a reference made at the very beginning of the book when the giant, Hagrid, delivers an infant Harry via flying motorcycle to Dumbledore on Privet Dr. When asked where he got the flying motorcycle Hagrid says he borrowed it from “young Sirius Black.” We don’t find out until book three just how important Sirius Black was to the entire story arc of the Harry Potter epic. That’s foreshadowing.

If you watch Star Wars epic there’s a moment when Anakin’s mother is kidnapped by the Sand People and Anakin’s hatred overtakes him. Listen carefully to the music playing underneath the scene and you’ll hear Darth Vader’s theme woven into the score. That’s foreshadowing.

I continue to run into people who want to ignore, discount, or dismiss all of the ancient books that we commonly refer to as The Old Testament. These dear individuals limit their reading and study to the Jesus’ story and the letters of Paul. Some even argue that “it’s all you need.” That’s like saying you only need to watch Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope (the original 1977 film) because everything you need to know is contained therein. If all I watch is episode IV I have no idea who Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader really are!!If I ignore Jesus’ back story, laid out across the Old Testament, I lack a full understanding of who Jesus really is. In doing so, I limit my own spiritual journey.

That’s what the author of Hebrews is trying to unpack for his/her readers in today’s chapter. Just like a veiled reference to Sirius Black in the opening chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone or a hint of the Darth Vader theme in Star Wars Episode III, the system of sacrifice given through Moses around 1400 years before Jesus was an earthly foreshadowing what God was going to do, and did do, on a cosmic level through Jesus. The Moses system contained a secret place where God was present that was veiled by a giant, thick curtain. Only the High Priest could enter via the sacrificial blood spilled to atone for sins. Jesus’ sacrificial death, His innocent blood spilled, made atonement “once for all” that we could have access to God’s presence. That’s why Luke (the author of Jesus’ biography, not Skywalker) is so careful to reference that when Jesus’ died the temple curtain was torn in two:

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. Luke 23:44-46 (NIV)

This morning I’m once again awed and appreciative of the layers of theme and narrative that God weaves into this Great Story. Last night Wendy and I sat on our back patio and marveled together at some of those layers, and how they foreshadow our very own lives and personal story! That’s the cool part. The Great Story is still unfolding, and our very lives are a part of it.

And so begins a new day in the Great Story. A story constantly unfolding in each moment of each day.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Hebrews 9

March 9, 2012 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment. Hebrews 9:27 (NLT)

We are all going to die.

Sorry to be Debbie Downer on a Friday morning, but it’s true. You and I are both going to die. Our ticket’s getting punched. Our number will come up. The sand is running out in the hourglass.

The physical death of our body is a certain reality that most of us like to avoid thinking about. Many years ago I spent a few years as a pastor. I befriended the director of the local funeral home and told him that if ever he ran into a family who had no particular faith background and didn’t have anyone to conduct a funeral, to give me a call. The phone rang regularly. I did a lot of funerals.

It’s always interesting to observe people when there’s a dead body in the room. Conversation is typically hushed and somewhat awkward. You see a lot of glassy stares. There’s a lot of people looking at the floor. There’s a lot of sadness. There’s also a lot of confusion and anxiety and denial. But, I never found that such a bad thing.

Facing the hard facts of autumn cause us to prepare for a long winter in anticipation of the following spring. Facing the hard facts of death cause us to prepare for the judgment that awaits each one of us in anticipation of the eternity beyond.