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The book of Hebrews is one of the most powerful and one of the most complicated books in the New Testament. The difficulty comes from being tightly organized and closely argued — almost every verse in it connects thematically to other verses. So understanding one passage often requires reading many others. It is also difficult because it assumes detailed knowledge of the Old Testament and the Jewish priesthood. So our journey in Hebrews these four evenings will be somewhat challenging. We don’t have time to do all the helpful background work and these services are not the right setting for intensive Bible study.

Nonetheless, I wanted to work in Hebrews this week because I think it can teach us some important things about encountering Christ. That has been our theme throughout Lent. Now the encounters this week are not tied to a particular story like Jesus and the woman at the well. These encounters have more to do with the nature of Jesus as both human and divine. We’re going to encounter Christ in four ways: through Mystery, through Redemption, through Hope, and through Perseverance. Let’s begin now with Mystery and we’ll turn to a few verses in Hebrews 4.

Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

There are at least three mysteries in this text and the first is the mystery of the heavens. The text affirms that Jesus is a great high priest who “has passed through the heavens.” That’s a strange phrase. None of the half dozen commentaries I read gave a satisfactory explanation of what the author of Hebrews meant. There is mystery here.

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for heaven is shamayim and what’s interesting about that is that it is always plural, the –im suffix being how the Hebrew language generally forms plural words. So frequently, but not always, the Old Testament word shamayim is translated as heavens, not heaven.[1] This may be one reason why the mythology arose that there were several heavens — seven seems to be the preferred number. For example, the non-biblical book of 2 Enoch, which was written about the same time as the book of Hebrews, describes in detail a journey through seven heavens.[2]

Is this the kind of journey Hebrews had in mind for Jesus? Can the distance between us and God only be described by talking about multiple heavens through which it is difficult if not impossible for humans to pass, only Jesus being able to do it? The writer of Hebrews makes many comparisons of Jesus as High Priest to the Jewish high priest. In order for the Jewish high priest to make atonement, he only needed to pass through the veil of the tent or temple. But Jesus goes unimaginably farther by passing through the heavens. Therefore, he is greater than a human high priest.[3] Is this what Hebrews means by Jesus passing through the heavens?

There is a mystery here and the mystery is even more acute for us moderns? Where is heaven? Ever had a child ask you that? How did you answer? Is it far away, separated by seven heavens? You see, we still think and talk in mythological terms. We think and speak of heaven as up and hell as down. But we know they are not up or down. Where are these spiritual realities and what did Jesus pass through?

Many of us are old enough to remember April 12, 1961 when the Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space. During his orbit of earth, according to the Soviet media, he said, “I don’t see any god up here.” It’s interesting to note that no such words appear in the verbatim record of Gagarin’s conversations with Earth during his spaceflight.[4]

But whether he said it or not — it was more likely a statement from a Soviet propaganda officer — the statement was much mocked by preachers around the world. Even my own gentle pastor took a potshot at it. “Of course, you can’t see God from space!” the preachers said.

Okay, but where is God, then? If heaven isn’t up, where is it? The mystery is not just at the level of a child’s question or a propaganda officer’s gibe. The mystery really has to do with how the spiritual interacts with the physical, created order and that mystery abides. There are no simple answers.

A second and related mystery in the text is how the divine and the human interact. The text says, “Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God.” We are so used to that phrase we miss the mystery. How is it that Jesus, a human, is also the Son of God? And once more we get sloppy in our speaking and thinking. We talk about God the Father being up there (wherever there is) and Jesus being down here. Then in the Ascension Jesus goes up there. Eventually we throw in the Holy Spirit somehow. Is it any wonder that Christians are sometimes accused by Jews or Unitarians of having three gods? Functionally that appears to be the case and many think that way. And yet the bedrock of our faith is to say, along with our Jewish sisters and brothers, “The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” (Deuteronomy 6.5) The divine and the human, brought together in Jesus. More mystery.

But the third and greatest mystery in the text is that despite the mystery, despite the things that we can never understand, God is not far from us. In fact, we can, the writer claims, come right up to the throne of God, not cowering in fear but boldly, and we can “find grace to help in time of need.”[5] This is the mystery that the text actually seeks to answer. We can come to God boldly because Christ stands with us.

Alice Walker, the African-American author of The Color Purple and many other books, tells a story that illustrates, I think, what it means to have someone standing with us.

In the mid-1960s during a voter registration campaign in south Georgia, Alice’s canvassing partner, Beverly, a local black teenager, was arrested on a bogus moving-violation charge. This was obviously meant to intimidate her and terrify her family. So Alice and others fearing for her safety during the night, held a vigil outside the jail. Alice remembers the raw vulnerability they felt as the swaggering state troopers stomped in and out of the building. The feeling of solidarity with Beverly and her friends was strong, but so was the feeling of being alone. They were black and very young and in the Sixties in the South not much attention was paid to the deaths of such as they. It was partly because of this that they sometimes resented the presence of white people who came to stand, and take their chances, with them. Alice admits that she was one of those to whom such resentment came easily.

She especially resented blond Paul from Minnesota, whose Aryan appearance meant, when he was not with them, freedom and acceptance. Alice had been very cool to him. She certainly did not invite him to the vigil. And yet, at just the moment they felt most downhearted, they heard someone coming along, whistling. A moment later Paul appeared. Still whistling a Movement spiritual that sounded strange, even comical, on his lips. He calmly took his place beside them. Knowing his Nordic presence meant a measure of safety for them, he offered it, without being asked. Alice remarked that this was as bright a moment as any she remembers from that time.[6]

The mystery is that Jesus comes alongside of us, unasked. And he offers more than a measure of safety. He stands with us all the way through the mysteries to the throne of God. Like Alice resented Paul, we can sometimes can resent that we need Jesus. But that’s why we need to go into the dark during Holy Week because only then can we see our true condition. Our text tonight is built on the two verses just before; “The word of God is living and active…; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before [God] no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.” (Hebrews 4.12-13)

Only going into the darkness of our own souls can help us see that. And then comes good news! Easter will come. But we can’t get there without going through Good Friday.

Jesus stands with us, unasked. So even in the mystery, even in the darkness, there is light.

The Scottish poet and pastor, George Macdonald (1824-1905), sensed this when he wrote the beautiful words which have brought comfort to so many:

Because Jesus stands with us, even in mystery, even in darkness we are not far from God. Therefore, my friends, be bold. Have courage. Do not be afraid.

[1] It is said that the concept of successive stages or strata of heaven is nowhere explicitly articulated in the Old Testament. But there are several interesting occurrences. 1 Kings 8.27: But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! Deuteronomy 10.14-15: Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth with all that is in it, yet the Lord set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today. Nehemiah 9.6: And Ezra said: “You are the Lord, you alone; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. To all of them you give life, and the host of heaven worships you. 3 Maccabees 2.15: For your dwelling is the heaven of heavens, unapproachable by human beings. These may be, however, no more than an ordinary Hebrew superlative. George Arthur Buttrick, ed., The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 2 (New York: Abingdon Press, 1962) 552.

[2] James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Volume 1, Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1983) 91. Also see 2 Enoch 3-20.

[3] “Christ not merely ascended up to heaven in the language of space, but transcended the limitations of space. Thus we say that He ‘entered into heaven’ and yet is ‘above the heavens.’” Brooke Foss Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1970) 106.

[4] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin, Internet, 21 Mar. 2005. After his historic flight Gagarin became deputy training director at "Star City,” the cosmonaut facility, where he also worked on designs for a reusable spacecraft. In the process of this, he began to requalify as a fighter pilot. On March 27, 1968 he was killed in a crash of a MiG-15 on a routine training flight near Moscow together with his instructor.

[5] Westcott, 105. “But meanwhile man has his part to do; and as we strive to secure the promised rest we must cling firmly to the confession in which lies the assurance of success.”

[6] Alice Walker, “In Full Bloom,” The Nation, September 20, 2004.