Jesus Sits

I'm reading Hebrews in my time with the Lord right now. I'm also attempting to lead our church small group through it, although I must say I am doing so with mixed results. It's a new group and I've done such an average job of leading that I'm afraid to tell them that I train small group leaders for a living.

Hebrews is one of the hardest books of the Bible to understand. It's also sometimes called "the fifth gospel" because it focuses so much on the person and work of Jesus Christ. The first few chapters have made for surprisingly good Advent reading. Preparing for Christmas in the midst of everything that leads up to Christmas takes a lot of work for me.

One of the things that Hebrews is big on is that Jesus is sitting. The author (whoever he or she might be, no one's quite sure) mentions it throughout the book. Jesus does all this crazy stuff and then he sits down.

One of the dominant compare/contrasts that the author of Hebrews works throughout the book is Jesus as compared to the Old Testament high priests. The high priests are the religious leaders who offered sacrifices on behalf of the Jewish people, the most significant being the sacrifice on the day of atonement.

I once heard a sermon on this whole idea of Jesus sitting in Hebrews. The speaker was pointing out that in the Old Testament we have a pretty detailed description of the temple and there was no place for the high priests to sit. There were no chairs in the temple. That's because the work of the high priest was never, ever done. There were always more sacrifices to be offered. Every week, every month, every year the sacrifices had to be made over and over and over again.

So here's where it gets good: Jesus is the high priest who sits down. It is finished. There is no more sacrifice to be made for sin. Not for my sin. Not for your sin. Sin and death no longer have the last word. Jesus does. Life does. No one has to do anything more to take care of our guilt, our shame, or our regret. We don't have to try to work it off or perform better to try to make up for what we've done. We don't need someone else to present a sacrifice for us. Jesus is Lord over all things and so Jesus sits. Hope wins.

Jesus sits. Good news for you and for me this week as we start a new week and a new month that culminates in the celebration of the birth of our Great High Priest who loves us and who died to take care of all of our junk for us.