Lent Day Ten
“Meeting with our radically superior High Priest”
Hebrews 10:11-18 The Passion Translation
10 By God’s will we have been purified and made holy once and for all through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus, the Messiah!
11 Yet every day priests still serve, ritually offering the same sacrifices again and again—sacrifices that can never take away sin’s guilt.
12 But when this Priest had offered the one supreme sacrifice for sins for all time, he sat down on a throne at the right hand of God,
13 waiting until all his whispering enemies are subdued and turn into his footstool.
14 And by his one perfect sacrifice he made us perfectly holy and complete for all time!
15 The Holy Spirit confirms this to us by this Scripture, for the Lord says,
16 “Afterwards, I will give them this covenant: I will embed my laws into their hearts and fasten my Word to their thoughts.”
17 And then he says, “I will not ever again remember their sins and lawless deeds!”
18 So if our sins have been forgiven and forgotten, why would we ever need to offer another sacrifice for sin? .
In the opening chapter of the letter to the Hebrews, the author points to Jesus as the full expression of the very character of God – the One who is superior in every way to everything Jewish people held dear through their priestly system of worship. Here in Chapter Ten, the writer again emphasises the theme of Jesus’ supremacy, directly calling back to Old Testament Scripture, and revealing how God’s promise for a new and eternal covenant with his people has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. To use a modern summary, the author shouts out across the millennia: ‘Listen! This new way of living with Jesus our Messiah is far better!’
Here in our daily passage, the writer quotes from the book of Jeremiah 31:33-34. Around 600 years prior, the prophet Jeremiah prophesied to God’s people who were living in exile that one day, everything was going to change for the better. Back then, God declared to make a new way of being for his people, one that would be unshackled from the burdensome requirement for the priesthood to continually offer blood sacrifices to temporarily cover sin.
Through this new promised way, God himself would embed his word deep into their beings, by means of his Holy Spirit. The writer to the Hebrews affirms that now, through Jesus Christ, God himself has supplied both the sacrifice and become the High Priest – all in order to cover sin and set his people free, once and for all, in a radically surprising way.
So, friend, whether you have encountered good or bad human priests and religious systems, this passage points us to the radically superior High Priest, Jesus Christ. With compassion, Jesus cries out to God on behalf of all who have been burdened by religion:
‘I am he – the One you have all been waiting for! I am offering you a superior way of living – a way of being that is fully forgiven, pure and holy. As your reigning High Priest, I am seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for you. I have covered your sin with my own blood, and through this new covenant, you do not need to cover your own shame anymore. Meet with me and keep persevering, because I am the best, and the best is yet to come!’
Throughout this Lenten season, may we meet with our radically superior High Priest – the Lord Jesus Christ who is the perfect mediator between God and humanity – the merciful and faithful One who offered himself as the sacrifice to cover our sin, now and forevermore.
Lynda Wake
LYNDA WAKE serves with Wycliffe Australia and is a regular blogger and devotional writer for Wycliffe Today. Lynda has spoken and ministered around the world in her role with Wycliffe, and as an ambassador for CBM (Christian Blind Mission) on behalf of her daughter Bethany’s legacy.