Hebrews 4:14-16
Lent 1
Pastor Ron Koehler
Grace—Tucson, AZ
March 6, 2022
My friends in Christ, where do you go for help? Well, that depends on what you need help with, doesn’t it? If you need help sorting through your emotions and your thoughts, you go to a counselor, who, along the way in their education, have sorted through their own. If you don’t even know where to start with managing your money or putting together a budget, you might listen to Dave Ramsey. After all, he was a millionaire who lost it all and had to start over—and is now a multi-millionaire. If you need tax help at this time of the year, you need someone who has been trained in that and has some experience. What if the kids are making you crazy? It’s nice to be able to talk with a mom who has been through that and has come out the other side! In times of need, we search out that person who understands and can help us. What a help it is for us when someone has been there and done that! This is also true when it comes to something far more important than any of those things. The words of God in Hebrews 4 direct us to look at Jesus, to think about his life, and to find the help that comes only from him. There is comfort in knowing that Jesus can help us, in particular when it comes to being tempted to sin. For that reason, we are urged to Go to Jesus when Tempted We don’t know who wrote the letter to the Hebrews, but it is clear that he had a great knowledge of the Old Testament and so did the people he wrote to. Those who received this letter were in the process of abandoning their faith in Christ and the forgiveness and eternal life that comes through him. Instead, they were returning to the laws and ways of the Old Testament, which were only intended to look ahead to the Savior and to prepare people to see Jesus as that Savior. This helps us to understand why Jesus is referred to here as the great high priest. Throughout this letter, the author talks about important things from the Old Testament and then explains that Jesus is better than those things. For example, Jesus is superior to Moses. He is the better sacrifice than all those made under the law. He is also a better priest—and this is how: The priests had to make sacrifices for their sins and for the sins of the people. This had to go on day after day, year after year. But Jesus was better than all of that. He was both the priest—the one who offered the ultimate sacrifice for sin—AND he was the ultimate sacrifice for sin. Perfect priest. Perfect sacrifice. And so, he is called here the great high priest. Jesus spent his entire earthly life defeating every temptation that was thrown at him by Satan and sinful people. At the end, he offered himself on the cross as the sacrifice for sin. The sacrifice was perfect because his life was perfect. Then he defeated death. After his resurrection, he ascended into heaven—or as it says here, he has gone through the heavens. Now Jesus, the Son of God, sits on his heavenly throne.