"Now the main point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent that the Lord, and not any mortal, has set up." [Hebrews 8:1-2]
Did you ever get invited to someone's house for, say, a summer backyard picnic or barbecue, and when you ask, "What can I bring?" your hosts simply and gracefully say, "Just yourself"?
I hope you have.
I would like to think that at some point in your life you have been extended such an all-encompassing offer that demands no payment or transaction on your part, but instead prepares everything necessary, simply as a gift. It is a beautiful thing to be shown hospitality like that. Having someone say to you, "Everything is taken care of--we would just like the pleasure of your company," is a statement of pure, unconditional welcome. I hope you have known that in your life so far.
I hear echoes of that same kind of all-sufficient graciousness in these verses that begin what we call Chapter Eight of Hebrews. God has provided everything to make relationship with us possible--nothing is left to us to figure out or set up. Seriously. It's like that line from the hymn, "Great Is Thy Faithfulness," that goes, "All I have needed, thy hand hath provided--great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me." And it's true.
For a while now in this letter (or possibly sermon--we're not sure what form this document first took), the writer of Hebrews has been going to great lengths to show how Jesus embodies a different kind of priesthood from the system that arose in ancient Israel. Jesus, we've seen, doesn't need to keep offering repeated sacrifices, nor any sacrifices for his own sin, and he will never die and leave a need for a replacement. He is both the sacrifice and the presenter of the sacrifice, all in one. And at the bottom of all those claims is the amazing idea that God has provided this Jesus as the reality toward which all those previous generations of frail, fallible, replaceable priests had been pointing all along. In other words, if there's a need for someone to be a mediator between God and humanity, God has already provided it in Jesus. It's not up to us to find someone among us who is up to the task or worthy of the role--God has raised up Jesus precisely because Jesus can be for us what the old priests of the distant past could not be.
So... God provides the person who can fill the role of mediator and priest. But not only that, God builds the meeting place. In the recesses of Israel's ancient memory, the meeting place between God and humanity was a portable temporary structure--basically, a tent--called the tabernacle. And while the Torah says that God gave the directions for how to make it and what it should look like, it was human craftsmen and artisans who built it, and it was human laborers who set it up and took it down as the people moved through the wilderness. But now the writer of Hebrews says that, like the old levitical priesthood, the tabernacle was always meant to point ahead to a different tent--the "true" tent--that God has made.
Notice, of course, that it's not that God needs a canopy from the sun or the rain. God doesn't need a "place" at all, any more than you need a box in your yard to hold the atmosphere. God's being is always beyond our boxes and attempts to contain the divine. God doesn't need a house, a temple, or a tent. We do. We need a sense of "meeting place" because we are finite beings who think and experience reality in terms of "place" and "time" and the relationship between them. So because of our need, God builds the meeting place--again, in Jesus. Jesus is the priest, the sacrifice, and in a sense, the temple itself. He is the point at which we come face to face with God, like the old movable tent the wandering formerly enslaved Israelites set up on their wilderness journey. And, guess what--God is the One who has provided this, too.
Think of it: God is so deeply invested in relating to humanity that God does all the setting up. God makes all the preparations. The table is set. The feast is ready. God has raised up all we need in Jesus--he is the meeting place, the mediator, and the one who feeds us with himself. And as we work up the courage to approach this welcome table of God, should we find ourselves wondering or worrying, "What are we supposed to bring to this grand celebration with God?" the answer will always come back with a gracious smile: "Just yourselves."
Lord God, thank you for providing all we need... in Jesus.
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