Done--August 17, 2021

Done--August 17, 2021

"And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since then has been waiting until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feat. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified." [Hebrews 10:11-14]

Jesus "sat down," not because he was tired, but because he is done.

That's good news, according to the writer of Hebrews, because it means Christ's work is complete.  Finished.  Accomplished.  Done--in the sense that it cannot be undone.  Jesus doesn't let himself get caught sitting down on the job, so if you catch him seated, it must mean that the work is done.

We've heard something like this already from this book, so maybe this is a moment to ask: just what is it that we think Jesus has accomplished? What is it that is complete and irreversibly accomplished?  How is it that the universe really is a different place, given the way the world looks?

I ask these questions with the cynicism that my generation has learned as we have come of age, when so many times we had been told by Authoritative Voices that things would at long last be different... only to see the tired old ways come crawling back.  At the end of the Cold War, it was touted for a while that we had reached "the end of history"--as if to say, there would be no more struggle, no more war, no more brewing tensions between superpowers, because a clear winner had emerged.  That was not so--old animosities were replaced with new ones, and it turns out that the old ones just came back with different branding.  

We have lived through seemingly unending wars.  And even now, as headlines lament the fall of the Afghan government and the end of the U.S. military presence there while the Taliban takes power once again, it occurs to me that nearly half of my life has come and gone with our armed forces fighting this particular war.  Not just a war, or several wars, but twenty years of this particular war, as we watched cities captured by armies wearing American flags, and then have seen those same cities retaken by other flags.  I can only imagine the feelings of desperate frustration and futility of friends and acquaintances I know who have given years of their lives in active military service during those decades, seeing things that seemed "accomplished" become undone before their eyes.

So, forgive my skepticism, but I have lived through an awful lot of times when someone said, "It's complete--finished!" only to discover that it wasn't really time to sit down.  I can't help but ask the question, then, of Jesus as well:  what is it that Jesus has accomplished that cannot be undone?

And maybe the follow-up, is whatever Jesus has accomplished really and truly irreversible? I ask because I have lived through too many times where something touted as "foolproof" wasn't able to withstand my own foolishness.  Is Jesus' offering of his own life somehow even able to withstand my own blundering, my own persistent selfishness, and my own way of getting myself into new trouble?

The writer of Hebrews says, Yes.

Yes, Jesus' accomplished work ends the need for anybody to offer anything to restore relationship with God for my sake.  That is over and done.  In other words, there is nothing I can do to make God's love let go of me.  There is nothing else left for me or anybody else to do to complete the deal--it is sealed and done.  There is nothing I can forget or fail at that will reverse God's fiercely faithful commitment to me--and to all of us.  Not even my own rejection of God's love will undo God's insistence on loving me.

That means, to ask an old question, if someone wonders, "Can a person lose their salvation?" the writer of Hebrews comes down hard on the side of a loud and clear, "No."  You can't undo what Jesus has already accomplished.  Like the cry from the cross, "It is finished," these verses from Hebrews insist that Jesus has done something to restore us to God regardless of whether we think anybody else is worthy of such a gift, and even regardless of whether I think I myself am worthy.  God has taken the initiative and accomplished it all without needing my help for the heavy lifting, and without needing me to approve of the plan.  Done is done, and Jesus' work is done.

And if that is true, then maybe the only real question left is the one I have heard attributed to the late theologian Gerhard Forde, who framed it this way: "What are you going to do now that you don't HAVE to do anything?"  If I don't have to waste my energy, worry, time, or resources trying to make God like me when God already loves me, then, my goodness, I am free to stop worrying about points for myself and am free to love the people around me, gracefully and with reckless abandon.

The world is going to keep making empty promises to us of things it says are "done" once and for all, which keep needing to be redone or recaptured or remade or repaired.  Save yourself some heartache and stop believing them when they say those missions are accomplished.  But all the same, remember, too, that Jesus' work really is done, and that there is nothing on God's green earth--or anywhere else, for that matter--that can reverse what Jesus has completed for you and for me.

Done is done.  Thank God.

Lord Jesus, thank you--all we can do is to say thank you back for all you have done for us, accomplished once and for all in Jesus.  Now, let us use this day and this life for the sake of others whom you love.