The early Christians who received the message of the Book of Hebrews were struggling with their faith. It was hard to live faithfully in a world that didn’t support them, mocked them, even arrested and killed them. They had received and accepted the truth about Jesus’s death on the cross paying for their sins and His resurrection giving them new life. They had turned their lives over to Christ and walked in a new way with Him. But it got hard. It became challenging. They struggled with their faith, and some considered walking away from it and going back to their old way of life in Judaism.
The Book of Hebrews, perhaps a letter or perhaps a sermon, warned them against abandoning their Christian faith. A high view of Jesus is presented throughout the book, arguing for His superiority over all other paths that attempt to know God. Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant, a new way of knowing and relating to God. And this new covenant is superior in every way to anything any of them had ever known or experienced previously.
It seems strange to us that they would consider walking away from Jesus and re-engage with their Jewish way of life. After all, it’s quite easy for me to see the advantages of a life with Christ. But I have the privilege of a perspective informed by the faithful witness of generations who walked that path before me. I have the advantage of a church community that supports me and resources that encourage my spiritual growth. They struggled without those things, wondering if it was all going to be worth it.
The answer the author provides, highlighted in today’s passage, is that only through Christ’s death on the cross can we truly be forgiven. It is His blood that makes us clean and His resurrected life in us that give us new life. It is the Holy Spirit that empowers us to live faithful lives that honor God. My challenges may differ from the challenges they faced. But I never want to forget the truth of this passage: In Christ my life is whole and complete. There is no other person or system that can do that for me.