Hebrews 11:32-12:2a
We live in an in-between time. For Christians, this is the time between Jesus’ ascension in the past and His return at an unknown point in the future. Life for disciples of Jesus is always a time of waiting and watching...and sometimes, of impatience.
The preacher of Hebrews, from which our second Bible lesson comes this afternoon, was addressing a group of people who felt the burden of life in that in-between time.
The preacher of Hebrews, from which our second Bible lesson comes this afternoon, was addressing a group of people who felt the burden of life in that in-between time.
They were Jews--Hebrews--who had come to faith in Jesus.
By faith, they trusted that Jesus is the Savior Who frees from sin, death, and futility all who trust in Him.
By faith, they were certain too, that one day, Jesus would return and make all things in this fallen world right, judging the living and the dead and raising up all who persevere in turning away from sin and death and turning to Him for life.
These Jewish Christians also likely knew about the things that Jesus said would precede His return and likely thought something like, “Earthquakes. Check. Famines. Check. Wars and rumors of wars. Check” and asked, “What’s taking Jesus so long? Why is He making us live in this in-between time?” After the tragedies in El Paso and Dayton in the past twenty-four hours, we may be wondering the same thing: “What’s taking Jesus so long?”
It was to Christians with questions like these that the apostle Peter wrote, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) Disciples of Jesus living in the time before Jesus’ return aren’t meant to obsess over God’s timeline. We’re meant to fulfill Christ’s calling on our lives, on the life of the Church. We’re to be and to make disciples. God means for that to be our singular obsession!
These Jewish Christians also likely knew about the things that Jesus said would precede His return and likely thought something like, “Earthquakes. Check. Famines. Check. Wars and rumors of wars. Check” and asked, “What’s taking Jesus so long? Why is He making us live in this in-between time?” After the tragedies in El Paso and Dayton in the past twenty-four hours, we may be wondering the same thing: “What’s taking Jesus so long?”
It was to Christians with questions like these that the apostle Peter wrote, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) Disciples of Jesus living in the time before Jesus’ return aren’t meant to obsess over God’s timeline. We’re meant to fulfill Christ’s calling on our lives, on the life of the Church. We’re to be and to make disciples. God means for that to be our singular obsession!
But, we can get impatient watching and waiting for Jesus to return. And our impatience will likely grow if we get pressured by others to turn from Christ. Many scholars believe that the Jewish Christians to whom the book of Hebrews is addressed were facing pressure from the Roman Empire to renounce Christ and return to Judaism. The Romans viewed the Christian proclamation of Jesus as the Lord and the Son of God as a threat to the emperor who they also called “Lord” and the “Son of God.”
The preacher in Hebrews encourages the Jewish Christians to stand fast, to cling to Christ and not be intimidated by the Romans. The Romans could take away their lives on earth; but only Christ could give them life with God that never ends, making Roman threats irrelevant. “So do not throw away your confidence,” the preacher says in Hebrews 10:35, referring to faith in Christ. “it will be richly rewarded.” These words echo those of Jesus Himself, in Matthew 24:13: “...the one who endures [in faith] to the end will be saved.”
To encourage the Jewish Christians he was addressing, the preacher asks them to remember all those who, starting in Old Testament times, had persevered in trusting in the God Who promised the world a Savior centuries before that Savior appeared in Bethlehem.
To encourage the Jewish Christians he was addressing, the preacher asks them to remember all those who, starting in Old Testament times, had persevered in trusting in the God Who promised the world a Savior centuries before that Savior appeared in Bethlehem.
He mentions leaders like David and Samuel who “through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised [by God]; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.”
He mentions a long train of nameless Old Testament and intertestmental saints who experienced persecution, flogging, stoning, chains and imprisonment, and death, who endured poverty, disdain, and hardship.
He mentions those who, for their faith in the God Who would later send Jesus, were forced into hiding, forced to scavenge and live off the land.
The preacher says, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised [they didn’t receive what you and I too often take for granted: Jesus and life in His name], since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”
Think of it: Only together with us, believers in Jesus who live in this time between Jesus’ ascension and return to the world, would those old believers be made whole, complete, through what Jesus has accomplished on the cross, enduring the tests and temptations of this life sinlessly, so that He can give all who believe in Him everlasting life with God!
Those of us who live in this in-between time should never be discouraged: Can there be any doubt after Jesus’ death and resurrection that following Him is the way to life, even life beyond the grave?
After recounting all those believers who endured in faith in anticipation of the Savior Jesus, the preacher says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses [all those believers before Christ, watching us today in the arena of this in-between world], let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
After recounting all those believers who endured in faith in anticipation of the Savior Jesus, the preacher says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses [all those believers before Christ, watching us today in the arena of this in-between world], let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
People of Grace Lutheran Church, you have called Pastor Tom Brodbeck to be your senior pastor. In that role, God will daily call him to remind you, through the ministry of Word and Sacrament, to throw off every distraction and sin that might keep you from following Jesus, to persevere in running the race of faith in Jesus Christ in this time, and to fix your eyes on Jesus without impatience or fear. You could not have chosen a better senior pastor to serve and lead you. In fact, God chose him and, through prayer, you discerned and issued God’s call to Pastor Brodbeck. Kudos to you for listening to God!
Knowing him as I do, I know that Pastor Brodbeck will, like the preacher in Hebrews, encourage you to keep trusting in Jesus, because it’s not only through faith in Jesus Christ alone that we are saved, it’s also through faith in Jesus Christ alone that we persevere or even want to persevere as His people called to be obsessed with being and making disciples in this in-between time.
Just as today I charge my cherished colleagye Tom to take up the baton passed onto him by my equally cherished colleague Dan Powell and run the race Christ sets before him with perseverance, I also charge you, people of Grace Lutheran Church, to run that same race of faith and to encourage your leader along the way.
This is a congregation with a rich heritage. A cloud of witnesses who have been part of this church’s life and history are, along with the God we know in Jesus Christ, looking on today as you begin another leg of your race of faith. Know that there is nowhere you may go as a congregation, that, if you live in fellowship with Christ and with each other as people and pastor, Christ hasn’t already been. The “pioneer and perfecter of [our] faith,” as the preacher calls Jesus, is already blazing the trail for those who faithfully follow Him here at Grace Lutheran Church!
None of us knows when Jesus will return to close the curtain on this in-between time and bring His kingdom to final, eternal perfection. But I am sure of this: If together, people of Grace Lutheran Church and Pastor Tom Brodbeck, you keep following Jesus in this point in history, Jesus will take you exactly where He wants you to be. You can believe that! Amen!
[Pictured above are Pastor Bruce Kramer, Pastor Tom Brodbeck, and me, after yesterday's Service of Installation. It was a celebratory event.]
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
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