Hebrews 4:14-16 * Ascension 2007 * Pastor Leyrer
Dear
Friends in Christ,
The
great message of our Lord’s ascension is that Jesus now watches over us from on
high and directs the affairs of His church and His children from this position
of power and honor and glory. It is
indeed a wonderful and comforting thought to know that our God reigns, and that
He reigns for us.
This
evening, however, we’d like to focus on a different aspect of this great
event. Specifically we’d like to talk
about
THE ASCENSION
OF CHRIST AND OUR LIFE OF PRAYER
Therefore, since we have a
great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let
us hold firmly to the faith we profess. Note that Jesus is referred
to here as “our great high priest.” By way of background we need to
under-stand that our Book of Hebrews was originally a letter written to Christians
of Jewish descent. As such, they were
very familiar with the Old Testament.
They knew what the priesthood was all about. They knew how in the times of Moses God
called his brother Aaron to be the first High Priest and how many others
followed after him.
Therefore,
the fact that Jesus is called “great”
is significant. It distinguishes him
from the rest and signifies His superiority over all the others. What especially sets Him apart is this: “We
have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens.” This is a reference to the ascension.
Again,
considering the knowledge and background of the original audience, perhaps the
inspired author (we don’t know for sure who wrote Hebrews) is making a
comparison that may need some explanation for us, but wouldn’t for them. Something along these lines: The holiest day of the year for Old Testament
believers was the “Day of Atonement.” On
that day (still celebrated by Jews today as Yom
Kippur) many things took place. One
was that the high priest would pass from the people’s sight and enter the “Most
Holy Place” to perform the work of atoning for the sins of the people. This was repeated yearly.
In
a similar but far more meaningful way, Jesus passed from the sight of His
disciples, ascending through the clouds to His heavenly sanctuary – the work of atonement having been
accomplished once for all and never having to be repeated again. Once and for all and forever. That’s what makes Him the “great high priest.”
It
may be good at this point to briefly review the work of an Old Testament High
Priest. It was essentially
two-fold. First and foremost, he was to
offer sacrifices for the sins of the people.
From early on God had told His people about the seriousness of sin, and
that there could be no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. This the Old Testament priests did regularly,
but their sacrifices were only signs and reminders of the one great sacrifice
that was to come.
That,
of course, was and is Jesus Christ. As
our great high priest He not only
performed the sacrifice; He was the
sacrifice. Recall the words of John the
Baptist about Jesus: “Behold
the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Recall the words of the communion hymn: “Draw
near and take the body of the Lord, and drink the holy blood for you
outpoured. Offered was he for greatest
and for least, Himself the victim and Himself the priest.” Jesus was
the sacrifice that paid for all our sins.
His cross was the altar.
The
second function of a High Priest was to pray and intercede for the people. This Christ also does for us as our heavenly
High Priest. When we fail, when we fall,
when we sin, there is Jesus interceding for us before the Father. He is our advocate, our lawyer, our mediator,
our go-between. In a very simplistic
way, we might think of it this way: When
our Heavenly Father sees our sin and in His justice declares us to be
law-breakers who must be punished, Jesus steps in and holds before Him His
sacrifice on the cross in our place. And
for that reason God freely and fully forgives all our sins.
Because
of this powerful High Priest we have – One who sacrificed Himself for our sins
and continues to daily intercede for us – we are given these words of
encouragement: Let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.
Our
text goes on with further words of encouragement to us, now in regard to our
life of prayer. Having spoken of the
greatness of Christ, the writer does not want to leave us with the impression
that our great high priest is
somehow unapproachable or distant from us…
For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been
tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with
confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time
of need.
What
is being said here? We are being
reminded that Jesus is not only true God, but also true man. As such, He is able to sympathize with our
troubles and hardships. He understands
the things we go through. Why? Because
He once went through them Himself.
Therefore we can approach Him confidently in prayer with the result that
“we may receive mercy and find grace to
help us in our time of need.” The
overall point that is being made here is this:
The ascended Christ is both
sympathetic to our needs and approachable for our needs.
Let’s expand on this. What are some of the things Jesus coped with during His time on earth? Well, at the very outset of His ministry He was tempted directly by Satan, who suggested that He use His divine power to take the easy way out. So, Jesus understands the nature of temptation.
He
coped with disappointments throughout His ministry. Disappointment with the hard-heartedness and
unresponsiveness of most of the people who heard His message. Disappointment with His own closest friends –
one of whom betrayed Him, three of whom couldn’t keep watch with Him during His
most agonizing hour of prayer, and all of whom scattered like scared sheep on
the night of His arrest. So, Jesus
understands disappointment.
Remember
the Garden of Gethsemane? There He coped
with what today we might refer to as “anxiety” (“Father, if it is your will, let
this cup pass from me.”) At
various points in His ministry He coped with weariness. He coped with hunger and thirst. He coped with the loss of loved ones. Recall Him weeping at the grave of His friend
Lazarus.
He
dealt with all these things, plus more.
But in all these situations, He never sinned. Yet, that doesn’t mean the temptations and
the problems He faced were any less real.
They happened, and He experienced them.
And
that’s exactly why we can approach Him with confident prayer. He knows what we go through. He’s on our level. He doesn’t view us in a condescending way.
So
let’s redirect the question. What are
some of the things that make our lives difficult? What are the things that rob life of its joy
for us? What are the things that keep us
awake at night?
Is
it loneliness? Health problems? Worries about relatives or friends? Concerns over money matters? Struggles in our marriage? Personal weaknesses that seem to master us no
matter how hard we try? Uncertainty or
fear about the future? Relationships that
have gone sour? We could add others…
In
all these cases there is so often the tendency, even among Christians, to dwell
on the problem rather than the solution.
And what is the solution – or at the very least, the foundational first
step toward accessing a solution? Our
text tells us this: We have a
sympathetic, loving Savior who promises to hear and act upon our prayers. The solution is spelled out for us in the
well know refrain of one of Christendom’s best loved hymns: “Take
it to the Lord in prayer.”
Which
now raises the next question. How is your prayer life? Are you bringing your problems and concerns
and worries to the throne of grace? Do you pray often, and with the confidence
that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords is listening?
If
you do, you know the peace and comfort there is in an active prayer life. That’s why God not only suggests that we
pray, but commands us to pray. He wants
us to be at peace. He wants us to talk
to Him (is not the lowest time of any relationship when people give each other
“the silent treatment”? God doesn’t want
that kind of relationship). He wants us
to come to Him with what’s on our hearts and minds so He can give us the
opportunity to “receive mercy and find
grace to help us in our time of need.”
On the other hand, if our prayer life is sluggish or sporadic or lacking in the conviction that prayers make a difference, we are like a man of great wealth who chooses to live in poverty. We fail to take advantage of the great riches at our disposal. And there is no need for us, who have been made so rich in Jesus, to live a life of spiritual poverty…
To that end, I’d like to bring our thoughts to a close by reading a portion of Luther’s Large Catechism on the Second Petition of the Lord’s Prayer (“Your kingdom come.”) What Luther writes has application to any situation in our lives and provides a fitting conclusion on the relationship between Christ’s ascension and our life of prayer.
After speaking about the meaning of the phrase, “Your
kingdom come,” we read: From this you perceive that we pray here not
for a crust of bread or a temporal, perishable good, but for an eternal,
inestimable treasure and everything that God himself possesses. This is far too great for any human heart to
think of desiring if God had not commanded us to pray for it. But because He is God, he also claims the
honor of giving much more and more abundantly than anyone can comprehend – like
an eternal, unfailing fountain, which, the more it pours and overflows, the
more it continues to give – and he desires nothing more earnestly of us than
that we ask much and great things of him, and again is angry if we do not ask
and pray confidently…
For just as when the
richest and most mighty emperor would bid a poor beggar ask whatever he might
desire, and were ready to give great imperial presents, and the fool would beg
only for a dish of gruel, he would be righteously considered a rogue and a
scoundrel who treated the command of his imperial majesty as a jest and sport
and was not worthy of coming into his presence.
So also it is a great reproach and dishonor to God if we, to whom he
offers and pledges so many unspeakable treasures, despise them or have not the
confidence to receive them, but scarcely venture to pray for a piece of bread.
Let us pray actively, and with boldness and confidence. For we have an ascended Lord. And the ascended Christ is our invitation to confident prayer. Amen.