Hebrews 10:5-10
How many of us find ourselves in the throes of last-minute Christmas gift shopping and the busyness of the season? Some of those gifts are heart-felt while others are given out of obligation. We try to keep up with all the events, activities and demands that come around this time of year. As we scramble from store to store searching for gifts amongst the empty shelves and depleted store inventory standing in line for what feels like an eternity, we make that promise to ourselves that we will never, ever do this again.
Next year will be different; next year we will be organized, next year we will plan ahead so we won’t be running around like a chicken with its head cut off getting ready for Christmas. We promise ourselves that next year we’ll have all the gift shopping done by Thanksgiving, the house decorated Thanksgiving weekend, attend all the kids’ special Christmas activities, attend all the Christmas events at church, volunteer at Helping Hands and host the annual neighborhood Christmas party. In spite of our best intentions, when next year comes, we find ourselves in the same predicament; trapped in the same pattern of behavior that we wanted to get out of; a pattern of living that holds us hostage and won’t let us go.
Our Hebrews passage highlights for us a discussion about a similar pattern of behavior that held God’s people hostage: the sacrificial system of Judaism. Worshippers offered sacrifices to God year after year for the forgiveness of their sins. And because it is repeated year after year, it implies that worshipers are not truly cleansed once for all. (Hebrews 10:2) It indicates that our offenses are not finally atoned for by these annual sacrifices. The best they can do is remind us of the reality of sin in our lives. It is a way that does not lead to true life. It’s a road to nowhere.
God’s desire of us is more than sacrifices; it’s obedience to his will. This is why God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is God’s incarnation. This incarnation is unique because Jesus so radically obeys God’s will that he makes all previous means of dealing with sin passé. His faithfulness creates “the new and living way”, by which our approach to God is redefined.
I tried talking to ants once. I was out in the woods hiking around enjoying a beautiful fall day. I stopped to eat the lunch I had brought along. As I sat there eating, watching crumbs fall from my hands, a line of ants marched by to grab the crumbs. I couldn’t say, “Excuse me!” or “Hey, where are you going?” I tried to get their attention by brushing them across the ground, blocking the sun from them, even pouring some of my water on their path. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get their attention. I couldn’t communicate with them or tell them about the world they lived in. I couldn’t tell them about the sun and the rain; or how trees and plants grew and how animals ate. I couldn’t tell them that there are other creatures that live among them and they are a part of something bigger than themselves.
Then I concluded, “If I were an actual ant, I could communicate with the ants. I could learn about them and they could learn about me and the world we are in.” This is the way God works with us. The immortal God of the universe became one of us, a human being, in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is God’s incarnation because God wants more than sacrifices from us. He wants all of us to do God’s will. Sacrifices alone are not enough. We must do God’s will each and every day of our lives.
An enduring gift of Advent and Christmas is to appreciate that God has a precious gift for us. The holiness and perfection of God comes to us wrapped in swaddling clothes. This gift cannot be found under a Christmas tree or at the mall, but lying in a Bethlehem manger. This is God’s gift to us.
Our gift back to God is simply living the life we have been given, that we have been called to live. Our gift back to God is when we do God’s will in the world. Our gift back to God includes how we spend our money, how we treat one another, friend and stranger alike, how we live out the Good News of the Christian life. Our gift back to God is not by preserving the status quo or by maintaining an institutional structure with waning influence or by doing things the way we’ve always done it before, but our gift involves responding to the leading and the power of the Holy Spirit of God in new, fresh ways; ways that respond to the needs of our community and our world; ways that convey a message of love and care for others and one another; ways that build up and empower the downtrodden, the hopeless, and the outcast with dignity and self-respect as children of God.
This is where stewardship begins. It begins when we say to God, “I have come to do your will”. Let’s get out there and git ‘er done!
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