HOLD ONTO YOUR HOPE FIRMLY (Hebrew 10:19-25)
#Advent
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Faith comes from God, not from us. This is the hope of the gospel that has made us believe. Let us firmly hold on to this truth and wait for the Lord who is to come.
Today is the first Sunday of Advent. Beginning the church year while waiting for the Lord means starting and finishing with Him. In this way, the confession and determination of faith of Christians are contained in the church year.
Waiting for the Lord
How should we wait for the Lord? We wait for the Lord to see Him. Of course, there are a hundred or a thousand reasons for waiting. What is certain is that we will "meet the Lord." We believe that when we meet the Lord, our situation will change, and the Lord will change our situation. We live day by day, live a month by gathering four weeks, live a year by gathering twelve times months. This is our life, and we live waiting for the Lord day by day, week by week, month and year, according to that amount. The reason we live waiting for the Lord is because we confirm in the Bible what happened to people who met the Lord.
One day, when Jesus went to his hometown of Nazareth, he went into the synagogue and read from Isaiah's prophecy (Is 61).
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." (Lk 4:18-21)
This is why we wait for the Lord. So that the captives may be set free, the oppressed may be liberated, the poor may be made rich, those who have shed tears may dance, and the blind may see. We hope that what our Lord Jesus Christ said, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing," will be fulfilled in us today as well.
Christians connected to the Lord
We wait for the Lord, but not to face judgment. Even if we have done wrong, we wait for the forgiving Lord. The words in Luke 4:18-19 are the words Jesus spoke when he began his public ministry. We wait for the Lord who proclaims the day of God's grace, the day of forgiveness, the day of healing. We wait for the Lord to touch our wounded spirits. This is how we are connected to the Lord. It's like destiny, firmly tying us to the Lord. The thread that ties us to the Lord is faith.
We talk about faith a lot, but it's not easy to explain. Some say that faith is believing in God's Word, others say it's believing in what God has done. Some explain it as believing that God sent His only Son Jesus to die on the cross and rise again for us. Among many answers, one common factor is the fact that we "meet God." Who did God speak to? He speaks to us. Who does God work for? He works for us. Who did God die on the cross and rise again for? He did it for us. This is how we meet God. Therefore, faith and meeting with God cannot be separated.
The passage mentions three topics: faith in verse 22, hope in verse 23, and love in verses 24-25. Since it is the first Sunday of Advent, we will take a closer look at faith and hope. In the Old and New Testament times, the temple was divided into the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. The Most Holy Place was where God resided, and only the high priest could enter once a year on the Day of Atonement. To ensure that the high priest did not die while inside, he would tie a bell to his ankle and a rope would be attached to him so that he could be pulled out if necessary. People would wait behind the veil that separated the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place and listen for the sound of the bell. If they heard the bell ringing, they knew that the high priest was still alive. If they did not hear the bell, they would pull on the rope to retrieve the high priest from the Most Holy Place because if he went in and died, he would not be able to escape.
That's not all. Those who have seen the face of God will die. When the prophet Isaiah received his calling, he exclaimed these words upon seeing God:
"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." (Is 6:5)
Sacrifice is a way of meeting with God. Especially in the Old Testament, sacrifice involved the shedding of blood to meet with God. When the Israelites came to Mount Sinai after leaving Egypt, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the Law. Afterwards, God and Israel sealed their covenant with a sacrifice of blood. This is found in Exodus 24:8:
"Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, 'This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.'"
Jesus also sprinkles his blood. Where does he sprinkle it? The text says, "we have been sprinkled with his blood in our hearts." Jesus' blood has been sprinkled on our hearts, whether we want it or not. This is what we believe.
Can we believe just because we want to? Is it a story we can believe in with a clear mind that some man named Jesus, who we have never seen, shed his blood for our sins 2,000 years ago? We can't believe just because we want to. We must be compelled by the fact that Jesus died on the cross and rose again for us, for all the sins of the world. Faith is like that. Just like the temple veil was torn from top to bottom, Jesus comes to us without hesitation. If we were asked to explain our faith, we wouldn't be able to describe it in detail, but we can say that we just came to believe. This is our faith. We have come to believe, not by our own doing, but by the fact that Jesus' blood has been sprinkled on our souls, our hearts, and our minds. In other words, our souls, our hearts, and our minds have met Jesus. This is faith. We didn't believe, but we came to believe, we were made to believe.
Faith is an event where God leads us to Himself. Therefore, the fact that we believe in the Lord is a secondary issue. What is more important is that God first brought us into the sanctuary and allowed us to see His face, yet did not let us die. What Jesus did for us comes first. It is not so much that we believe, but that we become believers. This is God's grace. This is the sign that God has adopted us as His children. Even though we entered the sanctuary and the Holy of Holies, which are separated by the veil, we did not die because we have become God's children.
The text refers to our faith as "perfect faith" and our heart as "true heart." When we say we believe in God, we should always confess that it was God who made us believe. When we say we have met God, we must accurately say that it was God who met us.
Hope
When God gives us faith, He naturally makes us hopeful. God coming to meet us is not to kill us, but to save us. It is not judgment, but blessing. He does not cut us off or reject us, but rather seeks to understand, accept, and embrace us. By putting faith in our hearts, God has become our hope. He has made our hearts true and our faith complete, enabling us to be those who have hope. Even today, we can hope that Jesus will come to us and touch us just as He did before.
The message in verse 23 is to hold onto our hope and the One who gave us that hope firmly. It says, "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." To be more precise, it could be translated as "Let us hold fast the hope of the doctrine that we believe, which he has made us believe, without wavering." What should we hold onto firmly? The hope of the doctrine that we believe, which he has made us believe. It is the promise that we will meet God. This promise assures us that we have met God, will meet Him again, and can meet Him anytime. As we observe the first Sunday of Advent, God has already made us firmly hold onto the hope of the doctrine that we believe.