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Advent Devotional for Tuesday, December 23
Hebrews 8:1-13
In this passage, God promises to “establish a new covenant with the house of Israel” and to “place my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.”
This intimacy with God’s law will mean that “I shall be their God, and they shall be my people.” People will no longer need to teach others about God because “they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.”
These beautiful promises emerge from Hebrew’s complicated meditations on sin, forgiveness, and temple holiness. Human sin creates distance between God and humans. The purpose of the temple, priests, and sacrifices was to overcome this distance. God is holy and merciful, but people cannot access God’s holiness and forgiveness directly. It must be mediated to them. We need temples and priests.
This passage insists that the days of mediation are over because Jesus is an eternal high priest. There is no longer any need for temples since in Christ humans have an eternal intimacy with God’s holiness and God’s mercy. No sin can undo this intimacy.
We may not have instincts for returning to the liturgies of the Jerusalem temple. But we do know the power of sin to separate, divide, and isolate. Sin breaks relationships, with other people, with God, and with ourselves.
This passage promises that Jesus, our high priest, has broken the power of sin to break us. Jesus eternally and perpetually overcomes the power of sin to kill and divide. God’s mercy and grace are inscribed on the heart of every child of God. And sin cannot erase it.
We may on occasion say to each other, “God forgives you,” but we are not mediating thereby any forgiveness. Forgiveness is written on the heart of every child around the table. We are announcing. Reminding. God’s forgiveness is engraved on everyone’s heart. We each in the hearing know it is true.
God of grace and mercy, we remember this day the power of Jesus Christ to overcome any separation between you and your people. You are our God, and we are your people, forever. Amen.
Lewie Donelson
The Ruth A. Campbell Professor of New Testament
For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip individuals for the ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources in the service of the church; to promote and engage in critical theological thought and research; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.
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