6.11.24
The author of Hebrews has been showing us how to stand in the midst of a very shakable world. And he’s been reminding us that God allows all sorts of challenging circumstances to enter our lives as a way to refine us and drive us to Jesus. In essence what he’s said, is that the natural shakenness of this world (nothing lasts, nothing satisfies, nothing provides an unshakable identity) is something God uses to strip us of our reliance upon things that can only point us to Jesus. And he’s urging us to move from the shaky pointers to the rock solid foundation of the real thing: Jesus.
And this week he’s showing us the main way that we pursue that new avenue. He’s said that we have not come to God in the old way of ritual and ceremony and fear…but now, because of Jesus, we have come to him in the new way of the Spirit - the indwelling presence of God. And what this means is - the way we experience God moves from being filled with outward rituals and practices to reach a God who is over there, to now experiencing God - primarily in community, because God is with us, among us, in us.
It’s almost shocking to our individualistic minds to grasp that God is telling us the main way we now experience him is in community. We understand what it means to experience life (both the good and the bad) through the lens of family. But when it comes to religion, we tend to focus more on “me and God”.
But just think of how this family model works. The writer calls us to keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters. And so the model of a family is how he is telling us the new community of believers is to work. For instance, families have a radical unconditional commitment to one another. Family is family, whether you like them or not…whether you get along with them or not. There’s a bond in family that goes beyond your chosen friend group. No matter how weird or obnoxious or unpalatable your family may be, they’re still family.
Families also practice radical intimacy. Behind the curtain of a family, you get to see the real raw hearts of one another. We see each other without make-up on. We see the unfiltered responses of frustration and anger. Because we see the real person in a family. And that’s part of what he’s calling us to here.
Families are also racially and culturally radical. That is, you have an affinity with family that goes beyond any other category. Families are places where the real you doesn’t have to hide behind politically correct social boundaries or even divisive ethnic boundaries. They are “our” people, and we share a common story and background that unites us in a way that nothing else ever could.
In other words, he’s reminding us that families are the single most shaping influence in our lives. No matter how much we might like to feel that we are self-made people who chart our own course in life, we are inescapably the product of our families. And that’s the kind of community he’s calling us to in the church. And he’s calling us there, not merely as a goal to pursue, but as the very means by which we can best experience his presence in our lives. There’s something this kind of gospel community that unites us in a way that goes beyond our physical family or our social group or even our ethnicity. And it’s that exposure, that transparency, that radical honesty that God uses to reveal himself to us in ways that are alive and real (vs dead and ritualistic).