A seminary education conveys a certain practicality.
A seminarian learns how to perform the rites and rituals of the Church like baptizing littles. And the initial guidance given to me was fundamental and rudimentary: Don’t forget to put water in the baptismal font. Don’t forget the child’s name. And don’t drop the baby. Now is not the time to shake things up!
Indeed, baptism isn’t supposed to be a traumatic experience for anyone involved. The moment of baptism should be meaningful, memorable – overflowing with mystical heft. And that’s what we learned in last Sunday’s Scripture lesson about the baptism of none other than Jesus himself.
No sooner does John the Baptist pull Jesus from the waters of the River Jordan when the heavens open wide and the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove. Then the Good News of God booms from the clouds like a thunderclap: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” But then the quite-lovely moment turns very dark and foreboding: The same Spirit who had just descended like a tender dove immediately drives Jesus out into the desert wilderness, where he endures 40 days of lonely temptation face to face and toe to toe with Satan.
In a heartbeat, the calming waters of blessed assurance swell into a tidal wave of harrowing distress, leaving absolutely no one feeling good about the experience and everyone feeling a whole lot worse for the wear. This clip of an Orthodox baptism in the nation of Georgia well captures the reality that baptism apparently intends to shake things up.
Stephanie was slip-sliding away from the church.
A Gen-X’er like a lot of us, a life-long Presbyterian like some of us, Stephanie was gradually losing her grip on the faith of her childhood. The many alternative faiths in the marketplace of 21st-century America were starting to sound attractive, but she wasn’t comfortable with her drift, so she sought some spiritual help.
The expected advice was no surprise – almost cliché, if it weren’t so true: Keep your eyes glued to the cross, and keep your heart fixed on Jesus.
Her response was startling: “Jesus scares me,” she said. “Always has. I don’t like to think about Jesus. I’m not sure why, but I just don’t.” I’m reading to you from the New Testament letter to the Hebrews:
Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. (Hebrews 4:12-14)
Perhaps Stephanie’s trouble lay in the fact that there is something undeniably unhelpful in this idea of Jesus as “the great high priest.”
High priests are a particular kind of mediator – in the Jewish world of Jesus’ day, the only kind of mediator who could make things right between sinful humans and a holy God. Jews like Jesus understood the life-saving role that the high priest played in one’s salvation hopes. But for most of us today, the idea of a “great high priest” sounds like gibberish –certainly not something you have to have for daily living in right relationship with God.
Stephanie, for one, hated such talk.
“I don’t like to think about myself as sinful, and I don’t think of God as holy.” Even though she was raised to believe such things, Stephanie was drifting away from those beliefs now. If a baptized “child of God’s promise” like Stephanie had such reservations, it’s no wonder that those raised outside the Christian faith find this whole idea of a high priest quaint. For some, the idea that Jesus is the only mediator who can make peace between you and God is downright offensive.
But for Stephanie, such talk was frightening. And who could blame her.
To hear the first verses of our lesson tell it, the Word of God – Jesus Christ – is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. In the words of another, this living Word doesn’t just tickle your imagination – it penetrates to the depths of your being. This living Word isn’t something you can hear and forget – it uncovers the secrets of your heart. This living Word isn’t something you can make judgments about – it will judge you.
Experience tells me that when people are thinking of deserting the faith, they often hide their thoughts – even from themselves. Stephanie’s openness was the exception, though at first even she didn’t understand where her thoughts were taking her. Our Hebrews lesson warns that we can’t hide our thoughts of desertion from God. God knows what you and I are thinking; our thoughts are “laid bare.”
The Greek word used in the original text of the Bible draws the gruesome picture of a person with his head yanked back, so that the jugular vein is fully exposed, and the executioner’s sword is poised to slice it open. Zoinks! This whole living Word of God thing is nothing to trifle with. Then, by the gracious mercy of God comes the “therefore.” Again from the letter to the Hebrews:
But we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)
“Therefore, since then, because” we have such a wonderful high priest who comes to us from heaven, we must hold on tight to what we believe.
Unlike the Jewish high priests who went through the veil into the temple’s Holy of Holies once a year to make atonement for the sins of their people, Jesus has gone through the heavens into the very presence of God, where he remains today. Unlike ancient high priests who are the merely human descendants of a priestly lineage, Jesus is the very Son of God.
So, my friend Stephanie, why would you let go of your faith in such an awesome mediator who works things out between you and God?
That’s a hard question to answer, and that’s not where Stephanie wanted to go. But that’s exactly where our Hebrews lessons finally goes. It isn’t just the majesty of Jesus that’s such a big deal but also the SYMPATHY of Jesus that makes him such a wonderful high priest. Jesus can sympathize with our weaknesses, because Jesus has been tempted in every way that you and I are tempted, YET – unlike you and I – Jesus was without sin.
Jesus “gets it” – he gets you, gets your struggles, gets your failings, and because he “gets it,” Jesus sympathizes and empathizes with the whole sordid mess than sin and evil tries to make of your life. And because he “gets it,” Jesus is merciful and compassionate to you and me, because he knows first-hand just how hard evil is poking, prodding and punching you and me and working overtime to try and rattle the foundations of our faith and knock us off our solid rock.
You don’t think Jesus was ever tempted to leave the God he loved?
Think back to his wilderness temptations – those classic temptations in the desert that sum up every temptation you’ve ever faced. Each one of them tempted Jesus to turn away from total reliance on God.
Think back to that moment in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus is tempted to turn his back on God’s whole enterprise of salvation.
Think back to that moment on the cross when Jesus thinks his Father has left him for dead: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Jesus didn’t give in to evil, of course, but he was surely tempted in every way, just as we are. And yes, that includes the temptation to step away from trust in God.
Stephanie needed to understood that.
If she had, she might have been able to talk more openly to Jesus about her doubts and questions. She could talk with a friend, because she thought her trusted confidant was very human and compassionate. How much more is that true of Jesus? The very essence of the once-in-very-human-flesh-and-compassionate God! Because of Jesus, God felt and feels with us.
Because of Jesus, God suffered and suffers with us – whether it’s the misery of sorrow, or the prickle of fear, or the nausea of sickness, or the agony of temptation, or the intensity of depression, or the lure of addiction, or the empty-hollowness of loneliness.
That’s the incredible miracle of the Incarnation – God coming to us and living among us as one of us, the miracle of a great, sympathetic high priest who is Jesus, the Son of God, who knows, understands and sympathizes with our every weakness, because he’s walked way farther than just a mile in our shoes.
That’s the Good News we declare whenever we proclaim “Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.” We declare and proclaim that, because of Jesus Christ, God knows how hard it is to be one of us – how incredibly challenging it is to turn away from sin, and to resist temptation, and to live faithfully.
And because God knows, understands and sympathizes, you and I can feel free to rush to the Lord in every time of trouble and doubt, and with bold honesty, confess to God every failure, every shortcoming, every stumble, every fall, EVERY SIN, and with full confidence, we can expect to receive grace and mercy – all because God “gets it.” That is the promise of God for you, and for me, and for all the Stephanies whom the Lord won’t ever let slip-slide away into oblivion.
There’s always water in the font; the Lord never forgets your name; grace ever abounds when life drops you into a pit. Thanks be to God for shaking things up when everything around you is falling apart: “You are my beloved Child, in whom I am well pleased. I will hold you fast.”
Ancient words, ever true!
Music video: “He Will Hold Me Fast” by the Norton Hall Band –
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, February 16, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Scott Hoezee inform the message. The song He Will Hold Me Fast is by the Norton Hall Band. The clip of Jesus’s baptism is from Lumo’s Gospel of Mark.
Also from Pastor Grant on Hebrews 4, Another Day in Paradise: “Jesus is enough. Grace is enough. You are enough!“