Daily Liturgy and Scripture

Today is one of the most important days on the Christian calendar: Good Friday. This is the day that we remembered Jesus suffered and died, a perfect life offered in our place. This wasn't a cosmic tragedy or a divine blunder, it was God's plan, and Jesus was part of it. Redemption can come only from God, and Jesus is making it happen in this part of the story.

The important events of Holy Week are coming together, and today we remember the Last Supper. Jesus gave us this observance, something that his followers continue today. It's a time to remember his sacrifice, but it's also a complicated table on this first night. Jesus is there with both faithful apostles and a man about to betray him, but he serves the bread to both. I have heard it said, "when you learn how to sit at the table with your Judas, you'll understand the love of Christ."

Remember that the audience of this letter is Jewish believers, and this period of time may have been difficult to hold onto their newfound Christian faith. Before Christianity was familiar, it was new and it was probably very tempting to go back to an old set of beliefs, because it may have felt safer. The writer of Hebrews has already been doing the work of establishing who Jesus was and is, and now he puts it directly into a familiar Jewish context: what Moses was, Jesus is greater than. Moses symbolizes the law, so that’s the meaning here. What the law started, Jesus finished. We can still trust that today.

The writer of Hebrews is certainly going to make much of Jesus, but first he brings Jesus down to earth, literally. We don't serve a God who is removed from our experience, because Jesus chose that very experience to enter into. Our sufferings, sorrows, and joys are all familiar to him. That is a great comfort when we think that this same Jesus is also our judge.

It is not known who the writer of Hebrews was, but it is a book rich in the place of Christ in God’s master plan. It was written to encourage Jewish converts to Christianity to continue in the new chapter in their faith, to remember that Jesus was part of the Jewish storyline, and to recognize fully who Jesus is.

You can almost hear the discouragement in Paul’s voice as he writes about those who have left or opposed him. How difficult it must be for him to say that he doesn’t hold that against them, because they were doing more than simply opposing him. They were also opposing Christ. This kind of hope for redemption was part of the grace that Paul preached, and must have been one of the most important things he hoped to pass on to young Timothy as well.

Paul has been talking to Timothy about how to make the body of believers a different community, and now he draws the difference between them and that "easy" way from yesterday. Others may take that way, but we should not. We should keep one another accountable, and all of us are equally accountable to God.

Taking the easy route is not always (or usually?) the correct one. It is easy to teach the first idea that comes into our head, but we need the Spirit and the correction of one another to teach what God wants. It is easy to chase our own needs, but we should instead deny the short-term for the better things of eternity. This is the focus teachers must keep both for themselves and for those they intend to teach, and Paul wants Timothy to remember that.

Paul’s second letter to Timothy has a lot of things going on. Notably, a few important friends have abandoned Paul. It was probably particularly important for him to build Timothy up during this time, but it must have been difficult. When things start going downhill for us, we might be tempted to feel sorry for ourselves, to give up and head home. Luckily, that wasn’t Paul’s style. When the difficult times came, he spent his energy building up his young protege.

Paul finishes the letter to Titus by establishing that the body of believers is not to create a counter-culture that disrupts those around them, but that becomes good citizens and sows seeds of peace. With the wisdom that comes from the Spirit, we can do this far better. Certainly this is not of our own making, but because we have been remade in the image of Christ.