In the old game of “Mother, May I?”, children inch across the yard one tentative step at a time, never sure if they’ll be sent back to the start. Most people approach God the same way — hedging, bracing for rejection, creeping forward with apologies already forming. The writer of Hebrews blows the game apart. After the searing exposure of the previous passage — nothing hidden, everything laid bare — you’d expect the writer to leave his audience on their knees. Instead, he pivots to the most inviting sentence in the letter: draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. The high priest who sits there is not unable to sympathize. He was tempted in every respect, yet without sin — which means he knows temptation more completely than you do, not less. And the throne is named not after judgment or power but after the thing you need most: grace. Mercy for what was. Grace for what is. Come.

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