Cannot Be Shaken

Biblical scholars have wrestled with the letter to the Hebrews for centuries. What is it? Is it really a letter and, if so, then who is the audience? If not a letter, then what? Some have called it a sermon. That makes some sense. It is a treatise and exhortation both, teaching and encouragement side by side. I could go with that, as one who appreciates a good sermon. But I’m not completely sold. Some things are missing, and there is another dimension to these words that I don’t want to miss.

I’m leaning toward a work of art. Hebrews is a symphony, perhaps a choral work. It is a canvas of Guernica-level scale. It is a poetic work on the scale of Eliot’s Waste Land or Shakespeare’s King Lear. Like many works of art, Hebrews can be interpreted on many levels simultaneously. The previous texts told some real but powerful human stories and brought a deeper understanding of the human condition through their remarkable experiences. But now we stand at the precipice of glory as we attempt to grasp something of the God we worship and the faith we follow. Regular words don’t work so well. We need to turn to poetry.

So, think of a three-stanza poetic work that attempts to express our experience of faith. Or maybe four, depending on how you want to work the ending. There is some flexibility here. The first stanza begins with “You have not come…” And let’s be reminded that punctuation is problematic in these translations. It might be helpful to replace the first comma with a period. “You have not come to something that can be touched” (Hebrews 12:18 NRSV). Then, see the contrast in what follows. Neither have you come to something that is untouchable – a blazing fire, darkness, gloom, or a tempest, or the sound of a trumpet, or a voice that made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. Except there aren’t “ors” in that verse; there are “ands.” It is as if it is a combination or different facets or elements of the one untouchable whole. And don’t argue that you can, in fact, touch a blazing fire – even though you shouldn’t. This is not, however, a denial of the reality of this untouchable God. That’s why the verse about Moses was included – to describe a true understanding of the God we worship. This does indeed describe God as God has been experienced in the history of God’s people. But something has changed.

The second stanza of our poetic text begins with “But you have come …” Emphasize the “have” when you read it. You have something; something has been given. You are gifted with special access, a special relationship, a blessed something that makes approaching this God a wholly different experience from what has gone before. You haven’t come to burning, tempestuous, blaring, gloomy darkness. Instead, you have come home. That’s the feeling of this second act of the drama. The first is walking into a headwind; the second is being welcomed home. You’ve climbed the summit to the highest place and found your way into the city of God, where there is a party going on, where your relatives gather, and where God takes a turn on the dance floor. Everyone is better than they have been in a long time; the host, the doorkeeper, and the welcome at the door are none other than Jesus, the one who handed out the VIP passes that got you in.

That’s what has changed from the first stanza. We don’t approach the unapproachable because we’ve been given access. We don’t touch the untouchable because Jesus has made it touchable, embraceable. We aren’t strangers in the heavenly realm, but welcome family. That’s the promise, the guarantee of faith.

But then the third stanza raises eyebrows in all the hearers, or it should anyway. What’s with all the shaking? And whom might we refuse? It is puzzling, to say the least. Mostly because we see the promise and the welcome and think that life should be easy from here on out. Once we claim faith and say yes to Jesus, we believe we shouldn’t have to endure hardship anymore. But that is never the promise. The promise is presence, and the promise is access. There is still going to be a whole lot of shaking going on! It isn’t difficult to look around us and see that the world we experience isn’t the world that is described as kingdom or kin-dom, either one! There is still work to be done, things that need to be shaken out and shaken up until we begin to resemble that inheritance the prophets describe, the eternity that Jesus presents. And what we hold onto during the shaking, when things seem bleak and broken, when God’s people are hurting and hungry, is the promise of an unshakeable future, and then we work to build that foundation each and every day, even here on shaky ground.

Like faith that isn’t seen and a God who appears untouchable, we see and touch an unshakeable promise and hope in a world of justice and mercy; let those twin goals be our guide.