The Park Road Pulpit

  Sermons from Park Road Baptist Church

      Russ and Amy Jacks Dean, Pastors

Covenant, Continuance, and the Promise of Forever

Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Hebrews 5:5-10

Amy Jacks Dean, April 6, 2003

Intro to Scripture:

            The epistle to the Hebrews is both “strange and fascinating. Unique in style and content, as a piece of literature it is simply unlike any of the other epistles.” Some interesting points: we have no idea who wrote Hebrews – the writer is always referred to in scholarship as The Preacher – for it is really not a letter at all, it is a sermon. We don’t know who the hearers are – who this was written to or for. We don’t know when it was written – the best educated guess is somewhere between 60-100 A.D. Tom Long says about Hebrews “so we peer into the depths of the text unsure of who wrote it, to whom, from where, or when. Imagine being handed a book today with the comment, “Here, you may enjoy this. It was written in America or Russia or France, I’m not sure, by a Jew – or was it a Gentile? – anyway, it was written sometime between 1920 and 1970. Enjoy.” (Thoughts in the Introduction taken from Interpretation, Hebrews, Thomas G. Long, pages 1-2)

(READ TEXT)

            It was my first real ministerial job interview. We sat in a conference room of one of the education buildings on the campus of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY with about 9 members from a search committee. I was 24 years old, and I was scared to death. But the interview was going well. You know, just enough humor that everyone felt comfortable. Just enough seriousness for everyone to be respectful. We were clipping right along, and I was beginning to think that I had over-worried. They weren’t going to ask any question that I couldn’t answer. Then old Mr. Hugh Hurley kinda rared back in his chair and said in his old man squeaky voice, “Well Amy, in ten words or less, tell me the plan of salvation.” Now you may think that that is what they teach you in seminary – how to give the short definitive answers to the most profound questions of faith – but it is not. Ironically, before entering the seminary, I could have given Hugh the plan of salvation in ten words or less. But seminary changed all of that for me. It wasn’t that I was now confused about my faith, but I could no longer give the answer that Hugh was looking for with a clear conscience. So I said, “Give me more than ten words, and I’ll tell you what I think about that.” He conceded. And this is, to the best of my recollection, what I said to him, “I can only tell you my story of salvation, but even as I tell it I know that it is not everybody’s story, but it is mine and so it is what I will tell.” Then I proceeded to talk about Jesus – all about Jesus. His life, his ministry, his teachings, his way, his death, and his resurrection. And I explained, “This is how I know who God is – through Jesus.” And I tell you that is still what I claim today. It is my story, and I’m sticking to it, but it is not a simple answer.

I no longer worry about the folks for whom this is not their story. The Hindu priest that I met with in India for over an hour, talking through a translator, answered my question about the 330 million gods of the Hindu religion by saying, “We all worship one God. There are many ways to God. For you it is through Jesus, for some Hindus it is through Vishnu, for others it is through Buddha, but we are all trying to find the same God.” But I challenged him, “I don’t think all Hindus understand this nuance of the Hindu faith.” (For I had seen lots of folks worshipping Vishnu and Buddha.) To which he smiled and said, “And all Christians understand about Jesus?” He was good. He knew that many Christians worship Jesus.

            Now I say all of that as a disclaimer of sorts, because today I preach unapologetically about Jesus – and Jesus alone. In this journey of Lent that we travel, we find ourselves today dealing with a passage that speaks of perfection coming to One who learned obedience through suffering which brought a promise of forever. This particular passage from Hebrews is one that has been somewhat of an “aha” for Russ and me. Several years ago a light came on about the full meaning of the life and death of Jesus in this passage. The recognition that Jesus had to “learn obedience through what he suffered,” and then in the fullness of time – he “having been made perfect.” I missed this as a child. My childhood religion had taught me well that Jesus was always perfect, which meant he was always obedient – never mind that he didn’t always listen to his mother and got lost like all other 12 year olds – Jesus was perfect. But in this brief segment of the sermon from The Preacher of Hebrews we catch a different glimpse of Jesus. Carl Holladay says, “suffering and learning obedience are conspicuously human experiences. Many Christians, though believing in some sense that Jesus was both human and divine, still find it difficult to believe that he shared our humanity. For them, it is difficult to see how Jesus could `learn’ anything, much less obedience. Yet, this is precisely the point that our text makes – and stresses . . . death on the cross became the supreme . . . example” of obedience through suffering which brought about perfection. (Preaching Through the Christian Year, Year B, page 163)

            We are working our way, moving our way toward Easter, but we are located at precisely that point in the Christian year where we need to be reminded that even in our own sufferings we can learn obedience. Holladay continues, “from our own experience, we know that suffering, rightly experienced and interpreted, has the capacity to refine our own character and make us more complete, or make us perfect in ways that we previously were not.” So I ask you this day, for those who suffer, are you being perfected? Allow me to let you in on a confidential secret – more people suffer than you would ever know – for their faces and demeanor do not let you in on their little secret of suffering. Some people try to rank suffering and then when they put their own suffering on the human scale they realize that maybe they don’t have it so bad after all. And then a week later they wonder why they are feeling low again. No one died, there is no major crisis – but they suffer nonetheless. Suffering is part of the human condition. It should be acknowledged and respected. Suffering should be attended to and explored – for there is much to be learned even in the very midst of our suffering – no matter where your suffering lands on the scale of the human condition. Perhaps we would even learn obedience. Perhaps we would enter our own journey toward perfection – never selling ourselves short of who God created us to be.

            The prophet Jeremiah knew that God was a covenant-making God. God had made a covenant with Noah and Abraham, then Isaac and Jacob. Then there were the 10 Commandments. All of these covenants came at critical moments in the life of the community of faith. But this time, Jeremiah says that God says, “I will make a new covenant – not like the covenant I made with their ancestors – no not this time – this time I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” You see, God’s covenant has already been written on our hearts. We are God’s and nothing can change that.

            It is the Preacher of Hebrews that reminds us all that in Jesus, this covenant came to life in a way that has changed the world. God made a covenant with us, and as far as I can tell, Jesus took a hold of that covenant and lived it out among the people in a way that The Church can’t stop talking about it. The 12 disciples couldn’t stop talking about it. Paul couldn’t stop talking about it. The anonymous Preacher couldn’t stop talking about it. I can’t stop talking about it. Jesus “learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” And therein lies our Promise of Forever.

            That’s my story. And I’m sticking to it. May it be so for you as well.

Pastoral Prayer

            God grant to us this day your peace which passes our understanding – that in the brokenness of this world, in the midst of the suffering of your people, among the confusion and the chaos which is ours – remind us of the hope which is ours. May we learn from the life and death of Jesus, that obedience can be learned through our suffering. And as we make our way toward Resurrection, renew in us the joy of salvation. Amen.