Читать книгу The Second Chance for God’s People - Timothy W. Seid - Страница 18

It’s all about who you know. We normally say that when we’re being cynical. Someone doesn’t get a job and they tell their friends, “It’s all about who you know.” At a banquet, someone sees a person they know sitting at the head table with the leaders of the organization or with the guest speaker, while they are sitting at a crummy table in the back with their view partially blocked by a pillar. To make himself feel better, he comments to his friends, “It’s all about who you know.”

I’ll bet more than one person in New Orleans has said, “It’s all about who you know,” when they didn’t get help cleaning up and rebuilding in their neighborhood and people somewhere else did. If the tables are turned, and we are the ones who have received the benefit, we might explain our good fortune to others, “I guess it’s all about who you know.”

While I was in graduate school at Brown University, I met a guy named Allen who was working on his dissertation in the philosophy department and working in computer services. He and a few others organized a Computing in the Humanities Users Group, affectionately called CHUG (although I was never a witness to any chugging; maybe they just didn’t invite me). I became interested and spent a great deal of time learning about computers, some programming, and how to format text documents properly. Allen began to get me freelance work, such as doing the typesetting for the phone listings in the campus directory, creating camera-ready copy for a few professors’ books, and working on some unique jobs that involved some programming in order to create documents. Time after time I was given opportunities because I knew Allen. There was even one time at a conference in Chicago that, because of my connections with Allen and the others, I was invited to go to dinner with the people at the conference who were working on the application of technology to biblical studies—even getting to sit next to the person who was the foremost person in the field in those days. Allen is now at the University of Illinois, a leading expert in the field of digital libraries and has been interviewed on Fox television. A few years ago I contacted him and he responded with, “Look at us now. We’ve graduated and gone on to get positions in higher education, doing significant work.” My response to him for my part was, in essence, “it’s all about who you know.”

In the situation of the people to whom the book of Hebrews is addressed, there was little about their circumstances that was what they had come to know. Every week in the synagogue they would hear about the house of God where the priests would intercede for the people through prayers and sacrifices. The High Priest would represent all of the people once a year by entering into the Holy of Holies, into the very presence of God in that inner sanctuary behind the purple curtain. For these people, little was left of the former glory. Even if Hebrews were written in the 50s or 60s, many of the people had come to view the temple as a source of religious and political corruption. After the destruction of Jerusalem in the early 70s, when Hebrews was probably written, the people no longer had a temple or a priesthood. No one to intercede for them. No one to enter the presence of God. No one to offer the sacrifices. The only blood being shed in Jerusalem was the blood of the martyrs.

For some Jews and Gentile god-fearers, all hope was not lost. They believed that a sacrifice had taken place back in the 30s that once-and-for-all achieved God’s forgiveness for the sins of the people. There was no longer a need for a High Priest to make sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple. There was no reason to lament the absence on the throne of a king who is a descendant of David. All hope was not lost, even though the Romans had squashed rebellion and wrested control from the religious and political authorities in Judea.

Some people had been loyal to the Herodians. Some supported the Sanhedrin. Others had been part of various rebellions and followed this or that messiah. A number of people had fled to the wilderness and joined the Jewish monastic community by the Dead Sea. A few had come to know a man from Galilee named Jesus; they were confident that after his stellar leadership of their group, his endurance through suffering and martyrdom, that God had raised him from the dead. They were empowered by God’s spirit because of whom it was they knew.

Life for us often seems out of control. The dominant voices in our society are those that promote materialism, advocate the use of power to get what you need, and getting ahead in life is based on who you know. We feel insignificant in the big scheme of things. Who’s going to help us? How can we get anyone to listen to us? Who knows what I’m going through enough to show me a little sympathy? When am I going to get a break? Hebrews has two words of encouragement at this point: First, we need to do our best to stay committed (4:14–15); second, we need to go to God when we need help (4:16).

Do Our Best to Stay Committed (4:14–15)

The main clause in verse 14 is “let us hold fast to our confession.” Followers of Jesus commit their allegiance to him and with it hold to a particular way of life and ways of thinking about God. The most important part of being a member of the group of Jesus followers is to maintain one’s allegiance, to “hold fast.”

The opening clause is subordinate and gives the basis for why we should be doing our best to stay committed. Verse 15 will give a second reason. First of all, we should stay committed because of what Jesus has accomplished and, secondly, because Jesus acts on our behalf.

In chapters 1–4 Jesus is compared to the angels who have been active with God in creating the world and bringing God’s message to humanity through the words of law and prophecy. People failed to respond to God’s leading and were found to be faithless and disobedient. Consequently, God allowed them to lose their way and even lose their lives. Their experience becomes our example.

Hebrews is leading into the next way of comparing Jesus and demonstrating the way in which what God has done in his Son has surpassed what God has done in the past. The next comparison beginning in chapter five will be the priesthood. Not only can Jesus be described as priestly, but in this heavenly typology Jesus is a High Priest, in fact a “great high priest”—an expression applied to those high priests of previous centuries who not only served as religious functionaries but also held political power. Jesus’ rise to power was exaltation to heaven.

Frequently in Jewish writings, heaven is described as being multi-layered—three or even seven stories of heaven. Jesus passed through the heavens, penetrated to the highest heaven, the dwelling place of God, where God is described as seated on a throne. The one to whom we claim allegiance is the one who has risen to ultimate power in the universe.

In the tragic love story of Tristan and Isolde, we learn the lesson of heeding our allegiance. Without giving away too much of the story for those who might want to see the movie, Tristan grows up to become second to the king, King Marke. Tristan faces the moral dilemma, does he give in to his passions and be with Isolde, his true love, or does he stay committed to his allegiance to the king, someone who has been like a father to him. Tristan becomes distant from the king to King Marke’s utter amazement. Together they had dreamed of the day when the tribes of Britannia would be united against the Irish, when their tribe would be supreme and rule with strength and equity. And when it finally becomes a reality, Tristan is reluctant to be a part and lends no support to his king. In the end, Tristan pays dearly for his divided loyalty.

God must be utterly amazed at our behavior at times. God chose a people, rescued them from oppression, protected and fed them in the wilderness, gave them a means for relationship with God, and in return God gets complaints and faithlessness. God gives to the people leaders in the forms of judges, priests, prophets, and kings and they are not listened to; they are abandoned and even killed. The Messiah, Jesus, endures the antagonism and assaults of the enemies of God’s people, faithfully suffers a martyr’s death, and is raised to the heavens to sit next to God’s throne. Still the people of God falter and flounder in their commitment to God in the world. How often must God come to us as King Marke does so tragically to Tristan and just want to know why. What more could we want? What more could we ask for? In the end we could also pay dearly for our divided loyalty.

Jesus has two qualities that make him the best sort of mediator. One is the divine aspect, that he has entered the heavenly temple as a great high priest. The second relates to where he got his start. Since he was one of us, he is able to intercede for us in heaven with sympathy for our human weaknesses. But even though he experienced the testing of human existence, he was not tainted by it.

We like to hold up as an example people who have achieved something but started out like us. We feel a special affinity to those people. The politician who now serves in state or federal government but who came from our home town is one we feel can represent us, because he or she was one of us. The pastor who came from the same kind of town as us, went to the same sort of schools, but through it all was well-liked and well-thought of, we may feel is someone who could understand us. That’s why we should maintain our allegiance, remain committed, “hold fast to our confession.”

Jesus was one like us and now he is our representative, our intercessor, our advocate before God. Surely that’s a good reason for us to be devoted followers of Jesus. It is our effort that’s called for, but it’s not the only thing. When we come to the difficult times and our strength and conviction falters, we are able to get the help we need.

Help’s Available When Needed (4:16)

Approach is what someone does when they come to God. Moses approached the burning bush (Acts 7:31). The children of Israel approached the foot of Mt. Sinai where God’s presence was seen and heard (Exod 16:9; 34:32; Lev 9:5; Deut 4:11; 5:23). The priests approached the altar with sacrifices (Lev 9:7, 8). In prayer to God we are transported to the highest heaven, to the throne room of God, and we approach God’s presence.

Rather than a throne of judgment, it is a throne of grace. We are to be in fearful reverence and awe, but, because of the one who sits next to the throne of God, we are able to come with boldness and confidence. At the right time, when we need help, we experience the mercy and grace of God.

Remember the story of Joseph at the end of the book of Genesis? Nearly the baby of the family, one of Daddy’s favorites and apparently a bit pretentious, Joseph was always having visions of grandeur. Just when the boys think Joseph is long-dead and they are in peril of losing everything, whom do they end up bowing in front of other than Joseph, now the Pharaoh’s right-hand man? They are oblivious to the identity of this one who is the answer to all their needs, one who is in fact one of them, their own brother, who loves them still and is ready to show them mercy and grace.

When life comes at us hard, knocks us off our feet, what’s our response? Most of the time most of us turn away from the help that’s right in front of us. “No one knows what we’re going through,” we think, “No one can help me with this.” That’s not true. Our brother, one of the guys, someone who’s been through it all, is the one who stands ready to help. We are oblivious to the one who has the power of the universe at his disposal, the one who loves us, gave his life for us, penetrated through to the highest heaven, and is now the Great High Priest of the universe. His help is there just when we need it.

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The final exhortations in this first section of Hebrews is we need to do our best to stay committed and we need to go to God when we need help. The Christian band Petra has a song called “It’s All About Who You Know.”

You are tied-in and networked

You’ve got people to see

You have friends in high places

You’ve got places to be

You’ve got plenty of time to make your mark

You’ve been able to get things done

And all the white shirts will take your calls

You’ve really had quite a run

Who can you turn to

When your life is behind you?

You have learned how to pull strings

And call in a favor or two

You have found some ways to spend your time

Instead of with “you-know-who”

There’s only one name

You can call on without blame

Some may wonder where, when if not how

There’s no worry, if you know Him now

Nothing we do here below

Is gonna save us ‘cause

It’s all about who you know

(Chorus)

When you get to the end and you’ve got nothing to show

It’s all about who you know2

Do you know him? Are you staying committed to him? Do you turn to him for help in your time of need? If it’s all about who you know, then we are very well connected.

2. Bob Hartman, “It’s All About Who You Know,” Lyrics. Jekyll and Hyde, Inpop Records, 2003. Accessed March 14, 2008. Online: http://www.petrarocksmyworld.com/jah.html.