Thomas Long tells of one of his very early experiences in parish ministry.  He was literally still unpacking the boxes in the office of his first parish, when a member of that parish knocked on his door.  What followed was a long and frustrating conversation in which the woman expressed her deep, yet unfocused sense of being judged by God, that she was unacceptable to God.  The two talked about her experiences, her faith and her feelings, but even though there was no particular misdeed that she could identify as causing her to feel this way, nothing that Long said to her seemed to help.   

As Long writes, “In some ways it would’ve been better if she had done something that she could name as her source of guilt….we could then at least have identified the offense and perhaps done something to address it.  As it stood, though, she could not specify her sins, could not name her distress; she could only confess her vague and unrelieved shame.”

After nearly an hour of conversation in which Long tried to assure her of God’s love and forgiveness, the woman was still wringing her hands and repeating the refrain, “I know what you are saying is true, but I just can’t overcome the feeling that God cannot forgive me.”  After Long had concluded their conversation with a prayer for this woman, she thanked him for his time and departed.  Long says that he couldn’t help but feel that he had failed.

Years later, as Long was writing a commentary on the Letter to the Hebrews, this memorable moment from his early days as a pastor came back to him.  He realized that this woman, with her painful experience of guilt, and the many others like her, were just the sort of people that Hebrews was written for.  And today’s passage from Hebrews speaks to the very heart of this woman’s experience.

Although it is called the letter to the Hebrews, many biblical scholars view this book of the bible as being more like a sermon than a letter; a sermon that is addressed to a particular congregation.  And though it was addressed to a people living in the first century, it conveys a timeless message that speaks to the situation of the woman in Long’s story and to the many people who are like her.

No matter how many times the good news of God’s mercy and forgiveness in Jesus Christ is told, there remains for many a foreboding image of God.  God is not primarily seen as the loving and compassionate father of the prodigal son who runs down the road and meets his long-lost son with forgiveness and who kills the fatted calf and prepares a joy-filled banquet.  Instead, God is seen primarily as a grim figure who stands on the other side of life’s curtain waiting to dispense severe judgment. 

This mindset lends itself to a faith journey in which one lives in near constant dread of the “Man upstairs” who is always watching us and waiting to punish us for our misdeeds.  As Long puts it, “No matter how often the good news of God's forgiveness and gracious providence is preached, the idea lingers deep in the consciousness of many that they are watched disapprovingly by the stern Father God who glowers his disapproval upon all humanity.”

This to me is the definition of what has been called “the sin-sick soul”.  It is an ailment that is much more virulent and causes much more damage than the swine-flu.   As the author of Hebrews points out, this ailment has its roots in the sacrificial system of the Jewish temple, in which the high priest on the Day of Atonement entered the Holy of Holies and offered animal sacrifices for the sins of the Jewish people.  This sacrificial act had to be carried out every year, over and over again.  

Naturally, this pattern carried with it the sense that these annual offerings were never completely adequate to deal with the magnitude of human sin, so there was the necessity to repeat the sacrifices year after year after year.  There was implicit within this system a foreboding image of God as one who is always judging humanity and looking to punish humanity.  No matter how far removed we are from that sacrificial system of the Jerusalem temple, this image of God seems to remain in the minds of many, so that worship becomes the fearful act of guilt-ridden people, constantly on trial and constantly seeking to placate a harsh and judging God.      

The letter to the Hebrews offers an important reminder that Jesus Christ, the great High Priest, brought an end to this vicious cycle.   “For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.  Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is now his own…But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

Christ entered the true sanctuary and on behalf of all of humanity offered himself, a human without sin, and achieved forgiveness once and for all.  In Christ, all trials are now over.  Yes, we still continue to fall short of the glory of God and we still fail to live our lives in complete accordance with God’s will; and yes, we still need to recognize this in ourselves and repent.  But we do this with the glorious knowledge that in Christ sin has ultimately been overcome once and for all. 

Our faith journey does not have to be like the one of that woman who entered Tom Long’s office those many years ago.  She wondered if God could forgive her, if she could ever be acceptable to God.  That’s the wrong question: it’s not whether God can forgive us; it’s whether we can accept the fact that God’s forgiveness has already been won once and for all by Jesus Christ, the great High Priest.  We do not have to continue to offer guilt-ridden sacrifices for our sins; we simply have to recognize our need for God’s mercy, give thanks that God is indeed merciful and live our lives with full and grateful hearts.