Hebrews 8:1-7 A Portable Faith

Observation: the book of Hebrews is an extended sermon about Jesus' place in the faith of Jewish believers. There are a lot of references to temple worship. Here Jesus is called the great "high priest", who offers the sacrifice of himself in the Heavenly Temple. This would have been especially meaningful because within a decade of the writing of this sermon, the earthly temple in Jerusalem was leveled by the Romans.

Application: After the temple's destruction, Jews had to adapt to having a "portable faith", with no centralized temple in which to worship and offer sacrifices.

I think many of us can relate. My freshman year of college was a major wilderness time for me. I associated worship and faith with a place: my home church, in my home town, 700 miles away. God seemed so far away then. It wasn't really until being on staff at a Christian summer camp, leading worship and praise myself, that I started to have a portable faith, and to know that the Heavenly sanctuary described in this reading, and Jesus, our high priest, can show up anywhere.

You may have a similar "temple dilemma": your faith may be tied to a certain place, a certain pastor or youth leader or family member, and for whatever reason, you can't get back there. We can never really go home again. Change is inevitable, even if you've only ever worshiped in one sanctuary throughout your life. But take it from me: faith is portable. Jesus travels. And the real sanctuary that made the worship you remember so special, isn't the one you can see.

Prayer: Jesus, our high priest, thanks for your sacrifice and for blessing our worship. Every time. Amen.