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People need hope more than ever. As followers of Jesus, we have this promise in Colossians 1:27.....CLICK HERE

Writer's pictureChet Gladkowski

Monday-Change

 

For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also. He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe, and no one from that tribe has ever served at the altar.

 

Hebrews 7:12,13

 

Most of this life is filled with those simple moments in life where there’s this fork in the road that we just don’t notice all that much. Heck, we probably didn’t even know that it’s a fork. We’re just walking through life. Living each daily the best we can. We’re moving from one place to another, and we have to make a choice. We can go one way or the other. We turn right or left. We look up or down. We choose black or white.

 

Then there are these gigantic, earth-shaking, life-changing events, they are few and far between. You know what I’m talking about. These are the moments and memories where we clearly know that life will never be the same.

 

Some of them are great big choices. The choices that make everything different from that day forward. A wedding day. Moving to a new city. Changing jobs. Buying a new house. And while some of these big days are not chosen, they are still days to be remembered for the rest of our lives. The birth of a child or grandchild. The death of a spouse or child.

 

For the Hebrews, their history was filled with day after day sacrifices. Year after year, there was a rhythm of all the daily, weekly, monthly, and annual sacrifices. There were a whole bunch of days that they remembered over and over. Feasts that were celebrated each and every year.

 

That was the good news. They had built in reminders that God was their God and that he was never going to reject his people. He was never going to forsake them[1]. There were traditions and sacrifices that opened up a way for sin to be forgiven. For relationships to be restored. For thanks to be given.

 

But the bad news was that they had to be repeated. Over and over. Year in, year out. There was no such thing as a once-for-all sacrifice. The best they had was Yom Kippur, the annual Day of Atonement[2].

 

For this one special day in the year, there was one sacrifice for everyone. But that was it. There had to be another Day of Atonement next year. And the year after that. And the year after that.

 

So, in order to change this into a once and for all sacrifice, things had to change. And this wasn’t just a small alteration, like hemming your pants so they fit. This was a huge change. There had to be a new law and a new priest. Not just more of the same-old, same-old. This was revolutionary.

 

When things are changed, something new replaces something old. You can’t have two different things at the same time. It’s one or the other. The new will push out and replace the old. It’s like what Bob Dylan said in The Times They Are a-Changin’[3], “As the present now will later be past.”

 

The laws and priesthood couldn’t really get the job done. Yes, people could follow the law and even offer the right kind of sacrifices. But there was a problem. The sacrifices couldn’t really pay for sin. They couldn’t eliminate sin. The laws and priesthood were too weak.

 

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh

 

Romans 8:3

 

God went to a lot of trouble telling Moses all the laws. After writing them down, the Hebrews spent years building the Tabernacle and setting up the priesthood. And after it was all in place, guess what. It really didn’t work. They had to keep looking for forgiveness all over the place.

 

Why was the law and priests not able to really forgive sin? For the simple reason that it depended on people. You know what they’re like. Those priests weren’t any different than you and me. We can’t keep a thought out of our heads that dirties our minds. We can’t keep our hands off stuff that dirties our lives.

 

This is why Jesus compares his once-and-for-all sacrifice for all sin as new wine in new wineskins[4]. He’s going to offer the one-time sacrifice that’s going to take care of all sin. No more temples. No more sacrifices. And to top it all off, he give us his Holy Spirit to remind us and empower us[5].

 

Now that’s what I call a change! It’s not just throwing a new coat of paint onto a dirty wall. Not at all. It’s a new wall. It’s a new life. And it requires us to change everything about life. But the joy makes the change well worth it.

 

Noodling Questions

 

  • Name and explain three small changes that wound up being huge.

  • Describe one giant change that wound up being a dud.

  • What small changes does God have in store for you?


[1] Psalm 94:14

[2] Leviticus 16

[5] John 14:16-18

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