
Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Hebrews 10:2-4
We’ll do just about anything to be reminded of something. Just look on the refrigerator in your kitchen for the reminders that you’ve stuck there. You might have used a Post-it® note or maybe you have one of those small white boards with dry markers. Or maybe you stuck the note on with old chewing gum or something just as disgusting.
If you’re like me, I don’t trust myself with reminders. So, I use technology to remind myself about stuff. Sometimes I send myself an email. Sometimes I put something on my electronic calendar. Sometimes I actually enter a digital reminder into some software that’s one purpose in life is to remind me of stuff..
Now, because I really don’t like to forget, I actually put in a reminder about the reminder. Yes, that’s right. That’s exactly what I do. So, when I have a doctors appointment on a Monday, I put in a reminder on both Monday and the Sunday just before it.
I know, I’m totally crazy. But you don’t know the half of it. When I need to get up early for travel or an appointment, I don’t just set one alarm. No, that would be way too normal and sane. I actually set two different alarms on two different devices. The first one is an alarm on my phone and my backup is on the alarm clock next to the bed.
While I don’t have the gift of prophecy, and I can’t read minds, I know exactly what you’re thinking of right now. Yes indeed. You’re really feeling sorry for Mary Ann. This is just one of the reasons that I know that she’s the most patient person in the universe. No matter how we reminder ourselves, it’s for two purposes.
Make sure you do something. It could be an appointment to be somewhere or to do something.
Make sure that you don’t forget to do something.
It takes time and energy to remind ourselves to do something. And the only reason that we’re willing to go to all the trouble of making the reminder is so that we can avoid the pain and embarrassment of forgetting something. Missing something. If there’s no pain or consequences, who cares if we forget that appointment. If we miss someone’s birthday.
This is where we find the writer of this letter. He’s telling the Hebrews about all the sacrifices and traditions that they had to do. He’s saying that all those rules, sacrifices, and ceremonies had one purpose, and only one purpose. And that was to remind them.
Yes, some were to remind them about all the good times they had. To celebrate God’s goodness and mercy. To teach their children about their past so that they could pass it along from generation to generation.
But behind all the sacrifices there was one big idea. One thing that just kept coming up over and over again. It was like a car coming towards them with their high beams making them squint through their windshield of life. And more than that, add a giant truck behind them with those lights blasting them in their eyes through the rear-view mirror of their history.
Every time they offered a sacrifice, it never quite did the job. The offering never fully took care of sin. The way we know this is that they had to keep offering sacrifices over and over again. And even if they did the sacrifice exactly like how God told them to do it, they always, always, always had to do it again.
And they knew it. They felt in their heart and consciences that the sacrifice didn’t do everything it should. They walked away from doing the sacrifice, praying all the right prayers, doing all the right things, and they still felt guilty. In their hearts, they knew deep down inside that they were still sinners who’d continue to keep on sinning.
You see, as good as those sacrifices were. As perfect as the bulls and goats looked. Even if the priest repeated the words perfectly. And even if the people did and said their part without any mistakes. It still wouldn’t work. The sacrifices made by people just like you and me would never be enough. Could never wipe away our sin and remake us new from the inside out.
All those ceremonies were a constant reminder about the failure of the sacrifices to take care of sin once and for all. They were also a powerful and painful reminder about how we just can’t change on our own. We don’t have the power to change our words, thoughts, actions, and attitudes.
I bet none of us needs a note on the refrigerator door of our life to remind us about the disasters we’ve caused for ourselves and those around us. We don’t need some software to pop up a screen to tell us again us of our moral failures. We remember them all by ourselves. That’s why God himself had to take care of our sin once and for all through Jesus on the cross. That’s what we need to keep reminding ourselves and each other of. That God took care of it all on the cross so that God could love on us. That he could make us his children once and for all. Now that’s a reminder worth remembering. Today and every day. Every hour. Every minute.
Noodling Questions
What things work best to remind yourself of things? What doesn’t work at all?
How has God reminded you about himself and all he’s done?
Why is remembering our failures so powerful?
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