Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes

AM Psalm 18:1-20 • PM Psalm 18:21-50
Gen. 4:17-26 • Heb. 3:1-11 • John 1:43-51

Transitions can be strange, difficult, and sometimes downright scary. The phrase “a smooth transition,” I’d hazard, emerged and settled in the English language because transitions are frequently anything but.

The letter to the Hebrews, which traditional scholarship attributed to the apostle Paul but which now scholars believe might have been written by someone consciously trying to imitate Paul, speaks to a particularly challenging moment of change in the early church. The audience is thought to be Christians in Jerusalem who were being persecuted for their beliefs. Evidently, numbers of these new adherents were returning to traditional Jewish worship practices in order to escape persecution.

The author of the letter, employing a rather convoluted analogy worthy of Paul, even if written in imitation of him, pleads for perseverance. Jesus was “faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.” The author concludes that since “Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house,” so “we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.”

How does the letter to the Hebrews speak to us today? Though often fraught with tension and apprehension, many, if not most, transitions are ultimately productive and fruitful. Keep your feet to the fire, with your eyes straight ahead. The new, the other side of the transition, will finally be good for us.

Written by David Jolliffe

At St. Paul’s, David sings in the choir, helps with community meals, and chairs the Tippy McMichael Lectureship committee.