Hebrews - Back to the Burning Bush

The account of Moses’s distraction by a bush that appeared to be burning but never consumed is well known. The initial distraction quickly transformed into a holy encounter with God, Moses removed his shoes and walked barefoot on holy ground.

This is as typical as it is unique. Something gets our attention and before we know it we’re grappling with a depth of thought that carries us towards God…or God comes close to us.

I’m reading through Hebrews in the New Testament (my money is on Paul as the author, but the authorship isn’t known).

This series is like a journalist reporting on scenes he’s been sent to comment on.

Report Two takes us to two verses in chapter 4.

‘For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God from His’ v10

‘For the word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart’ v 12

It is clear from Paul’s epistles, especially to the Galatians, that as believers we are not bound by the Law of Moses, which includes Sabbath observance i.e. no work from sunset on Friday evening to sunset on Saturday. For Jewish believers this is radical. It’s one thing to have private convictions, but failing to celebrate Sabbath within the context of Jewish culture is to challenge the traditional rhythms of family and community life and could easily be interpreted as neglect rather than freedom. Of course, Paul would have preached that Jewish believers are as free to celebrate the Sabbath as not…but that whatever they do, they should do in honour of Lord, Jesus the Messiah. For Gentile believers, who never had celebrated the Jewish Sabbath, this was never an issue, but Hebrews was written to Jewish believers who were always tempted not to stick out like a sore thumb, and return to Judaism with all its cultural comforts, to be bound again by the Law of Moses and the traditions of the elders.

In the early decades, after the resurrection and Pentecost, the apostles and believers were mainly Jewish believers. By the second century, however, the majority of believers were Gentiles and worship meetings shifted from the Sabbath to Sunday.

Many Christian groups, since those days, have equated Sundays, the day of the resurrection, with the Sabbath. Up until the 1970s in Britain, Sunday was a ‘day of rest’. The vast majority of shops were closed. It was a quiet day. No football, no sport, no work.

But none of these outward conventions, traditions, or outward observances scratch the surface of what is meant in verse 12.

The ‘rest’ that is spoken of in v10 is designed to be a permanent state of mind and experience of every believer. Not an outward Sabbath, but an inward, inner rest that is obtained when faith is operating.

The opposite to faith is a striving, desperate attempt to achieve, to be significant, to make our mark, to ‘work’ at life. In its most refined form, this coalesces, especially for Jews, around a hopeless quest for righteousness through obedience to the Law.

But the writer of Hebrews writes that when we ‘cease from our works’ we enter His rest, God’s rest. Out of that ‘rest’ comes all things. Jesus said ‘I do only what I see my Father in heaven doing’. It is just like this. Jesus did nothing from his own strength, resources, or abilities…but as God worked through Him.

This is radical Christianity!

By all means, meet on Resurrection Sundays and give glory to God, sing your heart out to God, shout your Amens, receive bread and wine, weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who are rejoicing, be fed by preaching, teaching, and prophesying. This is all good…but it may not be the ’rest’ that is calling to you. By all means, stop your outer work for one day a week and call it Sabbath - in 30+ years as a secondary school teacher, I did no work on Sundays, but I didn’t confuse outward observance with the totality of the ’Sabbath rest’ that is spoken about in verse 10.

Let me give a simple example of how I was taught this.

A long time ago, I was hitchhiking from Plymouth to Exeter and needed to get home by 6 pm. I tried every trick in the book, but no one was stopping. Somehow, I knew this was a test of faith…not in my ability to attract a list, but in God Himself. I can remember laughing to myself as I ‘ceased from my work.’ Minutes later, someone stopped and not only gave me a lift towards Exeter, but diverted out of his way and delivered me to my front door. As I walked from his car to the front door, church bells announced the time: 6pm precisely.

‘For the word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart’ v 12

In the above example, the word of God – in part by His Spirit communing directly with my spirit and via verse 10 – pierced between my soulish attempt to hitchhike and reach my destination on time. The soul is composed of our thinking, our emotions and our will, vital components of who we are, our personalities. Our souls are great servants but not great masters. That is reserved for the spirit-Spirit communion between God and us, the place where the living word of God pierces.

As the scripture says, ‘it is the entrance of His word that gives light’, not the existence of the word, not a black bible, not the finest of preaching, not the evangelical doctrine of the infallibility, inerrancy, and inspiration of scripture.

Only the Holy Spirit can take the written word of God and thrust it into our spirit so that we ‘know’ that the word is living and powerful and not a dusty academic thesis for our minds to feed on alone.

In those moments on the road from Plymouth to Exeter, my spirit was filled with faith, and my soul found its ‘rest’, its thoughts and intents exposed: the intent was good, but the thoughts had been about how I could achieve the result, not God. In His love and mercy, I learnt an important lesson…to which I have had to return; discipleship deepens.

You may consider that my example of hitchhiking is trivial in comparison with deeper challenges we all face from time to time. Of course, you are right. It is. But often it is the lessons we learn in small episodes of life that stand us in good stead when the storms come. Let us not despise the day of small things (Zech 4v10).

We stand on holy ground.