At our Wednesday Parish Bible Study . . . Deacon Gary recently asked the question that got him kicked out of the Baptist Sunday School he attended as a child.  . . . If Peter, James, and John were asleep while Jesus was praying in the garden at Gethsemane, Gary asks, . . . then how do we know what Jesus said?!  . . . Now, while I, unlike your Deacon, have never been expelled from Sunday School, … I have a similar question of the Apostle writing to “the Hebrews”.  If it is as the Apostle says; . . . if

the law has but a shadow of the good things to come . . . [so that] it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near . . . [and] the worshipers . . . no longer have any consciousness of sin.  But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year; . . .

if it is true that Jewish cultic sacrifice is powerless to change anything, . . . then why is it, that at every Christian sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered in the Holy Eucharist; . . . why is there an insistence that we too “confess our sins against God and our neighbor.”  And why is it that, at these same celebrations of Holy Eucharist, the Celebrant reminds both God and all of us that we have “fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death.”  . . . Why is it that if we have been cleansed from sin in and by Baptism, as we claim, . . . why is it that we continue to have a “consciousness of sin . . . year after year”?  If you and I are as conscious of sin as any Hebrew, . . . then how is Christian sacramental worship superior to Jewish cultic worship as the Apostle seems to claim?

    Well, while I can provide only a speculative answer to Deacon Gary’s question, the Apostle who has written the Epistle to “the Hebrews” tells us that the answer to my question is rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures themselves.  Moreover, they have been explained to us by the preexistent Word Himself, speaking to Israel in anticipation of His Incarnation.  And so, using Psalm 40, the Apostle writes that

when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure.  Then I said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’ . . .”

The cultic priesthood of Judaism received from the people and offered to God, in thanksgiving and as restitution for sin, the best that was available to each household:  the lamb without spot or blemish; the perfectly formed and unbruised first fruits of the harvest.  This sacrificial offering was a giving of one’s self to God in the form of a valuable possession -- the best you have.  . . . But, you see, the value of the gift is relative.  It’s only this year’s best.  There’ll be another one just like it next year; perhaps even better.  But more to the point, while I might offer a gift to God, . . . the gift doesn’t give its consent to be offered!  The gift is under constraint to be sacrificed.  In the case of animal offerings, the gift goes unwillingly and with struggle, in blind and brute terror.  So, the entire cultic system of sacrifice is a rather feeble, even though hopeful, overture to God.

    But what does the Word of God, Who became Incarnate of the Virgin Mary, say?  He says to the Lord God Almighty, “Lo, I have come to do thy will.”  The Best Person among us -- unique among all of humanity, as revealed to us by a Star -- . . . the Best Person among us, Who did not break a bruised reed nor extinguish a smoldering wick; . . . Who showed us, in innumerable ways, that the regard which God has toward us is the love of a Father for His children, and Who, by signs, demonstrated to us that a broken and contrite heart which loves God the Father and has faith in His Son . . . will be healed of spiritual lameness, deafness, and lack of vision; . . . will be healed and, like Lazarus, come to life.  He Who is Best among us -- Whose equal had not been before, nor has been since, nor will be again; . . . He Who is Best among us has been offered up for sacrifice by human sin.  . . . But Jesus doesn’t struggle in brute terror.  Indeed, Saint John tells us that

Judas, procuring a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went [to the garden] with lanterns and torches and weapons.  Then Jesus . . . said to them, “Whom do you seek?”  They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.”  Jesus said to them, “I am he.”  . . . [and] they drew back and fell to the ground.

That armed and swaggering crowd falls to the ground utterly confounded and bedazzled by the revelation of the divine Word:  “I am He.”  And Jesus, Who could have escaped their enfeebled grasp, but consenting to drink the cup which the Father’s holy will has placed into the His hands; . . . Jesus as good as helps that subdued crowd to its feet . . . and brushes them off . . . and gives them another go at arresting Him, . . . because He has come to do the Father’s will.

    And as the Lamb of God goes willingly to suffer the consequence of our sin, … all our sin becomes evident before His innocence:  faithlessness and broken vows; lies, injustice and petty brutality; blame and blasphemy; shame and self-protective indifference; pride and fear; envy, hatred, theft, and murder.  All these things are manifested by both Jew and Gentile on this terrible day, . . . culminating in the ultimate blasphemy which is uttered by the chief priests themselves (thereby defiling the whole People whom the priesthood represents); . . . the ultimate blasphemy of declaring that,  “We have no king but Caesar!”

    The Apostle writing to “the Hebrews” tells us that the cultic priesthood must offer sacrifices over and over again because the gift is ultimately imperfect and cares nothing for the giver . . . so that the gesture of sacrifice is merely a continual longing for expiation which the blood of brutes cannot accomplish.  But God, hearing the longing of the human soul, has sent us His own Son, . . . His own precious Lamb.  … The Lord God Almighty, hearing the longing of the human soul for expiation and solace; . . . the Lord God Almighty has sent us a Great High Priest Who consents to be our sacrifice, to receive our sins, and to pronounce absolution with His Blood, saying “It is finished.”

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.  And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord:  I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their misdeeds no more.”

You who gaze upon the pierced and crucified Lamb of God with remorse and gratitude; . . . you who love Jesus . . . are sanctified.  For, if God gazes upon your heart and sees Jesus, . . . there is no sin which can condemn you; . . . if God looks into your mind and sees Jesus, . . . there is no thought for your misdeeds.

    And so, when the priestly ministration of a Bishop, or of a presbyter (such as myself) in a Bishop’s stead, calls upon you to “confess our sins against God and our neighbor”, or reminds you that, “we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death”, our priesthood is not cultic . . . but sacerdotal.  We are not offering a sacrifice on your behalf to expiate sin; . . . we are simply inviting you to come away from making the mistake of Adam’s Bride; . . . to come away from listening to snakes; . . . to come away from any sin which besets you or fascinates you; . . . to come away from these things and to persevere in fixing your heart and soul and mind and strength upon Jesus, your Great High Priest, Whose Cross towers in the midst of us as a reminder that we are clean.  The Cross gives us cause to persevere in faith; . . . to persevere in faith that the efficacy of Christ’s Blood gives us entry into the sanctuary of God, where we stand before the radiance of the heavenly Father Himself.  . . . This ineffable privilege, in turn, gives us cause to persevere in hope; . . . to hope that in Christ we will always have sufficient grace to entrust ourselves to the heavenly Father’s wise and tender Providence in all circumstances, at all times, and in all places.  And by this hope we are empowered to persevere in love; . . . to persevere in making the divine love of God in Christ the theme of everything we think, the theme of everything we say, the theme of everything we will, . . . and everything we do.  The Cross of Christ makes us clean; . . . it empowers us not to become distracted by sin . . . but to live in faith . . . with hope … and to manifest the divine Love in Whose Presence it is our perpetual privilege to abide.  . . . And that is why we call this Day Good.