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We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven. — Hebrews 8.1-2

Spirituality is on the rise in America. Religion, however, is continuing on a multi-decade decline. Pew Research notes, “The phrase ‘spiritual but not religious’ has become widely used in recent years by some Americans who are trying to describe their religious identity.”

The transition from religion to spirituality is exciting for faithful Christians searching for ways to speak about faith. To contrast Christianity, pastor Timothy Keller examines the two elements all religions hold in common:

All religions believe behind the realities of nature there is an ultimate reality. There’s a Reality, capital ‘R’. There is some transcendent power above and behind all of nature that can’t be reduced to empirical, natural scientific factors or causes.

The second thing all religions agree on is there’s some gap between us and that ultimate reality. There’s some gap that needs to be bridged, or there are some barriers that need to be overcome.

At their core, the world’s religions propose that this gap is bridged through moral living, sacrifice, consciousness, or some other human work. Alternatively, Christianity presents Christ as the prophet who came to offer his life on our behalf—as both priest and king. Dr. Keller explains:

In the Bible there is a word for religion…. a Greek word that means religious observances and ceremonies and religious practice. You never ever see it applied to Christianity.

The Romans, who loved religions, let everybody have their own religion…. They let a thousand religions bloom, yet they persecuted Christians and called them atheists.

Christianity was not the beginning of a new religion. It was the anti-religion. It was the end of all religions. That’s why the Romans considered it the most radical thing anyone had ever said.

Christ, our great high priest, is described by the author of Hebrews as being seated. The work is complete—it is finished—religious labor to cross the gap is superfluous. Dr. Keller declares:

Every other religion says, “Do this, give this, offer this, live this, experience this, and that will send you over the gap to God,” but Jesus says, “I’m the God who at infinite cost to myself has come over the gap, has come over the barriers to you, barriers and a gap that you, with your puny little religious observances would never have been able to bridge, but I’ve come to you.”

Today’s Reading
Song of Solomon 8 (Listen – 2:23)
Hebrews 8 (Listen – 2:22)

 

For it is witnessed of him, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” — Hebrews 7.17

“Mark Twain is supposed to have said, ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes,’” reflects filmmaker Ken Burns—before adding, “He didn’t say it, but I love that.” Like all powerful storytellers, Burns looks to the past to clarify the present; “If you know your past, you’re much better armed to deal with the present and the future.”

Ancient cultures were guided from three powerful positions. It was the king’s role to provide and enforce the law; the priest stood between the god(s) and the people; the prophet brought the people hope. The book of Hebrews builds the argument that Christ fills all three roles.

Modern rejections of Christ are primarily reactions to his role as king and priest. No one really takes time to argue about Christ as a prophet. Perhaps this is because anyone can walk out of the woods, eat a handful of locusts for lunch, and claim to speak for god. Maybe it’s because so many have done so throughout history it has become easy to ignore.

But if Christ is king, he is owed allegiance. The implication is that you and I cannot self-actualize. The only way to succeed in this life is to pledge ourselves to someone who transcends our brokenness, heals our wounds, and holds us to his standard.

If Christ is a great high priest, he is the only access we have to God. All of our prayers, hopes, repentance, and joys must be channeled through him—you and I are insufficient for finding and communing with God on our own.

There is a wonderful balance in Christ serving as king, priest, and prophet. We miss the power in Christ’s work when we try to understand it through only one of these roles. The king brings the law—declares the truth—but if the only way to relate to God is through the law we become entangled in legalism.

Similarly, the priest stands as a comforter—but if God is just our comforter, religion is reduced to emotionalism, never moving us past our own “skull-sized kingdoms” and bringing hope and life to the world.

And if Christ is only a prophet, he says inspiring and helpful things, but is powerless to bring justice, peace, beauty, renewal, and new life to our world. Though the metaphors of king, priest, and prophet are ancient, our hope and faith in Christ renews our lives and world at present.

Today’s Reading
Song of Solomon 7 (Listen – 1:55)
Hebrews 7 (Listen – 4:01)

“A lot of people seem to feel that joy is only the most intense version of pleasure, arrived at by the same road—you simply have to go a little further down the track, ” observes Zadie Smith. The author confesses, “That has not been my experience.”

Joy, in many Christian circles, has been wrongly placed in contrast to happiness. The result of this false dichotomy, Randy Alcorn points out, is a distorted view that removes joy from the emotional spectrum and secularizes happiness. “Our message shouldn’t be ‘Don’t seek happiness,’” Alcorn remarks, “but ‘You’ll find in Jesus the happiness and joy you’ve always longed for.’”

As a fruit of the Spirit, joy is given from God, simultaneously with self discipline and patience. In other words, delaying gratification doesn’t diminish the joy of God. True joy requires sacrifice. It reaches beyond pleasure and taps into something much deeper. The most talented storytellers in our culture have recognized this—noting how different joy is from the reckless pursuit of pleasure that marks our material world. Filmmaker George Lucas explains:

Joy is the thing that doesn’t go as high as pleasure—in terms of your emotional reaction—but, it stays with you. Joy is something you can recall, pleasure you can’t. The secret is, that even though it’s not as intense as pleasure, the joy will last you a lot longer.

If you’re trying to sustain that level of peak pleasure, you’re doomed. It’s a very American idea. Joy lasts forever, pleasure is purely self-centered. It’s all about your pleasure—it’s about you. It’s a selfish, self-centered emotion. It’s created by a self-centered motive of greed.

Joy is compassion. Joy is giving yourself to somebody else, or something else. It’s a kind of thing that, in its subtlety and lowness, much more powerful than pleasure. If you get hung up on pleasure you’re doomed. If you pursue joy, you’ll find everlasting happiness.

When we think of the fruit of the Spirit as the transferable attributes of God—those divine characteristics which shape our lives as we live in sync with the Spirit—it becomes clear human beings were created for joy. Scripture reveals that anything we are created to receive from God we will attempt to counterfeit—to become our own god as we provide for ourselves.

Marijuana, alcohol, adventure sports, sex, and so many other little things bring us right to the outside edges of joy. We taste, if only for a moment, the glory of creation. And because pleasure is so short lived and so soon forgotten we want more. We need more. In trying to pin down a definition of joy for her piece in The New York Review of Books, Zadie Smith looks back to her drug use in the London club scene:

Was that joy? Probably not. But it mimicked joy’s conditions pretty well…. The thing no one ever tells you about joy is that it has very little real pleasure in it.

We can’t counterfeit true joy. Commenting on Smith’s experience, Alex Bayer observes, “static pleasure precludes the chance of achieving joy.” What we see—in Christ’s life, sacrifice, death, and resurrection—is that joy is found not in the flickers of earthly pleasure, but the eternal glory of God. One of Jesus’ shortest parables, then, is a story about joy—and how we find it in the happy forfeiture of this life’s meaningless pleasures:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Joy is not contrast to happiness, but to grief. We know this, deep down—if nothing else from the depth of these two emotions. We know this from the low-level grief we carry with us in a broken world. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit because it only comes as God re-enters the world from which sin kicked him out. He came and wept with us so that we might rejoice for all of eternity with him.

Grief today is but a sign of the glory to come. Likewise, the joy we find relinquishing our pursuit of daily pleasure for a greater joy is a testimony of what lies ahead. Smith concludes:

The writer Julian Barnes, considering mourning, once said, “It hurts just as much as it is worth.” The end of a pleasure brings no great harm to anyone, after all, and can always be replaced with another of more or less equal worth.

Weekend Reading List

• Joy. Zadie Smith for The New York Review of Books.
• Is There a Biblical Difference Between Happiness and Joy? Randy Alcorn for OnFaith.
• George Lucas on Joy. Video for the Academy of Achievement.
• Joy vs. Pleasure. Alex Bayer for the Stanford Daily.

Today’s Reading
Song of Solomon 4 (Listen – 2:46)
Hebrews 4 (Listen – 2:43)

This Weekend’s Readings
Song of Solomon 5 (Listen – 2:43) Hebrews 5 (Listen – 1:57)
Song of Solomon 6 (Listen – 1:48) Hebrews 6 (Listen – 2:58)