Even today, some churches go by the name of tabernacle.  The tabernacle, whether as the tent in the wilderness or the temple in Jerusalem, is that place where God and man meet.  God has provided for where He and those who know their need of Him may meet.  In biblical times, the priest facilitated that meeting.  What makes that meeting possible, however, is always and only the presence and blessing of the Spirit.  We worship in Spirit and truth.  No Spirit, no meeting, no worship.  No truth, no true meeting, no true worship.

God provided Moses with a rather detailed, comprehensive blueprint for the tabernacle: the interior plan for the place of meeting, its dimensions, as well as the dimensions of the exterior barrier separating off the meeting area from what was outside and apart from it.  Holiness makes boundaries.  Later, God provides similar plans to David and Solomon for the Temple.  God likewise provides details regarding the objects needed for offering worship: the altars both for the burnt offering and the incense, the lampstand (that’s the menorah), a table for bread.  The altar for the burnt offering, where the sacrifices of the people were offered up, might well be regarded as the focal point of all that happened at the meeting place.  That altar would mean nothing if God did not also choose to be present at the meeting place.  You can call, but if no one answers, you’re kind of exactly where you were before you called.  What sort of party is it when the guest of honor never shows up?  An effective sacrifice, blessed with the desired result, the hoped-for outcome, needed the presence of God to receive and accept the sacrifice.

This meeting place was not the idea or decision of any man but received and built at the instruction of God.  Apart from God’s instruction, we don’t really know how to meet God, and we can’t know, because from our side we have no way of knowing, just guesses more or less educated.  It is God who must provide the way.  He does.  Beloved, look again, carefully, prayerfully: see God making the way.

Tabernacle and Temple were built so that the altar was situated before the entrance into the sanctuary itself.  We think of that word sanctuary as meaning a place of safety, protection.  The word means a holy place.  Truly, our safety is in holiness.  In Christ, we are holy.  And the Spirit is with us to help us become what we are.  Both tent and Temple sanctuaries were divided in two: a holy place and a most holy place.  My aunt’s second husband would buy a house and then remodel it, add on to it.  We celebrated many Thanksgivings and Christmases in one of those remodeled homes.  We didn’t gather in the living room—no one lived there—and we certainly didn’t set foot in the added-on dining room, the formal dining room.  These spaces were understood to be off limits—especially to children.  We would all meet in the family room, which was the converted garage.  Oh, my cousin and my sister and I may have passed through the living room on one or two occasions—I even recall playing there for a few minutes, once—but, so far as I can recall, we never even set a toe in the dining room, the formal dining room; so far as I know, no one else ever did, either.

In the Temple, only the priests could go inside the holy place, and as for the most holy place, into that space only the high priest could go, and only one time each year only after special preparation.  The space was just that holy.  Separating the holy from the most holy was an ornate, colorful tapestry, which also gets called a curtain or a veil.  It was woven in such a way that you couldn’t see what was on the other side.

Holy as it was to be regarded, the physical structure of the tent and, later, the Temple, with all its gold ornamentation and artistic depictions, was understood to be only an evocation of the true holy place, the spiritual garden beyond us, beyond this world, to which we could not return, to which we had no access.  Forever shut out.  “But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation” (9:11).  He came.  He entered.  He passed through, into the very presence of God.  He came to return there and to return from there.  He came for something, and with something he returned.  The access to God which the priests enjoyed was still limited access.  Not so, the access Jesus has.  Not so, the access we have, in Jesus.  He came from there and returned there for us; he will return again.

Christ, we are told, is the priest of “the good things that are now already here.”  Now here because it was Christ who caused these good things for us.  They were not fully available until Christ came and fulfilled his earthly priesthood for our blessing.  The priest brings the people to God.  The priest offers prayer.  The priest lifts up the sacrifice.  The nearer we draw to Jesus, the greater the blessings.  The good things Christ makes available for us, now already here: atonement, reconciliation, restoration, God’s blessing, His good will, full and confident access to God upon His throne of mercy.  It is not the case that these aren’t completely available for us already.  It’s not the case that we need to add something more to Christ’s sacrifice, to, as it were, unlock the rest of the blessings.  The preacher of Hebrews wants those listening to understand that the good things, God’s gracious blessing, this is already here for us, already available.  Now is the time to avail ourselves.  Seek the Lord while He may be found.

Each of us is here today seeking, hoping, less or more consciously, some blessing from God.  We come here with some need, a hope, some concern or worry, a sorrow; let us also come with thanks; let us also rejoice in the Lord.  Christ came to go through, through the suffering, through the blood, through death, through the curtain for us, being the sacrifice that wins boundless glory for God, winning a people for God forever.  The Son came to offer, physically and spiritually, what we, all imperfectly and too rarely, could only simulate through rituals.

We’re hearing from Hebrews by way of considering what Christ does for us at the cross.  Through the cross, Christ gives us access to God even the priests never knew.  Jesus is our great high priest.  Let us have full assurance that God hears us when we pray, whenever we pray.  Let us pray in Jesus’ name.  That doesn’t just mean we include the name Jesus at the end of our prayer, like a period or a stamp; it means that we strive to pray as Jesus prayed, as he would have us pray.  In his time among us on earth, for what did Jesus pray?

Jesus has entered into God’s presence, once for all, for us.  Did you hear how he entered?  “[H]e entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood” (9:12).  What the Old Testament also makes plain, and what the Jewish listeners to Hebrews knew very well, was that not even a priest could enter the tabernacle without first offering a sacrifice for his own blemished life.  We may find all the ritual bloodletting in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, the God-ordered necessity for it, vaguely repellant, primitive, barbaric.  God finds sin perfectly repulsive, brutish, savage.  We come before God with a broken, fallen nature.  It’s not what we want, now, but it is what we have.  We enter this life and go through it with the congenital wound of disobedience.  By grace through the Spirit we don’t want it to be so, and so it is.  Until we accept these facts, Christianity can’t come fully alive in us.

The point of the sacrifice wasn’t just to kill an animal and throw a lot of blood around.  The point was that sin first had to be atoned for: the penalty must be paid.  The only thing that atoned for sin, as God Himself declared, was blood—life itself.  Sin is a violation of life, life as God means for it to be.  Before he could approach God, even the priest had first to present at the altar the blood of his sacrifice for his own sin.  No entry into the tabernacle, no going into the presence of God, without the atoning blood.  We enter only through the blood.  I’m telling you, something big happens for us at the cross.  I said last Sunday, I will say again—the crosses in our churches and around our necks are just a little too tidy, smooth, and sleek.  God takes sin seriously, so seriously that He Himself comes among us to do something about it.  Lord knows we didn’t; Lord knows we couldn’t.  Of course this disappoints Him; more, though, this calls forth His compassion.

Sacrifice, remember, was part of relationship.  Sometimes, the sacrifice was just by way of a thank you.  Sometimes, it was very much I’m sorry, how can I make it up to You?  Sometimes, it was nothing I can do can undo what I’ve done, I know!  Please forgive me?  Often, the sacrifice involved a sacrificial animal, which meant blood.  Some people aren’t bothered by blood.  There are times when I’m not so bothered by the blood of others, but don’t even talk to me about my blood!  I’ve passed out during several blood draws—poor phlebotomists!  The sacrifices required blood.  A sacrifice without blood is a sacrifice without personal cost.  Blood is deep, essential, life, and death.  The Temple ritual involved sprinkling with blood, sometimes also ashes and dust mixed with water: signs of sacrifice, of purification, and atonement: by the blood we are forgiven.  The blood, beloved—the blood is the mark of our forgiveness.  The blood is God’s mercy.  The blood is grace.

Christ, we are being reminded, “did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood” (9:12).  For a people and a religion that had depended upon priests and the offerings they made on behalf of the people, for a people and a religion that fully realized the limitations and imperfections—indeed, the flaws—of those priests, the preacher of Hebrews is assuring those listening that there is a perfect priest, unblemished, spotless, sent to us from God, who makes the perfect offering to God for us: the good things are already here.  Receive them!  Rejoice!  God does for us what we, even at our best, could not do, what we, all too often, have not wanted to do.  God takes the initiative.  He does what is necessary.  The cross serves as an ever-present reminder of what was necessary.

Christ went through the tabernacle into the very presence of God, not temporarily, provisionally, but once for all.  I also hear, in that phrase “once for all,” an assurance that Christ, high priest of all who rely upon him, all who rely upon his true, effective priesthood—he is now there always for all of us, once for all.

God makes clear His expectation that no one come before Him emptyhanded.  What is our offering, our gift to God; what do we bring?  We all come to God emptyhanded, because there is nothing we can offer for ourselves.  We have no gift to offer worthy of God.  We have no gift to offer that has not been given to us by God.  We give Thee but Thine own.  God, in Christ, takes our nothing to offer and makes it the perfect offering, the complete sacrifice.  In Christ’s sacrifice, through his blood, his blameless life in place of our woefully blameworthy lives, Jesus has obtained “eternal redemption” (9:12).  Not temporary, just until the next time you or I stumble off into sin.  Not provisional redemption, conditional once more upon our perfect obedience to the law, but eternal redemption obtained for us through Christ’s perfect obedience, his perfect submission.  Remember, please, that there can be no obedience without listening.  What Christ has won for us we cannot lose, except by rejecting it, rejecting Christ, rejecting all this talk of sacrifice and blood as beneath us and certainly beneath the god whom we serve.

But outward rites are to remind us of inward realities, spiritual truths.  God reminds His people, several times, that it isn’t the blood of any sacrificial ox or goat that obtains forgiveness.  All this was to direct thought, hope, and prayer to the true sacrifice to come.  It is truly joyful news that “the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, [his blood will] cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (9:14).  Throughout Hebrews, much gets packed into a few words, as in what I just read to you.  The blood, Christ’s blood, does more than save us.  That blood frees us in a radical way.  The blood marks for us a new birth, we are reborn through the blood, the blood and the water, through the eternal Spirit: a new life being restored to God.  The conscience is not all at once cleansed, we know!  Consciousness of guilt, whenever and however that may finally come, does not then vanish all at once.  The aftereffects of sin remain; body and soul are scarred, beloved.  We aren’t entirely free from the influence of sin.  Oh, you and I, we’ve dashed off after one act or another leading to death, even after receiving Christ as our Savior, and Lord.

It is the power of the blood, the power of the life, that we will be cleansed; this has already begun in us and will be completed by God, for God, at the time He has appointed in His perfect wisdom.  Lord knows, we want to know the fullness of this cleansing now!  Though the flesh-mindedness, the world-mindedness in us will still chase after death, the Christ-mindedness now also in us wants to run after what leads to life!  Amen!  Know Christ.  Commune with him.  Offer your prayers, remembering he also is praying for you, praying that the Father would bless you with all you need, sustain you, defend you, shine upon you, and cause you to see and know His love, in the hard times as well as the good.

God does not intend eternal punishment for us but eternal blessing; therefore; let us, washed by the blood, cleansed from our sin by the blood, live lives worthy of such cleansing.  Easier said than done, oh, I know!  Remember, always remember, please remember, you have help, real help, powerful help.  When we don’t live up to the height of our calling in Christ, let us not despair, give up, lose hope, throw ourselves, self-pityingly into ever deeper sin—hello darkness my old friend.  Let us instead remember that blood, still, now, and always effective for us.  Let us remember and lift hands and hearts to our great high priest, in the very presence of God, praying for us in this very moment.  And cherish this: those for whom Christ prays, God blesses.