Reading: Hebrews 13
If we really can go into the throne room of heaven, what do we do there? Up until now, the whole book has focused on one activity: ask for help! Writing to people who are tired, worn out, and struggling to endure very trying circumstances, the author focuses on that first. But there’s more.
Before we get to that, we’re given some very practical reminders about what endurance looks like: brotherly love and hospitality, especially toward strangers and imprisoned brothers, taking good care of your marriage, placing high value on contentment, trusting God to protect us, minding our spiritual leaders. And lastly, don’t get preoccupied with weird arguments about food purity.
That seems an odd way to finish that section, but it leads right into a discussion of eating from the altar. See, not everything that happened on the altar was a sacrifice for sin; there were also peace offerings that were a meal you ate with God. It was an important part of fellowship with God under the old covenant. As followers of Jesus the superior Priest of a superior covenant, we have superior means of fellowship; those who are still serving the obsolete earthly tabernacle have no right to what we can now do. What is that?
To understand the answer, we go back to the sin offering: the bodies of the sin offering animals were burned outside the camp. Jesus therefore suffered outside the city; we go outside the city to Him, rejected as He was rejected, knowing that we have no continuing city on earth, and seeking the heavenly Jerusalem. Through Jesus—our High Priest who entered God’s sanctuary as our Forerunner—”let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” There’s no longer a pin on the map locating the spot where heaven meets earth in some particular building. You are the pin on the map. You have the authority to call heaven down, wherever you happen to be standing. How do you do it? Some elaborate ritual? Nope. Every praise and thanksgiving to God is a fellowship offering, and heaven meets you, right where you’re standing, to receive it. Every beggar’s hand is an altar when you share with him in Jesus’ name. Every good deed you do, no matter how slight, is a sacrifice that God receives in His throne room, which meets you wherever you’re doing it.
This God-given ability—dare I call it a magical power?— does not depend on unique clothing, specially formulated oils and incense, specific furniture or buildings or elaborate rituals of any kind. God doesn’t have any problem with those things; He used them all at one time. But those were the trappings of an earthly city, and we are the ambassadors of a better—a heavenly—city, wielding a more powerful magic. Let’s be about it.
If you’d like to hear more about this passage, check out the Hebrews 13 episode of my Hebrews podcast with Chris Morrison of Gulfside Ministries.
Full Contact Christianity 
I smell a commentary. Do you have the margin? Headwaters or otherwise?
Of course I don’t have the margin; what’s that got to do with anything? 😉
Seriously, that’s the plan. Chris and I are working on turning the podcast into a book. I don’t know if it will quite count as a commentary proper, but it will certainly be a detailed and practice-forward walk through Hebrews. Prayers much appreciated — there are a number of book projects in the offing, and I need bucketloads of wisdom and persistence to get them finished, shipped, and on to the next one.