“Here I Am!” Hebrews
10:5-10
Intro.: Many years ago, while in college, I returned
to school after taking my sister home for the weekend. I was so anxious to get back and see Judi who
happened to be at a house-party. When I
entered the house I saw her across the room asking people if they had seen her
boyfriend, Kent. It was obvious that
she was as excited about seeing me, as I was about seeing her. Unfortunately while I was home my dad, who is
a barber, had given me a severe haircut.
Well, that haircut must have changed my appearance dramatically, because
the next thing I knew Judi came up to me, and asked, “Have you seen my
boyfriend?” All I could say is, “Judi,
it’s me. Here I am!”
In the same way when Christ came to the
people He loved, who had been waiting for Him, they did not even recognize Him
or receive Him. Some, like John in last
weeks Gospel, wondered if He was really the One they were expecting. Still today He comes to the people of the
world, but they do not recognize Him. He
reaches out to the people He loves, people like us, but they do not receive
Him. So in our epistle He declares: “It is me!
Here I Am!” I am the One who is
written about! I am the One who has come
in the flesh! I am the One who does the
Father’s will! And I am the One who
makes you holy!
I.
The One Who Is Written About.
(v.7)
So
that we may recognize Him and receive Him properly as the promised Savior,
Jesus repeats the prophetic words of Psalm 40, saying, “Here I am – it is written about me in the scroll…”(v.7a)
A. The scroll which is referred to here is the
one that included the first five books of the Bible written by Moses. We know that everything Moses wrote under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit was written to teach us about God’s plan of
salvation through Jesus.
In the scroll God’s holy law which demands
perfect obedience was laid out plainly.
It included the first simple law given to Adam and Eve forbidding them
to eat of the fruit of a particular tree, the Ten Commandments given on
But
there was something else written throughout the scroll. Moses pointed out that it was necessary for a
sacrifice to be made for sin. Adam and
Eve had their naked shame covered because an innocent animal was put to death
for them. The people who sinned against
the Lord at
B. In fact all of the Old Testament Scriptures
(Moses, all the prophets, and the Psalms) are about God’s plan to save us
through His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus said
to the Pharisees in John 5, “You
diligently study the scriptures because you thing that by them you possess
eternal life. These are the Scriptures
that testify about me…” (Jn. 5:39) Still today
there are many, perhaps some of you who search the scriptures looking for
something other than Christ in them. You
may be looking for an edge to get ahead in life, a pattern for living that will
help you avoid conflict and win friends, or a guide for living that will teach
you how to earn God’s blessing and eternal life. Jesus comes to us today, and says “Here, I am
– I am the one written about in the scriptures, through whom
you possess eternal life.”
The next thing our epistle
tells us about Jesus so that we may recognize Him and receive Him as the
promised Savior is that He is…
II. The One Who Has Come In Flesh. (v.5)
“Therefore, when Christ came into the world,
he said: ‘Sacrifices and offerings you did not desire, but a body you prepared
for me.” (v.5)
A. From the beginning God promised that our Savior
would come to us as a man to redeem us through his body.
After Adam and Eve sinned against the first
command the Lord had given them, eating of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil and bringing sin and death into the world, the Lord declared that the
child of the woman would come to crush Satan’s head. The Savior would come in human flesh to have
his body bruised in sacrifice to defeat Satan for all of us. (Gen. 3:15)
In our Old Testament reading the prophet
Micah continues that promise of the Savior coming in the flesh. He foretells that the ancient of days, the
Lord God Himself, would come as a descendent of David. A child would be born in
B. And in
the womb of Mary God did it. When the
angel Gabriel appeared to the young maiden in
In
our Gospel reading
III. The One Who Does The Father’s
Will. (v.7b-9)
A. Jesus echoes all that is written in the Old
Testament about God’s law and our sin, when He says: ‘Sacrifices
and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were
you pleased with them’ (although the law required them to be made) To rightly recognize and receive our Lord Jesus we
must first understand that no works of human flesh or any offerings of animal sacrifices
are good enough to cover our sins and earn God’s forgiveness and favor.
When
Even the sacrifices God required of His
Old Testament people fell short of His expectation because they were offered
without faith. What were intended to be
prophetic symbols of the greater sacrifice of Christ the people turned into
empty rituals and self-righteous acts which had nothing to do with God’s promises. Emptied of
Christ, they became nothing more than the senseless slaughter of animals whose
shed blood couldn’t really take away anyone’s sin. God did not desire such faithless sacrifices
or offerings nor was he pleased with them.
After pointing out that none of us could be saved by observing the law
or through animal sacrifices, Jesus went on to say: “Here I am, I have come to do your will.”
B. God’s Son, Jesus Christ, came in the flesh to
do His Father’s will for us; to do what none of us who were conceived and born
in sin are capable of doing.
In His body Jesus was able to please His
Father with a life of perfect obedience.
Born of a woman, Jesus placed himself under the law to redeem all of us
who have failed to keep it. He fulfilled
the will of God the Father, kept the law, and pleased Him as our
substitute. As the Father announced,
both at Jesus baptism and transfiguration:
“This is my beloved Son in whom I am
well pleased…”
In His body Jesus was not only able to
keep the law for us he was also able to offer the perfect sacrifice for our
sin. There on the cross the holy body
which had been prepared for Him was pierced and put to death, as the only
acceptable sacrifice which could pay for our sins. There He carried out God’s justice as He
received in His body all the punishment we deserve - the innocent sacrificed so
that the guilty may be forgiven. For
centuries the priests had been entering the most holy place of the temple to
sprinkle the blood of a spotless Lamb upon the mercy seat of God, but Jesus the
Great High Priest entered the most holy place of heaven with His own precious blood,
the blood of the Holy Lamb of God, to cover God’s wrath.
By His obedience and sacrifice He has set
aside the law with all its demands and curses and has established mercy for us
all. In the body prepared for Him He has
shown us what God means when He tells us, “I
desire mercy, not sacrifice..” We are here
again today at the mercy seat of God, not to appease God with sacrifices He
doesn’t desire, nor to buy his love with offerings that can never please
Him. We come here to hear Jesus tell us
again, “I am here. I am the One who does
the Father’s will, and …
IV. The One Who Sanctifies You And Makes
You Holy. (v.10)
A. In the last verse of our epistle we are
told that Jesus’ once for all sacrifice has fulfilled His Father’s will for
us. His resurrection is our proof that
the sacrifice He offered in His body upon the cross was acceptable to the
Father. With that one sacrifice He paid
the price to ransom all the people of all time.
We know that through Him we have absolute forgiveness and eternal
life.
There are no further sacrifices
necessary. That once for all sacrifice
did it all. We have nothing more to add
to it. Our salvation does not depend
upon our sacrifice of decision of giving our hearts to Jesus. Our life and salvation do not come from our
sacrifices and offerings, but only from God’s mercy in Jesus Christ.
B. We are made holy by God’s gracious will through Jesus. It is not the things we do, but what Jesus has done and is doing for us that matters. He gives us a righteousness that come by grace through faith in what He has done.
Through the means
of grace, baptism, the word, and the sacrament of the altar, we receive the
benefits of Christ’s once for all sacrifice.
Here, in baptism, our sins are washed away, we are clothed with Christ’s
righteousness, and we are made new and holy people in God’s sight. Here in the Word which is read, sung,
preached, and spoken in absolution we are declared holy for Jesus’ sake. And here when we receive the very body which
God prepared for His Son, and the blood which He poured out for us on the cross
to fulfill His Father’s will, the Holy Christ enters into us to purify us from
all our sins.
We are made holy not because of the things
we do or the sacrifices we offer but through the forgiveness of sins, which
Christ purchased for us by His own sacrifice.
Concl.: So let us
continue to pray, Come Lord Jesus! And
ready our hearts to receive him when He says:
“Here I Am!” Amen.