Hebrews 13:7-16: a reflection

7Remember your leaders, men who spoke to you the word of God, and considering the results of their conduct, imitate their faith. 8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 9Don’t be carried away by various and strange teachings, for it is good that the heart be established by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited. 10We have an altar from which those who serve the holy tabernacle have no right to eat. 11For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside of the camp. 12Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside of the gate. 13Let’s therefore go out to him outside of the camp, bearing his reproach. 14For we don’t have here an enduring city, but we seek that which is to come. 15Through him, then, let’s offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which proclaim allegiance to his name. 16But don’t forget to be doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

In the middle of this passage sits a wonderfully steady sentence: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It comes right after a warning not to be carried away by all kinds of strange and shifting teachings. The world's ideas change, fashions in thought come and go, but Christ does not move. He is the same behind you, with you now, and ahead of you.

Notice how the passage pairs that constancy with a certain homelessness. Here we have no lasting city, it says, but we seek the one that is to come; and it calls us to go out to Jesus outside the camp, bearing his reproach. Because Christ is our constant, we can sit loose to everything that is not, the changing city, the approval of the camp, the security that does not last. We are people on the way to a city still ahead.

There is stability in this for a shifting, unsettled life. When the ground under you keeps moving, teachings you trusted change, situations you counted on dissolve, the place you thought was home turns out to be temporary, you have one fixed point that does not shift: Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Anchor there. Hold the changing things loosely, offer God your praise continually, and keep walking toward the city that is to come.

Lord Jesus, you are the same yesterday, today, and forever, when everything else shifts. Be my fixed point in an unsettled world. Help me hold the changing things loosely and walk toward the city that is to come, anchored in you.