The need of the human heart

What is the great need of the human heart? Is it not to be loved, upheld and inspired by a love that never fails or falters? A love that is always there – wherever we are and whatever our need? A love that never changes, but always calls us to the very highest – a love never satisfied until we respond with all the love of our own hearts?

All the love stories of the world, all the imperfect experiences of men and women, point to this great need – for no human relationship is ever so perfect, complete or enduring – as that which God desires to have with us. (Of course, wherever we’ve experienced human love, this also has been an expression of God’s love to us!)

But such a relationship with God hardly enters our thoughts before we come to know Jesus as our Saviour. God remains unknown to us, and apparently unknowable – the Creator of a vast and wonderful universe – but also perhaps the inexorable Judge of all our actions and thoughts. Stern, awful, separate from mortal men – but not the Lover, who never ceases to desire our highest good – or to express his loving care.

Sooner or later, life brings us to the point where we crave all such a relationship could give us. We sense our alienation from God, just as we experience breaks in relationships with our fellow men and women. And we find ourselves helpless to put matters right. We become aware of our own failure, our own falling short of God’s laws – and we long to be forgiven. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create a clean heart in me, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me! (Psa 51:9-10 RSV)

We also experience the sin of others and the unfairness of a world in which we can’t find God. Like Job, we cry out, Oh, that I had someone to hear me! I sign now my defence – let the Almighty answer me! I would state my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. (Job 31:35; 23:4)

A go-between with God

We long for a go-between with God – for we know we are not in touch. We need an interpreter. A native of both heaven and earth, who can speak both languages. We long for a friend – not remote, as we fancy God to be – but flesh and blood, like ourselves, who knows how we feel, because he has experienced our life and understands our inmost feelings.

Such a one is Jesus! What we’re wanting him to be is – a Priest – a Man called by God to act for his fellow men and women – to secure their acceptance with God, despite all their sin and failure. To establish such a channel of communication between God and man – that we may enter that love-relationship we were created to enjoy.

Here is a truly wonderful thing. The whole idea of Jesus coming to do this – was not thought up by us – but by God himself. Knowing full well our deepest need, and desiring to bring us to know and love him in an unclouded relationship – God sent Jesus to be a perfect priest. A priest who would offer himself – as the means by which we might be reconciled to God, without overlooking our sins.

God has spoken to us

When did God explain this, and teach us this was his intention? The answer is that God began to do so from the moment man first sinned. God has spoken to us... at many times and in various ways. He painted a picture of what his love would do through Jesus. A picture that first came to full expression when he rescued his people from slavery in Egypt. At that time he taught them how they might approach him in grateful and reverent worship. He gave them a place of worship, according to a pattern he showed Moses on Mount Sinai, and a priestly ritual of sacrifice to atone for their sins.

The Letter to the Hebrews was written to some Christian Jews, almost certainly a little before AD 70, when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and the sacrifices brought to an end forever. Under threat of persecution these Christians were being tempted to go back to Judaism, and to trust in the levitical sacrifices. The author of this letter wants them to see that this would be deserting the reality for the shadow. The reality lies in Christ. All the Jewish worship could offer was a picture – a model – of what God had done, to perfection, in Jesus.

What did this author teach about Jesus? Because these Jews had become fascinated with the role of angels, he had to tell them, first of all, how much greater Jesus is. In the past God spoke through prophets... but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son.. Jesus is superior to all prophets – he’s in a category apart – that of Son. There is continuity, of course, because God has spoken through both. But the tense he uses means God has finished speaking. He’s no more to reveal – he’s done it all in Jesus.

That comes out, too, in his use of the phrase, the last days, which the prophets used often – to mean the time when God would rescue and vindicate his people. These are the last days, he says. Partial revelations are over – God has given us the final, complete revelation of himself – in his Son.

Son of God and Son of Man

The language he uses – rather like that at the beginning of John’s gospel – leaves us in no doubt of Jesus’ greatness. Through him God made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. (Heb 1:2-3)

But – although the Son’s deity is so powerfully set forth in these words – our author is equally clear that he truly became a man. He loves to call him by his human name, Jesus. And Jesus is still a man – as really flesh and blood as you or I. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. (2:11)

Later in the same chapter, he writes, Since the children – that’s us! – have flesh and blood, Jesus too shared in their humanity.. he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God... Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (2:14-18)

To be tempted is not to sin – for Jesus was tempted – but never sinned. (Heb 4:15) To be tempted means we are being tested – like one proves a coin to see if it is counterfeit – or puts in a furnace what appears to be gold. Sin is yielding – giving in – to temptation.

Jesus was tested relentlessly from the wilderness to Gethsemane and Calvary – but he did not fail. We so often give way quickly – and our frequent failure has dulled our sensitivity and enfeebled our wills. But Jesus felt every temptation keenly, because he endured its force fully, through to victory. So, from him, our great high priest, we can receive, not only loving understanding, but real help in our time of need. (Heb 4:16)

God’s thoughts are not our thoughts

How different this is – from all that Jesus’ disciples had expected! They believed rightly, that he was the Messiah – God’s chosen King. But their ideas were moulded by the world’s idea of what a ruler should be like. Powerful, invincible and glorious. Ready to share some of his power and glory with his lieutenants. That he should be condemned by their religious leaders, handed over to their pagan overlords, mocked and killed – was just unthinkable.

But God’s ways are not our ways. His thoughts and intentions go far beyond ours. God knew that the only way to deal justly with our sin – and still save us – lay in Jesus paying the price of our forgiveness, by the sacrifice of himself. So, the Son of God came to our rescue knowing this was his Father’s will, because God loves us so much. It involved becoming one of us, subject not only to temptation and testing, but winning, through suffering and death, eternal life for all those who would put their trust in him and commit their lives to him.

And, in the wisdom of God, that way of humility, love and self- sacrifice, is our appointed way too. For there is no other way to win the hearts of men for Jesus, except to love and serve them. And thus to defeat the world’s way of arrogance, hatred and self- serving – taught to it by the devil.

May God grant us such a trust in our glorious Lord and Saviour, who is also our gracious High Priest, that we can say with Paul, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20) And may we learn that, like Jesus, we are to come alongside others – identify with them, become one of them if possible, in all respects except that of sin. If life has wounded us in any way, count that a privilege, if it brings us closer to those who are weary and wounded – but who do not know Jesus.

This was how Christians triumphed over paganism – by their self- sacrificial love for one another and the needy around them. They sought to follow in the footsteps of their Lord.

Remember Jesus said, The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45) Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:12-13)

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. (1John 3:16-18)

May we really love one another like that – and show that love to others, too.