Lectionary Commentaries for November 10, 2024
Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Sacrificial giving is, according to ChatGPT, the most popular main point of sermons on Mark 12:41–44. The second-most popular one is basically the same as the first: God’s value system is different from human assessment. These points support the view that the widow is a model disciple, whereas the scribes in 12:38–40 represent the opposite of ideal discipleship. Many interpreters say that the widow is doing what Jesus has taught about discipleship (8:34–37) and what Jesus told the rich man to do (10:21). It is also often noted that she is offering her whole life (12:44) to God, thereby keeping what Jesus regards as the greatest commandment (12:30). This interpretation seems compelling.¹

But do you think that telling a rich man to sell his possessions for the poor is the same as telling a widow to give her last dimes to the temple? Can you imagine Jesus urging the destitute to give whatever little things they have to God? Have you seen any Hebrew Bible passage that demands everything from the needy? I believe that the popular interpretation of the widow is based on a grave misunderstanding of Jesus’ teaching on discipleship.

Peter did say that the disciples had left everything and followed Jesus (10:28). Jesus said in reply that anyone who leaves one’s “house [Greek oikia] or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news” (10:29) would be rewarded. This saying well applies to the disciples because they left their families and possessions behind. Peter, Andrew, James, and John had their own boats and nets (1:16–20). Peter and Andrew had a house (Greek oikia, 1:29). Peter had a wife (1 Corinthians 9:5) and a mother-in-law (Mark 1:30).

By contrast, the widow’s two small copper coins (12:42) are as good as nothing. The coins are not like the “everything” the disciples left behind. The widow would have not been so poor if her husband had left enough for her, if she had an adult son or father who could support her, or if she had remarried. It looks like our widow did not have a house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, or fields—anyone or anything that would have helped her financially.

The Jesus I know does not ask the destitute to squeeze themselves to the last drop to serve God. Rather, Jesus comforts and blesses them. He condemns the rich and the powerful who exploit the poor. Can we say the same thing about Mark 12:41–44? Yes, I believe so. Both the immediate context and the larger literary context support it.

In 12:35–40, Jesus critiques the scribes harshly. In verses 35–37, Jesus implies that they do not understand the Scriptures, especially regarding the Messiah; that is part of why they not only fail to recognize Jesus as the Messiah but also oppose him. In verses 38–40, Jesus critiques the scribes’ social and religious practices. The most relevant part is verse 40, in which Jesus says that the scribes “devour widows’ houses” (Greek oikia in the plural).

The graphic language recalls Ezekiel 34:2–3: “Woe, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat; you clothe yourselves with the wool.”² If the leaders had kept the Law (for example, Deuteronomy 24:19–20; 26:12–13) and feared God, who is portrayed as the ultimate defender of widows in many passages of the Hebrew Bible, the widow in our passage would have not become that poor. The widow’s extreme poverty is the evidence that the leaders have failed.³

Let us step back and look at the larger context. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (and into the temple) at the beginning of chapter 11 and his departure from the temple at the beginning of chapter 13 constitute a literary unit. From the cursing of the fig tree in 11:12–14 to Jesus’ declaration of the destruction of the temple in 13:2, a major theme of the section is the destruction of the temple. This theme is clearly related to the religious leaders, as the section is filled with their challenges to Jesus (11:27–33; 12:13–27) and Jesus’ criticisms of them (12:1–11, 35–40).⁴

If our passage on the widow concludes a series of events at the temple in chapters 11–12, and if Jesus’ declaration in 13:2 is the conclusion of the section, it makes sense to relate our passage to the overarching ideas of the section: the destruction of the temple and the failures of the religious leaders.

In a sense, the last scene at the temple (the widow passage) harkens back to the first scene (the cleansing of the temple). In 11:17 Jesus quotes Jeremiah 7:11, which is part of Jeremiah’s temple sermon. In the same sermon Jeremiah delivers a message from God: “If you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow … then I will dwell with you in this place” (Jeremiah 7:6). This is hardly a new idea in prophetic literature. For instance, according to Amos, a major reason for the fall of the Northern Kingdom was the oppression of the poor (for example, Amos 2:6–7).

I feel that the Gospel of Mark is asking the following question here: When does a temple of God hit the rock bottom and lose its reason to exist? Is it when merchants do business in the temple (11:15–16)? Is it when the religious leaders challenge the authority of the Son of God in the temple (11:27–28)? Is it when they seek to trap the Messiah politically (12:13–15)? Is it when they misunderstand the Scriptures (12:24, 35)? Is it when they say long prayers for the sake of appearance (12:39)?

Jesus was sitting down at the Court of the Women in the temple, looking at the “exceedingly beautiful and lofty columns”⁵ there. He turned his eyes to the temple treasury, knowing that the temple had already accumulated immense wealth.⁶ He saw “many rich people” (12:41) offer large sums of money. Perhaps it was when a widow put in her last coins that the temple hit the rock bottom.

The presence of one destitute widow questions the reason for the temple’s existence. As always in Mark, the disciples fail to understand: one of them said, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” (13:1). While the disciples were amazed at the splendid appearance of Herod’s temple, Mark’s Jesus saw no reason for the temple to exist anymore—not even a stone upon a stone.

Notes

1. This interpretation of the widow reminds me of the popular interpretation of the Bartimaeus story. When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was calling him, “throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus” (Mark 10:50). Here commentators usually note that Bartimaeus is being an ideal disciple because, unlike the rich man in Mark 10:22, he is willingly letting go of one of the few things or perhaps the only thing he has as a beggar. For more discussions of the Bartimaeus story, see my commentary on Mark 10:46–52.
2. For more examples of the expression that the leaders are “eating” the people of Israel, see Ezekiel 22:25 (LXX) and Micah 3:1–3.
3. Jesus in Mark sees the crowds—that is, the people of Israel—as “sheep without a shepherd” (6:34). As a shepherd (14:27), Jesus has compassion for them; he “feeds” the hungry crowds with teaching and then with food (6:34–44; 8:1–9).
4. Cf. my commentary on Mark 12:28–34.
5. Josephus, Jewish War 5.200 (LCL 3:261); noted in R. Alan Culpepper, Mark, Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary (Marcon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2007), 428.
6. Josephus says that in the temple treasury there were “vast sums of money, vast piles of raiment, and other valuables; for this, in short, was the general repository of Jewish wealth” (Josephus, Jewish War 6.282; LCL 3:459); cf. Culpepper, Mark, 428.

The passage immediately preceding 1 Kings 17:8–16 provides important context for this encounter between a woman, who happens to be a widow, and a man, who happens to be a prophet. In 17:1 Elijah announces that there will be no rain in the land unless he manifests it by the power of the Lord. God instructs Elijah to camp at the Wadi Cherith (verse 3), where even those waters eventually evaporated in the proclaimed drought (verse 7).

Elijah is an isolated, and some might venture to say introverted, character throughout most of his career. When we first meet him, he is alone in a wadi with ravens feeding him. The first human contact he makes in the story only occurs after God commands him to approach someone else, a woman in Zarephath, in the northernmost part of Canaan. God commands Elijah to “rise and go” to meet this woman for provision. Most translations of verse 9 read, “I have commanded a widow there to feed you” (New Revised Standard Version).

The Hebrew, however, reads a bit differently, adding the word “woman” in apposition before “widow.” Verse 9 could literally be translated as, “Rise and go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Look, I have commanded a woman, a widow, to sustain you.” When we see the word “widow” again in translations of verse 10, the Hebrew text also reads “a woman, a widow.” Perhaps the translators here are leaning toward efficiency of language by simply using “widow,” but what might be lost in this truncated translation? Might substituting “widow” for the whole phrase “a woman, a widow” reduce this already unnamed woman to her status as a widow?

In verse 12, we learn that this woman is more than just a widow; she is also a mother. All Elijah knows is that God commanded him to find her. When Elijah asks her for a bite of food, she reveals the desperation of her family’s own scarcity. She is collecting wood to build a fire and bake the last bit of food she and her son have. Elijah encounters her as she prepares for her family’s last supper.

At this moment we might read Elijah as being a bit brash. While he tells her not to fear, he then commands her to make a small cake for him before feeding herself and her son. If read from a modern mindset, we might chide Elijah for gaslighting the woman, putting his own needs above hers and her child’s. A reader familiar with the prophetic motif of miracles, and who recognizes from 17:1 that Elijah has claimed power over the rain, might anticipate what is coming, but would a desperate woman, who has lost her spouse and is contemplating her final meal with her son, suspect that Elijah is a prophet?

Then Elijah reveals himself and his status by uttering the common prophetic formula: “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel” (verse 14). His oracle is one of blessing and sustenance. God commanded Elijah to find the woman in order to provide for the prophet, and in so doing, the prophet also provides for the woman. In verses 15 and 16, we see that the woman heeds his words, and the prophecy of her sustenance is also fulfilled. Her grain and oil do not fail throughout the period of drought.

The story exhibits a few major principles found in the book of Deuteronomy. First, the condition of drought is the result of the Israelite King Ahab’s disobedience. In Deuteronomy 11:13–14, God says that God will provide rain in its season to produce grain, wine, and oil for the people. If they, however, serve other gods, God will “shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce” (Deuteronomy 11:17, New Revised Standard Version).

Ellen Davis summarizes this theological principle of reward and retribution: “Overall, from a biblical perspective, the sustained fertility and habitability of the earth, or more particularly of the land of Israel, is the best index of the health of the covenant relationship.”¹ In general, an obedient, faithful leader and people will foster the sustainability of the land as well as its inhabitants according to this Deuteronomistic theology.

First Kings 16:31–33 already suggests that Ahab was far from faithful, worshiping Baal and building Baal a temple in Samaria. The story of the woman and her son, however, illustrates how the punishment of the king trickled down to impact the most vulnerable in society. Deuteronomy 24:17 demands justice for the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow, and Deuteronomy 24:19–21 suggests that the community should provide for people who are strangers, orphans, and widows by allowing them to glean the fruit that falls after a harvest. This story illustrates how the consequences of unfaithful leadership often cause the most detriment to the most vulnerable in a society.

By reading the story from the perspective of the unnamed woman, who happens to be a widow, we might reflect on how our society often reduces the vulnerable to a status or label.² This passage could call pastors and their congregations to reach out to the vulnerable, affirming their full humanity while also providing for their needs. Perhaps we could go even a step further than Elijah did and ask the vulnerable for their names.

Notes

1. Ellen F. Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 8.
2. In the following passage, the woman is given another title. The Hebrew reads, “The son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill” (1 Kings 17:17, author’s translation). While Elijah refers to her as “the widow” in 17:20, 1 Kings 17:23 refers to her as the boy’s mother.

The book of Ruth has been widely read and understood as depicting a story of profound challenges for its main characters, Ruth and Naomi, and their resilience in the face of those trials. Yair Zakovitch, for example, describes the main protagonists as all “helpful, considerate, and well-intentioned” amid great misfortunes.¹ Similarly, Jennifer Koosed reads the story as a fairy tale wherein the “fairy-tale heroine Ruth must persevere through adversity to obtain her goal”: security.² For both Zakovitch and Koosed, the moral of the story is that hesed, kindness, generosity, and loyalty lead to success. Indeed, the book reflects these themes but includes others as well, namely the misuse of power through sexual abuse and marginalization.

As noted in last week’s commentary, Ruth, Naomi, and Orpah all experience famine, a national crisis, and the loss of husbands: personal crises. Naomi also loses her sons, who were married to Ruth and Orpah. Naomi’s daughters-in-law become widowed without children, which results in further personal and economic crises. The need to migrate in response to famine and economic instability exacerbates these experiences. Orpah returns to her home and family, while Ruth vows to remain with Naomi, which sets the stage for the next couple of chapters.

In chapter 2, the vulnerable “ethnically other” migrant Ruth takes the initiative to transform her and Naomi’s economic conditions by working in Boaz’s fields. This results in Boaz taking notice of her (2:5), providing her physical security from threatening male workers (2:9), giving her water and food (2:9, 14), permitting her to glean from his field “among the standing sheaves,” and instructing his young men to pull out some handfuls for her from bundles so that she can glean them—activities that are permitted without reproach (2:15–16). Consequently, Naomi takes notice of Boaz’s acts of kindness toward Ruth (2:19) and devises a plan to “seek some security” for Ruth (3:1).

Ruth 3:1–5 details Naomi’s plan. At first reading, this plan might be perceived as innocent help. Yet, scholars such as Fulato Moyo argue that Ruth is a beautiful young woman who is trafficked and must sell her body to a “man old enough to be her father” so that her mistress Naomi can have her property restored.³ Moyo points out that Naomi’s and Ruth’s “gender and identity as sonless widows” mean they cannot adequately support themselves or claim their inheritance of land and means of survival. Thus, they are desperate widows and Ruth is wholly at the disposal of Naomi, who commodifies and traffics Ruth’s beauty, youth, and body.

Further, Moyo claims, Naomi’s exploitation of Ruth safeguards her own survival and well-being, not Ruth’s.⁴ One would expect Ruth’s mother-in-law, Naomi, to protect her. However, readers see that Naomi uses her positions of responsibility and trust not to prevent exploitation but to participate in it.

In short, Naomi instructs Ruth to take a bath, put on perfume, and wait until Boaz is full of food and drink (thus inebriated and in a state of confused vulnerability) and then make herself known to him (3:3). The word translated as “known” (yada) is often used as a euphemism to describe having sex. Essentially, Naomi instructs Ruth to (in the words of Beyoncé) “put [her] freakum dress on” and seduce Boaz. To which Ruth responds, “All that you tell me I will do” (3:5), which illuminates the power dynamics and discrepancy in this relationship.

Charles Halton avers that Ruth seduces Boaz at the threshing floor, adding that during harvest season males often camped beside piles of grain and relaxed with wine and prostitutes at night (Hosea 9:1); thus Naomi instructed Ruth to put her physical safety and reputation on the line to sexually entrap an inebriated man. Halton reasons that the logic was that if Ruth became impregnated with Boaz’s child, he would be forced to take both women in—entrapment.

Interestingly, the reading for this week excludes the depiction of the sexual abuse, which takes place in 3:6–18. In other words, we are glossing over the actual sex act—not surprisingly—but let us not ignore the sexual abuse of men. Ruth ensures that Boaz is drunk before she uncovers his “feet”—another sexual euphemism, for his genital area, indicating that she uncovers his sexual organ.

Quickly, our readings shift us to actions that are acceptable and lauded: marriage, and childbirth within the confines of marriage. There is much attention on the celebration of these actions and what they mean for Naomi. At the close of the book, Naomi—not Ruth—is foregrounded, blessed, and celebrated. The women bless the Lord concerning Naomi; they bless the baby—“May his name be renowned in Israel” (4:14)—and they proclaim how the baby will bless Naomi: “He will be a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age” (4:15).

Throughout the proclamations of blessings and celebration, Ruth is nameless and is only mentioned passively as the one who bore Naomi’s redeemer and as Naomi’s daughter-in-law who loves Naomi and is more to her than seven sons. Ruth is seemingly marginally valued because of her relation to Naomi and Naomi’s redeemer, and because of the utility of her womb, which benefits Naomi. Ruth is not only depicted as nameless near the close of the book, but she is also disempowered as Naomi takes her child and becomes his wet nurse and the women name her son.

The narrator discloses that Naomi nurses the infant, thereby nourishing the child who simultaneously nourishes her in her old age. Ruth, the Moabite migrant, ensures that Naomi has food security, and Naomi ensures that Obed has food security. But who nourishes Ruth physically, spiritually, and psychologically? Ruth becomes marginalized in her family unit, although her body enabled both Naomi and Obed to live. She is perceivably written out of her own “heroic” tale in the end, as Obed and a list of his male descendants are centered.

The books of Ruth and Esther are the only two in the Bible named after women. They share themes of migration, living in diasporic contexts, sexual abuse, corrupt guardianship, food and drunkenness, trickery as a survival tactic, and more. Indeed, Ruth and Esther/Hadassah face debilitating challenges and embody unrelenting resilience within these stories. However, ironically, by the close of both books, the female protagonists are decentered and replaced by male family members. How might we, as readers and interpreters, counter trends of physical and narrative erasure of vulnerable members of our families, communities, and societies?

Notes

1. Yair Zakovitch, “Ruth,” The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version, ed. Michael David Coogan, Marc Zvi Brettler, Carol Ann Newsom, and Pheme Perkins (Oxford University Press, 2010), 397.
2. Jennifer L. Koosed, “Ruth as a Fairy Tale,” Bible Odyssey, accessed October 25, 2024, https://www.bibleodyssey.org/articles/ruth-as-a-fairy-tale/.
3. Fulata Lusungu Moyo, “‘Traffic Violations’: Hospitality, Foreignness, and Exploitation: A Contextual Biblical Study of Ruth,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 32 (2016), no. 2: 83–94.
4. Moyo, 91.

Psalm 146 lacks any evidence of context, enabling the reader to hear it in her own time and place.¹

In the psalm God is the author of liberation (v. 7), the only one worthy of our trust (v. 3) and praise (v. 2). The psalmist knows these truths to be abiding and commits to a life of praise (v. 1).

The psalm contrasts the praiseworthy God with untrustworthy mortals. There is no other gap so wide. The psalmist singles out nobles, “princes” in the New Revised Standard Version (v. 3). This is an apt word in celebrity-obsessed culture. Wealth and standing do not make someone trustworthy.

Yet the psalmist is not engaging in class warfare, as is so often charged these days when one engages in serious cultural critique. The anonymous psalmist clarifies in the same verse that no mortal (literally “human child”) can offer any meaningful “help.” “Help” here is teshua; it is actually “salvation.” (This is an unfortunate translation choice since, when “help” reoccurs in v. 5, it is the word that actually means help.)

The two lines of verse 3 are in a parallel formation in which “princes” and “mortals” and “trust” and “help/salvation” correspond: Neither princes/nobles nor ordinary mortals are worthy of trust. They cannot help; they cannot save. Verse 4 proclaims that their plans—dreams and schemes—die with them.

Deepening the contrast between the ageless, undying God and time-bound mortals, the psalm proclaims the blessedness (or “happiness”) of those for whom Israel’s God is their help. This help, ezer, is the specialty of God. Throughout the Hebrew Bible God, not mortals, is the primary source of this help—one of the very few exceptions being the help the first woman in the garden is to provide her partner.

The psalmist calls the God who helps “the God of Jacob.” The title is introduced in Exodus 3, where it occurs in a longer formula with Abraham and Isaac in Exodus 3:6, 15, and then in 4:5. Subsequently, the expression “God of Jacob” stands alone as a divine title used more in the Psalms than anywhere else (see 2 Samuel 23:1; Psalm 20:1; 24:6; 46:7, 11; 75:9; 76:6; 81:1, 4; 84:8; 94:7; 114:7; 146:5; Isaiah 2:3; Micah 4:2).

In verses 6–9 the psalmist offers a curriculum vitae for God. This God is the God of liberation and social justice. The psalmist begins with the incomparable power of God as Creator juxtaposed with God’s faithfulness, in verse 6. The juxtaposition posits creation as an act of faithfulness. The rest of God’s mighty acts in the psalm are also acts of faithfulness:

1. God does justice for the oppressed (v. 7). Biblical Hebrew has a deep lexicon of words that mean “to oppress,” at least 12 different words signaling kinds of oppression. This oppression, ashuqim, is primarily financial. It is characterized as defrauding one’s neighbor in Leviticus 6:2–4 and withholding wages in Deuteronomy 24:14. Financial fraud and wage theft are issues in our world as they were in the world of the psalmist.
2. God is the one who gives food to the hungry (v. 7).
3. God sets the prisoners free (v. 7).
4. God opens the eyes of the blind (v. 8).
5. God lifts up those who are bowed down (v. 8).
6. God loves the righteous (v. 8).
7. God watches over the strangers (v. 9). Strangers here are resident aliens, immigrants. Prosperous and stable nations around the world, particularly in the West, are struggling with immigration issues. In the face of these struggles, the psalmist declares that God is concerned for the immigrants.
8. God upholds the orphan and the widow (v. 9). Widowhood was a common fate in the ancient world, and God and the Scriptures express a particular concern for widows and their children. In patriarchal perspective, fatherless children were orphans even if their mothers were very much alive. In the Hebrew Bible, orphans are nearly always paired with their widowed mothers. Throughout the Scriptures the ill-treatment of widows and their children is a mark of depravity, injustice, and oppression. Yet God and the Scriptures also use the threat of widowhood against men; their punishment for faithlessness includes their own deaths and the certain vulnerability of their widows and orphans, as in Psalm 78:62–64. An anonymous psalmist prays in this theology in Psalm 109, asking God to make his enemy’s wife a widow and his children orphans, fatherless. Some conservative Christians prayed this psalm against President Obama and marked merchandise with this sentiment.
9. God brings the way of the wicked to ruin (v. 9).

This is quite the résumé. As is so often said in the Black Church: Who wouldn’t serve a God like this? The psalmist’s God is intimately concerned with the well-being of her people, particularly those who are the most vulnerable. Indeed, the psalm generally ignores those who defraud and oppress. The psalm also makes clear that these matters are not merely legal or criminal issues; they are moral, ethical, religious, and theological issues. And they are not beneath the notice of God.

One might be tempted to say these issues are claimed by God; they are her responsibility and not ours. Yet nothing in the psalm absolves humanity of or excuses us from addressing the issues of injustice in our world. Those for whom this text is Scripture have seen in it a pattern for their own service, from the prophets to Jesus of Nazareth.

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for September 25, 2016.

The first verses of this week’s passage from Hebrews repeat much of what has been stated earlier. The author stresses again the nature and location of Jesus’ high priestly work (see also 9:11–12). He describes the earthly sanctuary as handmade (see also 9:11) and explicitly names it a “copy” (antitypa) of the true one in heaven. He reiterates the heavenly presence of the sanctuary (see also 4:14; 8:1–2; 9:11–12). He identifies Jesus’ appearance before God, which recalls his role as intercessor (see also 7:25). Finally, he again insists on the final nature of Jesus’ sacrifice (see also 9:12). 

This is the first time the author describes the earthly sanctuary as a copy. This is the only occurrence of “copy” (antitypa) in Hebrews, and there is only one other occurrence of the word elsewhere in the New Testament (1 Peter 3:21). 

It is worth revisiting the author’s quotation of Exodus 25:40 in Hebrews 8:5. The key word “pattern” (typos) occurs in both Hebrews and the Greek translation of Exodus 25:40. In Hebrews 8:5, the author recalls God’s speech to Moses: “See that you make everything according to the pattern (typos) that was shown you on the mountain.” The word typos can refer to an archetype, a model, or the “original” from which a copy would be made. In the case of Hebrews 8 and 9, the point seems to be that the earthly sanctuary has been modeled off the heavenly sanctuary.

Some interpreters suggest that the author’s description of the earthly sanctuary as a “copy” of the true one in heaven betrays the author’s affinity with Platonic philosophical traditions. In Platonic teaching, the material world is a copy of the original world in heaven. The Platonic tradition makes a sharp moral distinction between the originals and the copies. The copies are always inferior, even to the point of being viewed as distractions. The goal of the philosophical life, then, is to move one’s attention away from the material world to the immaterial world where the originals reside. 

There are similar sensibilities in the argument of Hebrews, when the author describes the heavenly sanctuary as “true” (8:2) and “greater and more perfect” (9:11), while denigrating the earthly as a sketch and shadow (8:5; 10:1). Interpreters of Hebrews have disagreed heartily about how deeply the author has been influenced by Platonic thinking. 

Without settling the dispute, we can say that the author’s insistence that the heavenly is true, greater, and more perfect serves a theological and pastoral purpose. Perhaps the author is trying to ground the first hearers of Hebrews in a sacred space that is unaffected by human or natural disaster. The sacred space where Jesus serves as high priest is stable and eternal. Equally striking, the author insists that the audience members themselves can enter this heavenly space through the priestly work of Jesus (4:16; 10:19–22). 

In verses 25–26, the author again emphasizes the “once for all” nature of Jesus’ self-sacrifice (see also 7:27; 9:12; 10:10). The author’s understanding of Jesus’ work blends precreation thinking and apocalyptic thinking. In verse 26, the author mentions the “foundation of the world.” This recalls the author’s earlier insistence that the created world was created through Jesus, the Son of God (1:2). Jesus thus existed prior to creation. 

While Jesus existed before creation and shared in God’s glory and being at that time, he did not appear as high priest until the “end of the age” (9:26). This emphasis resembles the so-called “two ages” thinking in apocalyptic discourse. The idea that there are two ages—the present age, marked by evil and suffering, and the age to come, marked by the vanquishing of evil and restoration—is evident elsewhere in the New Testament (Matthew 12:32; Ephesians 1:21; 2:7). 

In Matthew’s gospel, the same phrase, “end of the age” (synteleia tou aiōnos), signals the end of the present age and the advent of final judgment (Matthew 13:39–40; 13:49; 24:3; 28:20). Hebrews 9:26 locates Jesus’ resurrection and priestly work in heaven at the “end of the age.” Similarly, the first chapter says God has spoken through the Son in these “last days” (1:2). 

Not unlike the perspective we find in some of Paul’s writings (Galatians 1:14; 1 Corinthians 10:11), the author seems to imagine his present time as something of an interim between the old age and the new. Something decisive has happened in the death and resurrection of Jesus: those events mark the “end of the age.” But the advent of the new age remains an event in the future. Thus, the author of Hebrews can talk about Christ appearing a “second time” to “save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (9:28). Hebrews here resembles the “already but not yet” eschatology of other New Testament writings. Jesus’ sacrifice of himself in the past has dealt decisively with human sinfulness (9:28), but the full experience of salvation is pushed off to some point in the future.

For generations, Christians have been waiting for Jesus to appear a second time. Writing about two decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, Paul seems so convinced of Jesus’ imminent return that he instructs engaged couples not to marry (1 Corinthians 7). Writing a half-century or so later, the author of 2 Peter wrestles explicitly with the apparent delay of Christ’s return (2 Peter 3), which has given critics reason to doubt the claims of early Christians. 

Engaging this text from Hebrews nearly 2,000 years later, the preacher must again balance the “already” and the “not yet” of Jesus’ saving work. The preacher can emphasize the audacious claim the author of Hebrews makes that, because of Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice, Christians can enter the holy presence of God. Those facing struggles and crises can access Jesus’ constant intercession on behalf of his human siblings. 

But the “not yet” leaves room for the biblical tradition of lament. When we hear another news report about children killed in bombings across the globe or a classroom just outside our city, we can be reminded that we are still a people waiting for God to set all things right, to finally vanquish sin and death. In this case, the end of this week’s passage can serve as a helpful precursor to the Advent season of waiting.