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In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Dear Saints of God, we rejoice today in hearing the Holy Scriptures, and most especially in hearing the name of Jesus brought to Elizabeth when the Virgin Mary delivered her. I want to focus on the Epistle text from Hebrews chapter 10, but just on our way there, I want to notice this, both about Mary and Elizabeth, and I hope that you’ll notice this this week, as you’re reading yourself and with your family the Christmas text and the Christmas lessons, that you’ll notice this unique thing, and that is that Mary and Elizabeth both are not surprised at all the miracles that the Lord is doing.
Elizabeth is not surprised that the Lord is rescuing her, is causing a child to be born in her womb, which was barren. Mary was not surprised that a virgin would conceive. See, both Mary and Elizabeth are not astonished at the works that the Lord is doing, but rather they’re astonished that the Lord is doing those works for them. In other words, the astonishment is not at how amazing the Lord is or how amazing the things that the Lord does are. No, that’s not… Their amazement is that the Lord who does great things would do those great things for us.
And let that be our amazement this week, that the Lord who is great is great to us, that the Lord who is good is good to us, that the Lord who is merciful is merciful to us and does astonishing things for us as well.
Now this epistle lesson, Hebrews chapter 10. My goal is pretty simple this morning, and that is that after the sermon, if someone, you know, you were driving home and they pulled you over and they asked you what Hebrews 10 meant, you could explain it to them. If you can’t already, you can tune out. But I don’t think so because it’s a kind of a tricky text. In fact, the text itself is a bit of a riddle: sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you’ve prepared for me. Who’s the you? Who’s the me? And what is this talking about?
Now, here’s the stage to set. This is, in fact, the whole book of Hebrews really has this working in the background, and that is that the Lord has established a sacrificial system of worship. We see that in the Old Testament. In fact, if you just sit down and start reading the Bible, you see pretty quickly that the Lord is worshiped by sacrifice. Even in the Garden of Eden, the Lord takes an animal and kills the animal and clothes Adam and Eve and covers their nakedness with the animal skin.
And then Abraham… well, before Abraham, Noah, when he’s off the ark, offers a sacrifice. And then Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, wherever they were, they would build an altar and they would offer a sacrifice. And this all becomes instituted when the Lord rescued the people from… from Egypt. Do you remember how He rescued them? On the tenth plague, He had them sacrifice a lamb and take the blood of the lamb and put it over the doorpost so that the angel of the Lord, the killing angel, would pass over them and they would be rescued.
Then the Lord brings them out of Egypt into the wilderness to Mount Sinai, and the Lord had told Pharaoh, “Let my people go so that they might worship me.” And so then on the mountain, he establishes the worship, and what does it look like? And we know the tabernacle, the holy place, the most holy place, and the priesthood and all of this, but the center of all of the worship was the altar and the sacrifice.
So that if you were part of the Old Testament people, the center of their life was wherever the tabernacle was or the temple was, and the center of that worship was the sacrifice. Every morning, they would offer a goat for the morning sacrifice and for the evening sacrifice. They would offer the sacrifices. Whenever someone would sin, they would bring their sacrifices to the Lord and they would offer that as an atoning sacrifice. On the Day of Atonement, once a year, they would offer the bulls and then the goats. The priest would take that blood and he would bring it into the holy place and put it there on the altar. On the Passover, the lamb was sacrificed for each of the families that were there. There would have been sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice. That’s what the Lord instituted for His worship in the Old Testament.
And we know that. But then when we get to the prophets, we start to see the Lord change His tune, at least it seems like a little bit, because the Lord will start to preach against the sacrifices. He’ll say things like, “Sacrifices and burnt offerings I have not desired, a broken and contrite heart. These, O Lord, you will not despise.” In Amos it says, “I hate your sacred feasts and your sacrifices,” so that we have by Moses the institution of the sacrifices, but then we have the prophets preaching against those sacrifices.
Now, what’s going on there? How could that possibly be? It… it kind of comes to a culmination. If you just… if you want to have that tension reduced to one verse, we have it in our text. It’s Psalm chapter 40, verse 6, and it’s what’s quoted here in Hebrews chapter 10. So it’s on page 7 in your bulletin. And it’s really quite wonderful that the preacher here in Hebrews tells us who is speaking, and so we can figure out who is being spoken to. If you’re looking at the verses, and it might be helpful to take a look at the words.
When Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.” Now we know it’s Jesus speaking. Who is Jesus speaking to? The answer is God the Father. He’s the one that has prepared a body for Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary. But here, and this is what happens, is that Jesus is speaking and he’s setting the sacrifices of the Old Testament against the work that he will accomplish in his own body.
Now here’s as simple as I think I can make it: why the sacrifices were being rebuked by the prophets even though the Lord had put them in place. I mean, in some ways it’s like me preaching against baptism. How could I preach against baptism when the Lord has instituted it? But here’s what the problem was. The Lord had instituted the sacrifices as a temporary preaching of the Gospel, and the people had changed the sacrifices into a permanent institution of the law.
The sacrifices were instituted to be a temporary preaching of the Gospel. In other words, the blood of bulls and goats and the blood of lambs and all the blood spilled on all the altars, it was not sufficient to take away sin. How could the blood of an animal take away human guilt? But those animals were there dying, shedding their blood to preach the blood that would be shed for the sins of all of the world, to preach the blood of Jesus.
So that if we were part of the Old Covenant and we had sinned, we would take an animal, a lamb or a goat, and we’d carry it, a perfect one. We’d have to pick the most perfect one we could possibly find, and we would carry that animal up to Jerusalem and we would hand it over to the priest, who would then kill the animal, drain the blood, and take the animal and burn it on the altar. And as we watched that animal burn, as we watched the flames destroy the flesh, as we watched the smoke rise up into heaven, we would know that the Lord accepts the death of another in my place.
And in that way, we knew that this institution, these sacrifices, were for a time preaching something greater to come, the blood of Christ. But they had taken that temporary preaching of the gospel and turned it into a permanent preaching or a permanent institution of the law. The people of the Old Covenant thought that the sacrifice was their work. It was their doing. It was their appeasing the wrath of God. Look at how great I am. I’m the one that’s bringing this animal to offer to the Lord. I’m the one that’s sacrificing this ox for my own sins. I’m the one who’s doing this great work, and I will be able to do this forever and ever.
And so the prophets preach against it, and so does Jesus. This is not an institution of the law but of the gospel. And it’s not an institution that will remain forever, but in fact, it’s an institution that ends when Jesus comes. In fact, someone asked me after the last service – wait, the first service, which was the last service I guess – someone asked me, when did the sacrifices end? At what point did God say, “No more are you to offer sacrifices on the altar in Jerusalem?” And the answer, you know, it’s when Jesus says, “A New Testament I give to you in my blood.” As soon as Jesus says “New Testament,” the Old Testament and the Old Covenant is closed, it’s finished, its purpose is accomplished, and now something new is in place.
But there’s more. Because Jesus wants to make this absolutely sure, so he prayed Psalm 40 to his Old Testament people, and we have it here today when he says this: “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired.” In other words, it’s not those sacrifices that make me pleased with you, but what they preach that makes me pleased with you, because a body, you, God the Father, have prepared for me, Jesus the Son. And he goes on to say this: “In burnt offerings and sin offerings you’ve taken no pleasure, Father, then I, Jesus, said, behold, I, Jesus, have come to do your will, O God the Father, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.”
So Hebrews explains with verse 8, when he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings offered according to the law,” then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He abolished the first, that is, the sacrifices of the Old Testament, in order to establish the second, which is the death of Jesus on the cross.
Now, this is astonishing. And if we can get this, then the Lord will do His work with us this Christmas season. The reason why Jesus has a body, born of the Virgin Mary, is so he would have something to offer as a sacrifice. The reason why Jesus has flesh and blood is so he could carry our sins and suffer for our sorrows. The reason why the Lord has come down into our humanity is so that He can take upon Himself all of our suffering and bring us at last to the joys of life eternal. In other words, flesh so that He would have something to be nailed to the cross, and blood so that He would have something to spill for our sins.
It’s not an accident. I think about this every Christmas, and every Christmas, it seems like this is more and more important. I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think it’s an accident that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and that He was born in a manger. Bethlehem was just a couple of miles, I mean six miles from Jerusalem, and you have to think that all the sacrifices that were being offered in Jerusalem would have meant that all of the goats and all of the lambs and all of the oxen that were in the vicinity of Jerusalem would probably end up one day on the altar there at the temple.
So that those shepherds who are out in the fields watching their flocks by night were probably watching over lambs who would be sacrificed on the altar, and the cattle that are lowing on the night when Jesus is born would probably end their life on the altar in Jerusalem. And how fitting it is then that Jesus is born amongst the livestock that would end up being slaughtered because that’s why He was born, so that He might die. And all of that for you.
Look at verse 10. By that will, in other words, by that determination of the Son of God to take upon Himself a body that He could take upon Himself your sin and your death and be sacrificed for you, by that will, we have been sanctified, forgiven, made holy, illustrious in the glory of God’s own righteousness through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. For it wasn’t possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin, but Jesus has done it. His body, His blood offered as the sacrifice on the cross is our covering, is our righteousness, and it is our peace.
So God be praised that Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, is the sacrifice to take away sin. That Jesus, conceived by the Holy Spirit, is the Lamb of God who has won eternal life for us. By his will, by his determination, you have been sanctified and made to be his holy people. May God grant you this comfort and this joy now and always. Amen. And the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.