Today's Devotion

Wednesday After Easter, April 8, 2026 - Heb 10:19-39

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Having established that Jesus is our “great priest over the house of God,” who intercedes for us (Heb 7:25), how then should we live? What does it look like to live under the priesthood of Jesus?

St. Paul asked rhetorically, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Rom 6:1). Instead of leaving the answer hanging in the space between the lines, the apostle answers his own question emphatically: “By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:2-4).

The author of Hebrews takes the same tack. He implores Christians to “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering,” because Jesus, our great High Priest, “He who is promised is faithful.” And since Jesus has gone behind the veil for us, interceding for us, sacrificing Himself for us, atoning and cleansing us – “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” And far from making the assumption that because Jesus is in the Presence of God, we need not be. To the contrary, our Priest has given us an invitation to enter – “access by faith into this grace” (Rom 5:2). Therefore, we should seek out the Divine Presence all the more, joining with our fellow saints, “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

And just as the high priest in the Old Testament made atonement for sins committed in ignorance, “unintentional sins” (Heb 9:7), we should heed the warning that “if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” We must live lives of daily and constant repentance, not “spurn[ing] the Son of God” by “profan[ing] the blood of the covenant.” The author pleads with us, “do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.”

In short, the author of Hebrews, reflecting on the constant intercession of Jesus our High Priest, calls us to “endurance.” In other words, the life of a Christian is not a sprint, but a marathon. And paradoxically, whether that marathon lasts a century, or for only a few minutes, “we have an advocate with the Father,” Jesus “is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:1-2). So “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus” our High Priest, who leads the way into the Presence of God, inviting us to walk with Him through the torn curtain, “that is, through His flesh.”

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.