Background to the Sunday Readings
The Letter to the Hebrews
On all the Sundays in October we will hear parts of the Letter to the Hebrews read at our main service.
Although it is called a Letter in our Bibles, it is more like a sermon. It is a carefully thought-out and well-written document, but who wrote it, and who it was sent to, we don't really know. It seems to have been written for Jewish Christians, to persuade them that Jesus really was God's Son and to warn them against slipping back into their Jewish way of life.
The author quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures (our Old Testament) to show that Jesus is superior to the angels, superior to Moses, and superior to the High Priest in the Temple. Jesus is ‘the exact imprint of God's very being' and his purpose is to reveal to us what God is like.
Jesus, born into this world, is like us and can sympathise with our frailty. Jesus, as Son of God, is without sin and therefore at the same time the perfect High Priest and the perfect sacrifice for our sins. If we remain faithful to what we understand about Jesus, as our brother, our example, and our salvation, he will lead us home to Heaven.
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