Advent in Hebrews: Priest // Rev. Matt Kennedy // Dec 8 2024

It's not uncommon to hear someone say, "I believe in God, but organized religion feels oppressive to me." I can sympathize. High on the list of institutional crimes would be the ways religious leaders often fail the people they serve. In recent decades in America we've been living through a reckoning of clergy abuse, congregational exploitation, and moral compromise in churches of every kind. If our hope was in our human priesthoods, we'd have little to hope in. But the gospel doesn't ask us to put faith in human institutions to be our salvation, but in a great high priest who is both son of Man and son of God: Jesus Christ.Religion often becomes about things we try to do for God, but our emphasis this Advent season is to give attention to what God in Christ does for us. This Sunday we'll dig into the 7th chapter of Hebrews to consider Christ's office as "Priest" and recall that he does the more perfect work to bring us peace than any pastor or priest. Let our faith be in him alone.