From MP Epistle reading:
Hebrews 6:13 For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, 14 saying, “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.” 15 And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. 16 For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. 17 In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. 19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, 20 where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
By way of review … Hebrews calls on us to hold fast our faith in Jesus Christ. The author of Hebrews directs the faithful to the greater glory and work of Jesus to the OT types.
In Hebrews 1 and 2 Hebrews sets before us that Jesus is worthy of our faith because He is a greater Revealer of God and God’s salvation than the prophets and the angels.
In Hebrews 3 Jesus as Son is a greater Mediator than Moses who was a servant.
In Hebrews 4:1-13 Jesus is a greater Rest-Provider than Joshua … “For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that.”
Today’s Epistle reading in Hebrews 6 is part of an extended discourse on the greater person and work of Jesus as High Priest:
In Hebrews 4:14-10:18 Jesus is a greater High Priest than Aaron
Jesus’ High Priestly order is greater, an eternal High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek
Jesus is the High Priest of a better, more perfect tabernacle
Jesus as High Priest offers a better sacrifice
This hope we have as an anchor of the soul … St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us “that there is no stability in this present world in which the soul may find security and rest.” Just six short weeks ago the world seemed both stable and wonderfully prosperous … and then quite suddenly everything changed. We are like the crowds in Paris who, after the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, came to the museum to stare in disbelief at the bare space with four pegs that had once held the painting. How could this happen? Disappointed, bewildered, isolated and somewhat afraid, we wonder if there is anything upon which our hope may rest, to which we may flee for refuge.
“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul … a hope both sure and steadfast, and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Amidst the persecution and suffering in the early Church, the anchor was adopted as a common symbol of hope - the anchor was seen especially in the catacombs. The anchor of hope, Aquinas notes, “fixes the soul firmly in God in this world, which is like a kind of sea.” But what an extraordinary and unusual anchor this is! Our anchor is not cast down into the depths of the sea … it ascends upwards into the very fixed, steadfast and sure precincts of heaven.
This hope we have as an anchor of the soul … one that enters within the veil. The veil referenced here is the veil in the Tabernacle, and later in the Temple, which separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies where God resided between the cherubim of the Mercy Seat. Woven into this veil were cherubim which symbolized the separation that existed between God and the people of Israel. Only the Old Covenant High Priest could enter within the veil, and that but once a year on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:1-18). On that Day, God would meet and commune with the High Priest, the representative of the people (See Exodus 25).
This hope we have as an anchor of the soul … where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us. The anchor of our hope enters within the veil where Jesus as Forerunner has opened the way for us. We have confidence to enter the Holy of Holies “by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh” … Hebrews 10:19-20. At Jesus’ death, and through His perfect sacrifice, the Temple veil was rent from top to bottom opening our access to God. The Old Covenant separation between God and His people has been done away. God’s people now enter within the veil, meeting and communing with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, our Forerunner, High Priest and our Sacrifice.
This hope we have as an anchor of the soul … each and every Mass we enter within the veil. We come with confident hope to the altar, to the very Holy of Holies, to the Throne of Grace. And in Jesus Christ our Forerunner, through His flesh and blood, we have been granted unimpeded access and communion with God. There we, the runners of the Christian race, discover the sure and steadfast anchor for the soul. Bewildering and frightening as the world may often be, our hope is fixed on our exalted Lord and Savior, on our merciful and faithful High Priest.
JSH+