In Hebrews 13:10-14, the Bible says:
We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.
These words have stuck with me, ever since I first studied them some years back. In the days of the Tabernacle, when the people of Israel were sojourners in the dessert, the high priest would make the sin sacrifice and unlike other sacrifices where the priest could receive a portion of the meat, the sin sacrifice had to be taken outside the camp of the Israelites and completely burnt up.
The writer of Hebrews is saying that Jesus is our sin sacrifice and just like the lamb, he too was taken outside the camp, i.e., the city walls of Jerusalem. He died on the cross, outside the city, to become our sin sacrifice. What is most striking to me is the very next verse: Therefore let us go to him outside the camp. Imagine that! We are expected to go out of the camp. We are told to leave where we are, in our comfortable, sin-soaked lives, and join Jesus. We are told to be separated from the world and be hated by the world, just as Jesus was.
Why must we suffer so? Why must we be shunned by the world? Why must we be made fun of, be ridiculed, be insulted? Because, this comfortable life we have now, this city in which we live, it will not last. It will be gone. It will disappear. It is not a lasting city. But Jesus offers us a city that lasts forever, a place where there is no sin, no pain, no ridicule, a place where we see God face to face.
Wouldn't we all like to strive for that? Wouldn't we all love to live in an enduring city? We can. We must go outside the camp where we live now and follow in the footsteps of Jesus. I've taken that first step and have started my journey. This blog are my notes along the way.
