Christ's work affects all our lives

December 21, 2003 -- Fourth Sunday of Advent

By Fr. Richard Ver Bust

	Fr. Richard Ver Bust

Sometimes the unknown makes us uneasy. Yet even if the identity of the author of the Letter to the Hebrews is unknown we realize that the Christian scripture, I John, begins without a greeting mentioning the author's name.

For many centuries the letter was accepted as being a work of Paul. An ancient writer, Clement, suggested that it was written by Paul in Hebrew to the Hebrews and that it was later translated into Greek by Luke, Paul's companion.

Some later scholars, even Erasmus, raised doubts. But the most serious objections to authorship by Paul or one of his disciples came in contemporary times. The main reason is that the style and vocabulary are different and people do not change in this way so drastically.

Many think it was written around 85 A.D. because Clement of Rome quoted it. It seems to be a theological writing whose major theme is the priesthood of Christ. The author may have written it to defend against apostasy or abandoning the faith. He stressed that Jesus' death was a sacrifice that surpassed the sacrifices of the Old Testament.

Our reading is taken from a late part of the epistle in which the author maintains that Jesus' sacrifice should be motive for the perseverance of the community's faith. The author compares many sacrifices of the past with the one great sacrifice of Christ and suggests that the former were symbols and foreshadowings of what was to come.

The author quotes from Psalm 40 and suggests that they might be words that Jesus could have used in becoming a human person.

The original meaning certainly emphasizes that God prefers obedience to sacrifice in ritual.

Jesus, the author says, in becoming human is obedient to the will of God. The author, like the prophets, is not rejecting sacrifice but shows that ritual sacrifice is meaningless unless it is backed up by an actual life of faith and fidelity.

The writer seems to think that God, in accepting the act of obedience by Christ, rejected the sacrifices of the past. It is not so much a rejection of those who did so in the past but a recognition of the superiority of that which Jesus did.

Christ recognized that those sacrifices did not remit sin but that his own act of obedience in giving up his life did remit the sin of those who accept him.

Our meaning of Advent has advanced and we recognize how important the work of Christ is in our own lives. Our redemption is both promised and accomplished in Jesus' act.

(The late Fr. Richard Ver Bust directed the master's program in theology at St. Norbert College, De Pere.)