The Letter to the Hebrews bears little resemblance to the other epistolary treatises of the Christian Scriptures. For instance, there is not greeting at the beginning of the letter. The author never mentions his name. Unlike most of the other letters, it is not directed to a specific community of Christians. In chapter thirteen of the letter, the author says that it is a message of encouragement, a term that was used to describe the sermons that a rabbi would give to a synagogue assembly on the Sabbath.
It becomes clear as we read the letter that it is meant to bolster the flagging morale in the Christian community of Jewish converts. Because the early Christian community believed that Jesus would return shortly after the Ascension, as time dragged on, the Christian community began to lose hope. The sacred writer refers to that in the opening lines of today’s passage when he writes that God will not forget their work and the demonstrations of love that they have displayed by their service to others.
All of us need a message of encouragement from time to time. During the years in which I served as a formation director for our province, I noticed that the beginning of each year of postulancy or novitiate was marked by enthusiasm among the young men. However, as the routine of friary life set in, they would start to lose some of that enthusiasm. Perhaps the hardest part of being a formation director was that of keeping their enthusiasm alive.
The author of the Letter to the Hebrews attempts to do this by recalling the fact that Jesus has already gone through life and reached the goal to which we all aspire. He refers to that example as an anchor of hope. In this case, the anchor has been thrown into our future. Our hope lies in our future life with God, a life that will go on for all eternity. Right now, a veil separates us from eternity just as the veil in the Temple of Jerusalem separated the children of Israel from the Holy of Holies. However, the Gospels recount the fact that when Jesus died on the cross, that veil was torn from top to bottom, exposing the future that awaits all who cling to Jesus, our anchor and the source of our encouragement.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator