Standing in the Waters of Death (Hebrews)

In my reading this week, I came across a sentence in a prayer that has resonated with me and won’t leave me alone. The image has rubbed itself into my mind and etched a place in my heart. My gratitude overflows and my mind keeps tracing it. Here it is, this sentence in the midst of an entire prayer about shortcomings, a prayer about living in the wilderness, about discouragement and yet the hope that lies even there in Christ: “Death dismays me, but my great high priest stands in its waters and will open me a passage, and beyond is a better country” (“Shortcomings” from The Valley of Vision, p. 85). 

My fixation isn’t really on the part about death so much as Christ standing in its waters opening me a passage to a better country beyond. I had just gotten to Hebrews in my daily reading when I read this and decided to read the whole book in one sitting instead of slowly perusing it and chewing on it as I normally would digest it. Having read it often, I knew that I would see a picture of Christ in it, and I wanted to see it completely again. The same Word who made the worlds and exists as the brightness of God’s glory, who upholds all things by the word of His power, who purged our sins and was exalted above the angels and sat down at the right hand of God (1:1-4), THAT Word still speaks to us!

It is our job not to drift away from the truth of the Word who has spoken and still speaks through His Spirit (2:1). Even if we live in a wilderness of our own making (and believe me, we do), we can know that Jesus, the captain of salvation, has lived sinless in the wilderness of sin in order to bring the children God has given Him to salvation (2:10-13). He shared in the same flesh and blood that we have in order that "through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (2:14-15). This merciful AND faithful high priest suffered that He might give aid to all of us who are tempted (2:17-18). Chapter 3 of Hebrews speaks of the Son’s faithfulness over Moses; of God who built all things; of the wanderers in the wilderness who didn’t believe the truth God offered them and angered Him, thus failing to enter His rest that He had already created for them. All they had to do was believe.

Their evil hearts of unbelief caused them to be hardened in the deceitfulness and rebellion of their own sin (3:12-19). Unbelief kept them out of God’s promised, available rest. They heard, but they didn’t believe.

hearing + faith = rest 

The author of Hebrews urges us to hold on and enter the rest that remains for those who do believe (4:1-3). Genesis tells us that God’s work was finished before the foundation of the world in which we live, and He rested on the 7th day. God’s rest is as real as the world we see around us. His work is just as finished. It has already been done. That’s why Jesus can stand in the midst of the waters that swirl around us holding open a passage even if death waits for us there and threatens to overcome us. Death cannot truly overcome us because we belong to Him, and He doesn’t lose any that are given to Him. Death at best is just a delivery system for heaven if we are Christ’s. What are the waters of death for the One who passed through the heavens to come be our High Priest, our Deliverer, our Redeemer, the Lamb of God, the Lion of Judah, our Intercessor?

So, here is the image that has captured me: the parting of the Red Sea, Jesus standing in its midst holding the waters back from doing what He created them to do (and notice they obey) while His children passed through them on dry land, escaping the Egyptians. Jesus holding back death (that, mind you, came from the sin we humans made) from crashing over them and taking them all right then and there from any chance of entering His rest even though He knew what they would do in the wilderness; they wouldn’t all be lost, just the older generation. Jesus, standing in those waters of death, commanded the waters to stay back. Jesus, in His compassion and mercy, had already conquered death in the future. That’s what I saw as I read. Jesus is the maker of all things, time included; this eternal Great High Priest stands outside of time looking at His creation, resting in the finished work He has already done, holding back the waters of death, not from a distance but from within them, interceding for us. And beyond is a better country. If we hold fast to our belief. 

Matthew Henry as usual says it well: “Those who might’ve attained salvation by faith may fall short by unbelief.” So, hold fast to Jesus, who has stood in the waters of death in order to obtain salvation for those who believe. He is enough. He is able. He is already finished and has prepared a place for those who believe.