In my sermon preparation on Hope from Psalm 33, there’s an interesting illustration from
Hebrews 6:19-20. You may have heard of but I’d like to share it with you.
Here’s the text from the NASB
Hebrews 6:19-20 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.”
There’s a lot of truth in both verses, but the focus here is the correlation between three things:
1. The truth of “hope” in v. 19a.
2. The “anchor” metaphor in v. 19b.
3. The idea of Jesus entering into the heavenly sanctuary as a “forerunner” for us as our high priest in v. 20a)
The correlation between our “hope”, “anchor”, and “forerunner” goes back to the ancient Near Eastern imagery of work at a ship’s harbor. When a large ship would enter a port city, the sailors would take the anchor from their large ship and put it on a smaller vessel and carry the anchor forward to a place where it could be firmly lodged.
They had a hope, a “confident expectation”, that their anchor would hold the ship from breaking loose and heading out to sea. When I studied in Israel, I saw some anchors near the shore of Caesarea that were used around the time Jesus walked the earth. Some of the anchors were made of iron. But, quite a few were huge stones that had a hole in them where a rope went through to secure the ship. Thus, with many anchors being large stones, it fits the other metaphors used of Jesus as our “Rock”(Rom. 9:33; 1 Cor 10:2-4) and our “Cornerstone” (Is. 28:16, 1 Pet. 2:6). In other words, our hope in Christ and His promises is not a “wish” or a vain “I hope so” but is firm and secure. As our strong “anchor” Jesus can give us hope through any struggles we have on this earth as we look forward to the promise of heaven. He can easily solve our problems and give us hope through them. He also empathizes with our pain and storms of this life that can be hard. He is both strong and yet He cares. We should all strive to grow in being strong and yet caring as we have and give hope. We can do so because Jesus is our hope – our anchor.
Christ going ahead of us into heaven is now our firm and secure anchor. Nothing that happens in his life has to dislodge our hope in Him and His promises. God has been working with me that if I truly put my “hope” (confident expectation/waiting) in Him I do not have to be “downcast” or in “turmoil” (Ps. 42:11).
His expectations of me that seem hopeless to me are not hopeless to Him because He has gone before me as the forerunner (Heb. 6:20), the only hope of heaven. It is humbling that we daily face the decision to place our hope in God and what He offers us in Jesus – the anchor of our souls.
Written by: By Joel Francis, Th.M.
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