Hebrews 9- The best gift ever....

Hebrews 9:1-10

The best gift ever……

What gift are you hoping to get this year?

An air fryer?

Coffee machine?

A bluey supermarket?

I-phone 17?

I know what all my kids want for Christmas this year.

Getting my kids the presents, isn’t such a big issue, the biggest issue, is trying to stop my kids from looking at the presents before Christmas day.

Kari and I tried all sorts- we tried hiding the presents, in my office, on top of the wardrobe. We tried wrapping the presents up in different size boxes, so they couldn’t figure out what the present actually is, but after all our attempts failed….. now…..we just give up trying to hide their presents from them…… we all just go shopping, they pick their own present and then we wrap it up, and put them under the tree.

Gone is the suspense, gone is the mystery.

And when I say mystery, I mean the excitement of something being revealed that was once at one time, hidden.

The excitement of knowing something is there, something hopefully good, and it is coming your way, but you don’t quite fully know what it is. You may know the shape and the feel of it, but you don’t know what it is.

As we come to this Christmas period, I want to focus on a mystery that was kept hidden for throughout many, many generations, until at just the right time, God revealed it to the world.

Now this mystery that God eventually revealed to the whole world was something in which God had given us clues throughout the generations. Clues which came in all shapes and sizes, and where all different, but all pointed towards the one and greatest present ever.

Some clues to this mystery where given to God’s people- the Israelites, thousands of years ago-, as they wandered the wilderness for 40 years, under the leadership of Moses.

And the amazing thing about these clues, which were also presents that God gave his people thousands of years ago in the desert, actually all pointed towards an even better present that God would give the world, hundreds of years later on.

Not just a gift that was shown to his people, but a gift that was shown to the whole world.

It was like God gave his people a play station 1, back in the days of Moses when his people wandered the desert, only to give us, the world, a PlayStation 5 many years later.

So what presents did God first give to his people in the days of Moses?

Get this….He gave them a tent?

Not a 8 man tent, not even a Coleman tent, but a tent, that was also called a Tabernacle.

And the whole purpose of God, giving his people a tabernacle, was so that God could live with his people as they travelled around the wilderness.

You see the tabernacle was where the very presence of God dwelt.

And so as God’s people wandered the wilderness, God was right there in the midst of them.

You see the present of tent, meant that the people of God could enjoy the greatest present ever- God Himself.

The best present that God could give his people was……. himself, because there is nothing greater than God, He is better than any air fryer, better than a coffee machine, better than a bluey supermarket- God is just better.

Now in this tent, this tabernacle, was a seat that was reserved for God.

That seat was called the mercy seat, and it rested on top of a treasure box called the “ark of the covenant”, and in this box, this ark of the covenant, there were a few more presents.

1.        There was a tablet……nope……not the tablet that we play games on, but actually two stone tablets, and on these two stone tablets were 10 rules which God wrote with his own finger. 10 rules that we should live by.

These tablets reminded God’s people that He loved them and he cared for them by giving them good rules to live by. The rules of God was a show of God’s mercy to his people.

An unloving God wouldn’t show his people how to live, he would just abandon them- that is what an unloving father would do.

2.        There was also a staff that belonged to one of the priests called Aaron in the ark of the covenant.

This staff reminded God’s people that he loved them by giving them priests who would make sacrifices for their sins. The priests that God have to his people was a show of God’s mercy to them.

3.        There were bits of manna also in the ark of the covenant. This was a special kind of bread that God rained down from the sky when his people were hungry in the wilderness.

This special bread/ this manna, reminded God’s people that he loved them so much that he fed them in a place where there was no food- in a desert. The manna reminded God’s people of his mercy to them.

And so this tent, this tabernacle that God gave his people during the days of Moses along with everything inside the tabernacle was a reminder to God’s people that God loved them and he was always with them, and he was always merciful to them.

He kept giving them good, even when they grumbled and moaned against Him.

He kept giving them good, even when they worshipped other gods that they made with their own hands.

He kept giving them good, even though they were often stiff necked and rebellious.

God just kept pouring his mercy upon them.

This same God has poured his mercy upon the world which He created.

This tent, this tabernacle pointed to another present, a better present, that God was going to give his people hundreds of years later and this present truly was and is the greatest gift of all, this present, is God’s very own son- Jesus.

You see, the disciple John tells us in John 1, that when Jesus was born and came to this earth from heaven, He was God’s real tent, He was God’s real tabernacle, because when Jesus came to earth, God himself came to this earth and dwelt and lived amongst us.

He lived, He walked, He worked, He breathed, He suffered, He cried, He laughed, Her did all those very human things, on this earth. 

In the person of Jesus, God really did live amongst us.

But this time, he wasn’t inside a tent, inside a curtain, but this time, he went out to the people.

God didn’t just live in a tent, but he lived, and now lives in the person of Jesus.

The first present that God gave his people, the tent, the tabernacle, did not only point to the better present Jesus, but also the manna inside the tent, that special bread also pointed to the better present Jesus.

Just as God sent manna, that special bread from heaven to feed the people, God sent the bread of life- Jesus from heaven, to feed his people.

When God gave us his best present Jesus, Jesus said this about who he was and we find it in John 6:35

Jesus said “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and who ever believes in me shall never thirst”

Jesus is the best gift that anyone could receive.

He is the gift that keeps on giving.

Just like the manna from heaven that God poured down every day to provide for his people so they would never go hungry, Jesus is the real bread from heaven who will not only sustain us in this life, but also the life to come….if….if….we believe……

Unlike coffee machines, air fryers and play stations which will eventually break, Jesus will never break.

Unlike toys which you will become bored with, you will never be bored with Jesus.

Unlike gifts which just keep taking from us, like more coffee beans, more things to air fry,

Jesus has already given us all that we need.

And what do we all need?

It is the seat on top of the box (the ark of the covenant)

We all need mercy.

We all need mercy.

And praise God, that in Jesus mercy never runs dry.

Mercy is when we receive something good when we deserve something bad.

The bible tells us that we are all sinners and the wages of sin is death, and yet instead of receiving eternal death, we receive eternal life because and purely because of the mercy of Jesus.

33 years after Jesus was born, he carried his cross, to be executed.

He died the death that we deserved, He took the punishment we earnt for our sins, he absorbed the wrath of his father and he did all that for us, so that we could live with him now and forever.

Friends, God is merciful.

No matter how bad you think you are, no matter how many bad things you think you have done, there is always forgiveness in Jesus, there is always mercy, there is always a way for you to be, who God created you to be, a child of God, who lives with Him, now and forever.

Perhaps this Christmas time, you will receive the best gift ever- Jesus.

Let us pray.