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In the past God spoke to our forefathers through prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son … (Hebrews 1:1-2).

I like walking in the woods or along a beach.  And I especially enjoy it when accompanied by someone who knows things that I don’t about the ground we’re covering.  I don’t know the names and can’t recognize the songs of many birds, so it’s great to have a real “birder” along.  I can’t distinguish too many trees from each other, so I enjoy having someone along who can teach me more about these amazing creatures.  And it’s really interesting to have a geologist along, not just to identify the rocks on the path, but who can also tell me something about what things looked like ten million years ago!

In these weeks, as we walk and pray together on our way to Easter, we’ll be using the Book of Hebrews as a trail guide.  Whether we have trekked the trail to Easter often or not very much, Hebrews invites us onto several paths that may feel “less traveled by.”  We may find ourselves traveling on unfamiliar and unexplored trails, trails that are very much on our map, but which we may not have yet traversed.  However, if we travel with eyes and ears and hearts open, traveling a different path may make all the difference.

“The view” is what makes the walk worthwhile.  We’re willing to endure the bugs, aches and scrapes, sweat and are-we-lost?-wonderings in order to get to that summit, to that still, crystal blue lake, to that meadow in all its glorious spring finery, that waterfall in which, hot and weary as we are, we are all too glad to plunge, not just our heads but our whole selves, body and soul.

Hebrews provides us with numerous, extraordinary vistas of Jesus. At times we may feel lost in Levitical thickets, only to suddenly have our breaths taken away by the view of Jesus our Great High Priest, Jesus who in his one person is both our Sacrifice and Savior.  We will encounter our fear of death, only to be astonished by a set of footprints, already there, that walk not only into the grave, but out from it again.  We may better understand why on the first Easter morning, there were two angels on either side of the tomb in which Christ’s body had laid.  Our restless hearts may find themselves entering into an unknown rest, a rest that is always all around us, right before us, yet a rest we never knew existed, nor ever knew was ours.  We will find that God is not who we think God is; God is who God says he is.

And who God says he is, is Jesus.

The way to Easter, the way to God, the way to heaven, the way to righteousness, peace and joy on earth as it is in heaven—while there are many and various trails, there is just one way.

Following him together, we are already well on our way!

As you think about “the way to Easter,” what are some things you’d like to learn more about, understand better?  How would you like to be able to enter more deeply into the reality through which we are traveling?  Take time to talk with God about that now.

Picture our building site in North Chatham.  Pray for the building process, for “opening day” (whenever that will be!) and for all the days thereafter: how would you like to see that place become a place where people are drawn near to God?

You probably know some people who are weary-weary-weary of the journey … or who have perhaps dropped off the trail altogether … or who have never started because of various false impressions and misunderstandings about the journey and the One who both accompanies us and is waiting to meet us at the end.  Pray for them … and for yourself as someone who could play a role in getting them going, or keeping them going.