Jesus: The Rejected Exile Who Prepares a Table

We are continuing our look this morning at the gospel narrative of belonging. This idea, this motif that we find throughout scripture of a world that we want, a world that we desire, that we miss, that we've never fully experienced, that has been created for us, that we existed in through our ancestors once upon a time, but that we have never experienced, that we long for. We're going to read this morning from Hebrews chapter 13 as we come to the next stage in that progression and in that story, that narrative. And then I'll do a quick recap of where we're at so that we can all be on the same page. And then we'll address more particularly Hebrews chapter 13.

Hebrews 13, from verse 11. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through His own blood. Therefore, let us go to Him outside the camp and bear the reproach He endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. So far, our reading. Just a bit of a quick recap on the series so far called home, the gospel narrative of belonging. We've discovered that the Garden of Eden, according to Genesis one and two, was our designated home, a place perfectly designed for us to live in harmony with God, with one another, and with the created world and nature around us.

It was the epitome of shalom, rest, peace that God created us to exist in. God took six days to create, and on the seventh day, He rested. And Genesis two indicates that on this day of rest is the first created time we meet God. We experience God in His rest. And so as human beings, we were created for this environment that causes human flourishing in its fullest.

But then we stuff up. Our ancestors, Adam and Eve, chose what we would have chosen to do. We choose ourselves over God, and we fall from God's perfect place, the home that we were designed to live in. Next, we find that sin enters into existence, enters into our world. Sin becomes self-centredness, choosing ourselves over God.

Self-centredness over God-centredness. This is the choice we made in the beginning, and this begins a long line of things falling apart. We are alienated from God spiritually, things are starting to fall apart. We are alienated from God.

We are alienated from ourselves, from one another. We are psychologically influenced by what God says to Cain, this sin crouching at the door desiring to devour us. Between Adam and Eve, there's an issue. Socially, we become alienated from each other. We start blaming one another for our predicament, our situation.

Adam says it was Eve's fault that we did this. Eve says it's the Adam's fault. Cain and Abel, the first major sin after the fall is murder. Cain murders his brother Abel. But more tragic than any of that is that we are thrust into an exile away from God.

Adam and Eve have been put out of the garden to wander, but Cain, after the murder of Abel, is cursed by God to be a restless wanderer the rest of his life. Quintessentially, he is the lost person. From there, we come to the patriarchs and Moses. We get to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We come to the nation of Israel that comes from them.

And in the book of Exodus, the book after Genesis, we are shown that God, by His mighty hand and His deep grace and love, forms a people called Israel. They are to take a place in the Middle East called the promised land, a place of belonging, a place of rest. It's a major stage in God's salvation plan for the world. It's a foretaste of the ultimate escape from exile and the ultimate homecoming that God wants to give people. This exodus creates a people who begin to experience a measure of God's rest.

As long and as far as Israel obeys God, it begins to experience this human flourishing, this shalom peace that God has been intending for humanity, the joy, the community, restoration that comes from that. But despite this foretaste, Israel, at various stages, wanders away from God again, choosing themselves, self-centredness over God-centredness once again. They make the choice of Adam and Eve once again. And again, as you read the accounts of Israel's struggles from one generation to the next, you come to realise that the heart of the problem is the heart. Eventually, Israel loses the land completely.

And as a penalty for their rejection, their rebellion, their sin against God, Nehemiah nine shows that they are exiled, and they will lose what they had. The exile to Babylon, the exile to Assyria is again the sign of the human condition. We are exiles. But the prophets in this time begin to promise. They begin to describe a return from this exile, a homecoming, which will mean, according to Jeremiah thirty-one and thirty-three, a forgiveness of sin.

According to Ezekiel thirty-six and thirty-seven, a new heart, not a heart of stone anymore, a heart of flesh. And then according to Isaiah thirty-five and fifty-two, not only these things, but a whole new world order. And that brings us to today's talk entitled Jesus, the Rejected Exile Who Prepares a Table. After hundreds of years, after this exile of experiencing and suffering through what it means to be lost again, the Jewish people start hearing of a man travelling the countryside, saying and doing some incredible things. His name is Jesus.

He comes from a backwater place, a nowhere place called Nazareth. He's the son of a humble carpenter, yet he preaches like a rabbi. And for three years, he says and he does incredible things that hint towards some redeeming power, some sort of restoration. For example, early on in Jesus' ministry, Mark chapter four, Jesus calms a storm, one of the first miracles that the disciples experience of Jesus. A small group of followers called the disciples are in a boat with him on the Lake of Galilee.

A huge storm comes up that threatens to drown everyone inside this boat. Jesus stands up in the boat, chastises the wind and the water like you would speak to a temperamental kid, and everything goes quiet. Having only been with Jesus a short time, these men, these twelve guys turn to one another and say, who can this be that the winds and the waves obey him? Who is this guy? A short time later in Mark chapter five, verses one through twenty, we find Jesus meeting a man who has been thrown out of normal, safe society because he's been possessed by demons for years, and it has made him dangerous.

This man is put into the cemetery where he's treated like an animal. He is bound by chains either to not hurt himself or not to hurt others. And Jesus is travelling through that area, and this man runs to come to Jesus and falls at His feet and loudly shouts, what do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God? Here's a man seemingly out of his mind, living like an animal, wracked by violent self-harming spirits, yet he sees something, recognises something before anyone has come close to putting their finger on it. Apart from the fact that this man knows that His name is Jesus and he hasn't been introduced to him yet, Jesus is labelled the son of the most high God.

And then with a word, Jesus rescues this man from this lifelong imprisonment, not simply the physical shackles that he was in, but the spiritual shackles that he was under. This man is found later calm and collected, firmly back in his right mind. Who is this man? Later on in Jesus' ministry, he shows that he heals diseases. He can completely restore limbs.

There's a man in the temple with a withered hand and joints and muscle tissue are fixed again simply by him touching them. His power, in fact, is so great that he has control over life and death. John 11 tells the story of how Jesus raises a man by the name of Lazarus who had been dead for four days. And then Jesus says after this, those who believe in me, though they die, they will never die. Who is this man?

For three years, Jesus does these things and the question everyone has to ask is who is this? And then the second question you have to ask is why? Why does Jesus do these things? Well, apart from it being really kind of him and really loving of him to heal people of ailments and set people free from the shackles that they live under, Jesus is pointing to something far more important. He is the one who is making the terrible lostness of humanity right again.

All those things that Jesus was fixing, was restoring are things that have entered our life since the fall. The chaos that entered our world because of sin. Jesus is starting to restore. Think about it. Over those three years, Jesus showed His power by fixing the chaotic forces of nature, wind and wave that will destroy life.

He calms a storm. Another time, walks over water on a turbulent choppy lake. Jesus rescues people from the torment of Satan. Satan who was the one who deceived and tempted Adam and Eve. With a word, Jesus can crush him.

At other instances, Jesus turns back the effects of disease and death, the explicit curse of sin that humanity must die. Jesus has the power to overturn those effects, and all of these things Jesus does for what reason? Not simply because He's a good fellow. It's to show that He's going to restore humanity's fortunes. He's doing something that we all desire, that we have all longed for because he comes from the once upon a time.

He's a man who has come from the old home. So for three years, Jesus is showing that there is a redeeming power that has entered human history. But how does he bring about this ultimate redemption? Well, by becoming the ultimate exile. The apostle Paul writes that Jesus—he writes it in Philippians two—that Jesus leaves his true home at the side of the Father, emptying Himself of His divinity.

Paul writes, not considering divinity as something to be clung to, but empties Himself taking on the form of human, the form of man. Jesus Himself leaves His home to come to earth. Matthew eight, Jesus says of Himself that He has no home while He's here. Birds have nests, foxes have holes, but the son of man has no soft place to lay His head. He is a wanderer on earth as He ministers to people.

In fact, from day one, He is an exile. Remember the Christmas story, Herod, that starts killing in his jealousy, destroying all boys in the area of Bethlehem because he heard a king has been born for the Jews. And he goes and he kills all boys under two. From day one, however, we see Jesus with Mary and Joseph escaping to Egypt. He is a refugee.

There is no home for Jesus here on earth. But the most dramatic and poignant example of Jesus' exile condition is when He is finally crucified on the place called Golgotha, on the Mount of Calvary outside the city gates of Jerusalem. And this brings us back to Hebrews 13. Why is it important that Jesus died on that specific location? Well, it's a fulfilment of prophecy.

It is something already hinted at hundreds of years before in the Old Testament, but it's also a fulfilment of the effect of humanity's exile from God. In the law of Moses in the Old Testament, that God gives His special people Israel so that they may flourish, that they may live in relationship to God. Once a year, God provides a ritual for sin sacrifice where a goat is to be taken, and the priests symbolically put their hands on this one goat, one goat for the whole of Israel. And on this goat is placed, again symbolically, the sin of God's people, everything that they had committed in that year. And this goat is instructed to be thrown outside the city, taken outside the camp.

He is literally this goat, the scapegoat. That's where we get the term from. Everything, everything is on this goat, and this goat can never be approached, can never be taken in, can never be shepherded again. This goat is now rejected on behalf of the people.

On another time, or rather another event, a lamb is slaughtered and its blood is sprinkled over the people as a sign that they have been forgiven. But again, the body of that lamb, according to the law of Moses, must be burned outside the city. No one can eat this lamb. The body must be burnt outside the city as a sign of its rejection, of its punishment by God, and it is so emotional and it's so visceral. This poor innocent thing.

And then we come to the New Testament. And we come to Jesus, and we find someone like the writer of the book of Hebrews saying that this is exactly what Jesus has become for us. Verse 11 of chapter 13, the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify, in order to make holy the people through His own blood. What happens at the cross?

What happens at the cross? The way that Jesus dies is the billboard for what God is doing for humanity. Of course, He has to die outside Jerusalem. There is no other place. Not only was Jerusalem the capital, the spiritual capital of Israel, it was the place where this ritual of the goats and the lamb happened every year.

But secondly, Jesus must die not in Jerusalem, but outside the city to show the rejection by God, the rejection by the people that Jesus must experience on their behalf. In other words, Jesus becomes the final sacrifice, the final sacrifice for sin. And that is all to satisfy this major narrative started in Genesis one, two, and three. Jesus must be rejected to become the rejected exile that every one of us should have been. He is alienated.

He is cast out. He experiences the full rejection of God so that whoever receives His work, whoever will place a trust in that work on their behalf has a way to come home. Jesus is exiled so that I won't have to be. And so He establishes for me the right to become children of God. This is why Jesus tells His disciples that night before He goes to the cross in John 14, verse two.

Remember what He said. He says, in my Father's house are many rooms. I go there to prepare a place for you. A place. The human condition has been one of displacement.

All along, we've had no place. We've had no belonging. But this is the most glorious part of the Christian gospel, not simply that our sins are forgiven, not simply that we have a one-way ticket to heaven. The glory of the gospel is that Jesus has given us back our home. We are able to find rest again with a Father who has created us, who knows us, who loves us.

It's on this same night that Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper. And remember what He says there when He breaks the bread and He shares the wine. He says, I won't share of these things again until I'm with you at my Father's table. Again, the assumption is that we have a place at the table. We have a place around the kitchen table with our Father.

We have a place. These are words, these are metaphors, these are concepts of belonging. That is the glory of the gospel.

All along, God knew, even at Adam and Eve's rebellion, that someone needed to come, that someone needed to become the exile. And He did this out of supreme and staggering grace and love. Now knowing this, knowing this changes us. Knowing this changes us. It moves us.

It humbles us, but it also changes the way we live, and that is how Hebrews 13 goes on because it suggests we become happy exiles. We become happy exiles now. I don't know if you watch the ABC and you watch Anh Do's painting of celebrities or if you've read the book, The Happiest Refugee that he wrote. Anh Do is a Vietnamese refugee who's a comedian and a wonderful, just all around person. Like, I mean, he's talented and he's just such a nice guy.

But he has had massive hardship in his life. And he says, despite all this hardship of being a refugee from Vietnam, there's always been happiness in his life. There's always been cheerfulness and joy and joking. But it's a wonderful title to the book, isn't it? Happy refugee.

Those two don't go together normally. We think of sad people when we think of refugees. Yet in a similar way, the Bible suggests that we are to live as happy exiles in response to the wonderful love and grace of our representative exile. We see again in Hebrews 13, particularly verse 13. Therefore, let us go to Him outside the camp and bear the reproach that He endured.

For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name. And do not neglect to do good, to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. What the writer of Hebrews is saying is that because we know Jesus now, our hearts have now been opened to understand that we have never belonged to this world. There's a part of us that feels at home here because it is creation and we're part of creation.

It isn't entirely foreign to us, and yet there's a part that knows there is something more. And Hebrews says, Jesus proves this to us. His exile's death shows that He didn't belong here either. And if we become united to Him through that death, as we enter into that death with Him, we say as well, we enter into an existence where we realise this isn't our home either. And we become happy exiles.

We seek a city that is to come, and we are happy because of the breathtaking news that we have been assured a place at the Father's table. We are confirmed, however, as exiles because of the fact that Jesus had to die. He had to die to show us that things in this life aren't right. The fact that He had to die for us shows that something was wrong. And because we realise something is wrong, we have this huge responsibility now to try and tell and persuade as many people as possible of this reality.

Our jobs as Christians is to let everyone know where they actually belong, where they actually belong. That they were created to be with God and that anything else will be hardship. Anything else will be frustration. We need to tell them that they can only be reconciled with God, however, through the gracious work of Jesus on their behalf. This is what we must do.

Hebrews 13 indicates that this will be difficult, however. It hints at this when it says we must go to Him outside the camp, and we will experience the reproach, the scorn, the criticism that He also experienced. Why do we do this? Verse 14 says because we don't have a lasting city here. The point is this, that the Christian life is not simply saying, I've got my train ticket stamped.

I'll see you up there. Nor is the Christian life saying that Jesus died to make this Gold Coast a paradise. No. Jesus died so that we would realise that we can't make this place paradise. When we become Christians, we realise we are exiles along with Jesus, but we are happy exiles.

Does this mean we are masochists now, that we enjoy suffering, that we love to be reproached and bear the scorn of people? No. It's because we simply acknowledge that we have our eyes set on home and that home is far more glorious, far more glorious than anything that can possibly come close to here. We are given just a magnificent glimpse of this also in Hebrews, just the previous chapter, chapter 12, verses twenty-two and twenty-three. And I like the NIV's translation of it, so I'll read that for you guys, but feel free to follow along.

This is the city that is to come. Verse 22, but you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly. You have come to the church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God.

And so we are told to go to Jesus outside the camp. And even doing so, knowing we will bear the reproach that He bore. Why? Because Jesus didn't die to make our lives paradise on earth. He died to produce in us a radical confidence of a glorious future with God.

And so when we give our lives to Jesus, we die to the old way of thinking, thinking that we are trying to make things right here, trying to scrape together the mess of everything that we have here, and trying to somehow build a kingdom, somehow build a home that we can say, finally, rest. The gospel shows us that, no, we can admit that things aren't the way that they are meant to be. We don't need to be comfortable in this life. The cities of this age will not be paradise, and that calls us to a radical discipleship of Jesus, a radical following of Him. It means that we must go to Jesus outside the camp, but the great hope and the great comfort is that He's there with us.

He's out there. He's the exile still bearing the reproach. But it's the core of every Christian. Our move towards Jesus is a move towards need, not comfort. And so it may mean that some of us will become, will have to become missionaries to bring the gospel to those people who must hear it.

It will mean that some of us will need to be the Jesus freaks at work that just won't shut up about Jesus. It may mean that some of us will sacrifice our wealth to support the work of God's kingdom. But this is our great comfort. In all that sacrifice, Jesus is already there. He's already outside the city gates.

He's already busy with that work. But this morning, he calls us again to go to Him, to help Him, to serve Him with obedience, to offer the praise of our lips, to offer the praise of our sacrifice of giving and helping. Let's pray. O Lord, we thank You for Your word to us this morning. We thank You that we can be challenged and stimulated and refreshed.

We thank You that we can dig deeper and understand the incredible consistency, the incredible wholeness of this narrative, this world view. We marvel at its complexity and yet at its profound simplicity that there is a home for us. A home that we belong to but we have lost, a home that You are busy restoring. Father, help us to join You, to join our Saviour Jesus on that mission of restoration. Help us to be the vessels and the agents of redemption in our workplaces, of redemption in our families.

Help us to hear when You call us to offer our lives, our careers, our gifts, our abilities, our intellect, our finances for Your purposes, O God. Mission exists. The mission exists because the worship of You is not yet full, is not yet complete. So again, Lord, we must pray for those who don't know You. We must pray for those who are far from You.

We ask, Lord, that You will be merciful to them as You have been to us without us deserving anything. And so, Lord, we intercede for them. We pray for them. Will You have mercy on them? Will You show Your grace to them?

But Father, use us to explain, to persuade, to show the power of Jesus who has come to restore. Help us fight against the greed and the self-centredness of our lives, the sin that crouches at the door that will say this life is mine and I will make it paradise. Help us, Lord, to seek the city that is to come. For that to be so real to us that everything is put back into its perspective and its place. Help us to know so deeply, so profoundly in our hearts, the reality, the existence of what lies ahead, to taste the glory of that, and to realise it is not worth comparing to what we have and will endure on this earth. We thank You, Lord, that we may be assured of that as a reality for us.

We thank You, Lord, that we may look forward to a place at the Father's table, and we ask, Lord, that Your kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus' name. Amen.