What Cannot be Shaken, a Reflection on Hebrews 12:25-29

"You have not come to something that can be touched," the preacher had said, "a blazing fire, darkness, gloom, and a tempest." He continued on, describing how terrifying that mountain was then contrasted that experience with the approach to the new mountain.

There, at this new mountain, are assembled a congregation before God who is the judge of all and Jesus, the mediator.

And, since Jesus is there, also present is the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

We are cautioned not to refuse the one who is speaking.

Remember. Pay attention. Listen.

Refusal to listen has consequences.

Life here on earth is temporary, but the life promised to us is unshakable.

Thomas Long, in his commentary, Hebrews, part of the Interpretation series, says:

Zion and Sinai are an eternity apart; one is the mountain of the new covenant and other the old. It is true that, like Sinai, Zion has fire and shaking, but under the new covenant these experiences are transformed. Under the old order, fires and earthquakes are destroyers, burning up everything in their paths and shaking down all once-stable structures. Under the new covenant, though, God shakes heaven and earth like an antique collector shakes the dust off an old marble statue: to get rid of everything that hides and defaces the beauty that was intended by the sculptor. In Zion, God shakes not to destroy but to preserve....