Mtr Kelli Joyce

We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus, a forerunner on our behalf, has entered, having become a high priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Dear friends in Christ,

My faith is bound up in hymns. Sometimes it amazes me to read a passage of scripture and realize, “Oh! This is where that line of that song comes from!” I had that experience reading this section from the letter to the Hebrews. The hymn it reminds me of isn’t in our hymnal, but I wonder if some of you might know it. In “On Christ, the Solid Rock, I Stand,” there is a line that says “in every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.”

This line confused me as a child, and this verse, I imagine, is similarly confusing without its context. In the temple where the presence of God dwelt on earth, before it was destroyed when the Israelites were taken into exile, the place where God’s presence was was called the Holy of Holies. The Ark of the Covenant was there, along with the tablets of the Ten Commandments, and only the high priest could enter it - and he could only enter it once a year. This inner sanctuary was separated from the next-closest part of the temple by a large purple curtain, 30 feet wide and 30 feet high. This is the veil. When Christ died, this veil was ripped in half, tearing completely from the top to the bottom.

All of this is context for our passage today, and it relates to the Feast of the Ascension, which we celebrated last Thursday. Christ, still incarnate, but now with a resurrected body, has gone to intercede for us - to be the bridge between humanity and his Father. As a child, I imagined an curtain with an anchor pierced through it. This did not seem to me to be a particularly sturdy way to secure an anchor. But the anchor is not “within” the veil itself, it is within the Holy of Holies, beyond the veil - beyond everything that would hide God’s face. The anchor is Christ himself, and he is in the Holy of Holies not once a year, but eternally. Now, just as much as when he was on earth, he lives and intercedes on our behalf. Thanks be to God.

In peace,
Mtr. Kelli