We have such a High Priest… seated

From my study in Hebrews: imagining how the letter was first heard.

I sit still while the letter is read. At first I am listening… and then, without noticing, I drift.

My husband has counted the journey: the ship, the road, the cost. “This year we will go up,” he said. I nodded, though we both know I will stay. The boy is too small.

And suddenly I am there in Jerusalem… in the courts, hearing the Levites lift the psalms, watching the smoke rise, standing among the women before the Name. It is not only sacrifice. It is belonging.

Then the reader’s voice pulls me back: “We have such a High Priest… seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Seated! Priests stand. They return again and again. But to sit… that means something is complete.

And I remember the Messiah’s words… that the hour is coming when worship would not be bound to Jerusalem alone. That the Father seeks worshipers.

I still long for Zion. I always will. But as I listen, something steadies inside me. If our Messiah is seated in the true dwelling, then the Presence of the Holy One is not fragile. It does not depend on whether I can make the journey this year.