Spoiler Alert Not Possible
This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings -- external regulations applying until the time of the new order.
- Hebrews 9:9-10
Spoiler Alert! If you were hoping to watch the movie “The Sixth Sense,” skip this paragraph. Now that that is out of the way, here we go. I remember watching an interview with the director of “The Sixth Sense,” a movie directed by M. Night Shyamalan, in which he confessed that before the movie premiered, he was terrified that it would be a flop because he had put so much foreshadowing into the movie that pointed to the fact that the main character was, in fact, dead throughout the movie, but just didn’t realize it yet, that he was afraid that it would give away this surprise ending and spoil the dramatic effect the revelation would have. But, his fears were unwarranted, because most people didn’t notice the foreshadowing the first time they watched it, and the dramatic effect the revelation had on the end of the movie caused it to become a wild success. And the surprise ending had the added benefit that the people who missed all the foreshadowing the first time wanted to watch the movie over and over again in order to try and catch all the things in the plot that practically shout “He’s a ghost but doesn’t know it… can’t you see it? The kid even says ‘I see dead people.’ How do you not see it?”
But as smart as the foreshadowing in The Sixth Sense was, there is a book that has enough symbolism and foreshadowing to put M. Night Shyamalan and any other authors to shame: The Bible, of course! Every story, every character, and every seemingly unnecessary detail, has meaning above and beyond the simple advancement of the plot. There is so much symbolism and foreshadowing in the Bible that despite 2000 years of rigorous study, mankind has not tapped the full depths of what the Bible is telling us. Which brings us to today’s passage of Hebrews 9:1-12.
Hebrews 9:1-12 is describing aspects of the tabernacle, and the tabernacle is like foreshadowing on steroids. So much so, that to this day, biblical historians are discovering symbolic things about the tabernacle that no one has noticed before. For example, not too long ago, they discovered that the order in which the tabernacle pieces were to be set up reflected the order of the names of Christ that are recorded in the Gospel of John (table with the consecrated bread = Bread of Life, the oil lamp stand = “I Am the Light of the World”, and the washbasin = Living Water, etc.). It’s amazing to me that thousands of years before, when God gave them the prescribed order in which they were to place the furniture pieces in the tabernacle, he was pointing the people to the names of Jesus that would be written in the Gospel of John in the order in which they would be revealed.
But back to today’s passage. I find it slightly humorous that there is so much symbolism and foreshadowing in the tabernacle that the author begins by talking about the different aspects of the tabernacle, but then just makes the disclaimer “But we cannot discuss these things in detail now.” He has to save the discussion of all the different parts of the tabernacle and ceremonies surrounding it for some other time, because, in this case, he wants to point out that all these foreshadowing things are just that: Shadows of the real thing. When Christ came, it was no longer a symbolic thing, or a ceremony that represented something else. He WAS the surprise ending. He WAS the dramatic revelation at the end of the story that made the whole Bible amazing! Sometimes, like in this New Testament passage, it feels like you can hear the excitement in the voices of the authors: “Can’t you see it? Isn’t it obvious? All these stories… all these ceremonies… they point to Jesus!”
For me, reading the Old Testament in order to discover these types of things - the symbolism and foreshadowing - makes it come alive all over again. It’s kind of like the people who “fan-base” over the Star Wars films or the Lord of the Rings universe, or a smart movie like The Sixth Sense! There is joy in the discovery of new insights and pleasure in realizing that even though you already know the ending, there is SO much more to discover. And if that’s true for these man-made stories, how much more is there in the God-inspired story of the Bible. There are so many things to discover about who God is in the words of this book, that we will never run out of things to learn. This is the ultimate story, the most in-depth tale that has ever been told… and to make it even more exciting, this one is real! You can’t spoil the ending of this book, because the depths of its lessons are unfathomable. So dive into the Bible and let the Holy Spirit use it to show you more and more about who God is.