An Anchor of the Soul

“In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, guaranteed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 6:17 – 20).

The recipients of the letter we call Hebrews knew what it was to live and suffer in uncertain times (Hebrews 10:32 – 34); in this way they were much like the people who constituted the seven churches to which the book of Revelation was written. Both Hebrews and Revelation have a particular focus on the transcendent and the unseen. They are both enigmatic, being enigmatic they draw us out of ourselves, above our circumstances, and they point us to Jesus. In Hebrews Jesus comes to us and then we come to Him. He, who is higher than the angels, comes to us; and then He draws us to Himself as we seek Him and His City. As we journey on our pilgrimage we have the assurance that Jesus is making intercession for us. As we journey we learn to live in the Holy of Holies together. We are on earth to be sure, but we are also in the heavens – and as our days become brighter and brighter the veil between the heavens and the earth becomes thinner and thinner, the river before us becomes narrower and narrower.

In the midst of uncertain times the people to whom Hebrews was written had taken refuge in Jesus, and in taking refuge in Jesus they found strong encouragement – they also found a hope that was an anchor of the soul. In Chapter 12 the readers of Hebrews are encouraged to keep looking at Jesus, the Author and Finisher of their faith. Later in Chapter 12 the readers are reminded of the transcendent community to which they belong, a transcendence that remains when all things in the heavens and on earth are shaken. In uncertain times these believers had an anchor of the soul.

An anchor keeps a ship in one position, keeping a ship from drifting away and from being damaged. For an anchor to work it must not only be dropped, it must be embedded in the sea bed – if the anchor is not embedded it will not work.

In our own uncertain times, are our anchors embedded in Jesus Christ and in the certain hope that we have in Him? If they are not we will find ourselves are the mercy of the storms of current events, at the mercy of trends, at the mercy of fear and anxiety – and all of these things have no mercy, they are ruthless and will destroy us. Awareness of what is around us is not the same as becoming subject to what is around us.

The souls of men today are without godly definition, they are shaped and molded on a daily basis by what they see and hear, they assume the flavor of the latest story that is “trending”, of popular “culture”, of religious charlatanism. When some souls do drop anchor they do not ensure that their anchors are embedded in the hope we have in Jesus, they will not take time, they are in a hurry, they want to move on to the next latest and greatest teaching or doctrine or movement.

We ought not to ignore the pain and suffering of those around us, we ought not to ignore inequity and injustice. But we need to remember again and again that unless our anchors are embedded in Jesus Christ that we will become participants in the storm and unable to rescue others. In order for us to rescue others clinging to the wreckage of false hopes and shattered expectations we must be a light-ship that is firmly anchored so that not only others can swim to us, but more importantly so that we can launch lifeboats into the storm to rescue others and so that those lifeboats will have a safe ship, firmly anchored, to return to.

Is my soul anchored in the hope which I have in Jesus Christ? What about yours?