Dangerous Holy Ground—and an Open Door. Good Friday 2026
Hebrews 10.19-25
This passage seems to be addressing a problem we don’t have.
It is talking to people who are afraid of praying, of coming into the presence of God.
Most people – if they believe that God exists – don’t have that problem.
They may have a problem about coming into a church for a service – in the same way that I might feel awkward going into a night club. It is just not my world.
But we have been taught that we can come to God as we are; that we can pray to him wherever we are; that we don’t need to use special words.
And yet this passage assumes something very different: that people tremble to come into the presence of God.
They knew something that we have largely forgotten.
They had a concept of God as totally other, as holy, as set apart, as awesome.
We can come into the presence of God ‘as we are’, but only if we are prepared to come metaphorically naked, stripped of all our achievements, the things in which we put our trust, of our reputation, of our successes and failures, of our morality and our falls – and with open hands receive the welcome and the love and the forgiveness of God as a gift.
Because Jesus has died on the cross we can come into the presence of God with confidence and assurance.
2. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope
We declare that hope most Sundays in church. It is the hope that God came into our world, of sins forgiven, that God can transform us, of a new heaven and earth – where there will be no sin, no separation, no death and we will be with him.
One of the earliest church symbols for Jesus was an anchor. That is appropriate here. It looks like a cross and it is something that holds a boat fast.
And when it says, ‘hold fast to the confession of our hope’, it means that we hold fast to the anchor, to the Lord Jesus. It is about him, and not about us.
3. Let us provoke one another to love and good deeds.
I thought we provoked people for bad! But Hebrews urges us to provoke people for good.
That means meeting together. Not meeting together is a habit that we fall into.
It means encouraging one another. The timely word. The kind action. The listening word. The praying for and with. The reading and thinking through with someone. The worship and praise and singing together.
The story is told of a man in the congregation who had got into the habit of not coming to church. The vicar went to see him. The man in the congregation knew why the vicar was there, but he was not really a man of words, and the vicar was not a man of words. So, he offered him a drink, and then they sat quietly together by the fire. And then the vicar got up and took one of the burning coals and put it on the hearth. And then sat down, and they watched the red-hot coal go cold. And then the vicar got up and put it back in the fire, and they watched it grow red hot again. And then he left. The following week the man was back in church.
Good Friday reminds us that we are on sacred ground.
This passage seems to be addressing a problem we don’t have.
It is talking to people who are afraid of praying, of coming into the presence of God.
Most people – if they believe that God exists – don’t have that problem.
They may have a problem about coming into a church for a service – in the same way that I might feel awkward going into a night club. It is just not my world.
But we have been taught that we can come to God as we are; that we can pray to him wherever we are; that we don’t need to use special words.
And yet this passage assumes something very different: that people tremble to come into the presence of God.
They knew something that we have largely forgotten.
They had a concept of God as totally other, as holy, as set apart, as awesome.
He is eternal – we are mortal
He is the creator – we are the creation.
It is the difference between a fruit fly and a human being.
All the wisdom of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Hume, Weil, Einstein, Wittgenstein put together is like a paper clip in comparison to the Eiffel tower.
He is sinless and we are sinful.
Isaiah had a vision of God. He was in the temple and his eyes saw the glory of God. And he says, ‘woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips’.
Or on another occasion the ark of the covenant – a symbol of the very presence of God - was being taken on a cart. The cart shuddered and it looked as if the ark might fall. So, a man called Uzzah put out his hand to steady the ark – and was struck down dead by God.
The ancients had a sense that when you seek an audience with God, you can’t turn up at his sanctuary and say ‘Hi God’.
There needs to be sacrifice (a living creature needs to die in your place – to recognise that your life has been given you by God and that by your sin you have forfeited your life),
and there needs to be a priest, who can act as a buffer between God and you.
So perhaps it is not surprising that Peter, when he sees the power of Jesus, says ‘Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man’.
They knew that to come into the presence of God is to step onto dangerous holy ground
And Good Friday tells us: they were right
And I wonder if, in our prayer, we have no sense of hesitation, no whisper of fear, no sense of our nakedness and shame, whether we are really praying to the living God – or to a god of our imagination.
Because here is the truth:
We cannot simply walk into the presence of God. Not ‘as we are’.
There must be a sacrifice
There must be a priest.
But the good news of Good Friday is that that is what the cross is.
Not a symbol
Not an example
But a terrible, real sacrifice
Jesus, the Son of God, goes to the cross and dies for us.
As Isaiah says,
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole … the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
Or as the hymn puts it:
“There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven and let us in.”
And so I turn again to our Hebrews reading.
To the original readers who were fearful about coming into the presence of God
The writer is telling them that everything has changed.
He is the creator – we are the creation.
It is the difference between a fruit fly and a human being.
All the wisdom of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Hume, Weil, Einstein, Wittgenstein put together is like a paper clip in comparison to the Eiffel tower.
He is sinless and we are sinful.
Isaiah had a vision of God. He was in the temple and his eyes saw the glory of God. And he says, ‘woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips’.
Or on another occasion the ark of the covenant – a symbol of the very presence of God - was being taken on a cart. The cart shuddered and it looked as if the ark might fall. So, a man called Uzzah put out his hand to steady the ark – and was struck down dead by God.
The ancients had a sense that when you seek an audience with God, you can’t turn up at his sanctuary and say ‘Hi God’.
There needs to be sacrifice (a living creature needs to die in your place – to recognise that your life has been given you by God and that by your sin you have forfeited your life),
and there needs to be a priest, who can act as a buffer between God and you.
So perhaps it is not surprising that Peter, when he sees the power of Jesus, says ‘Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man’.
They knew that to come into the presence of God is to step onto dangerous holy ground
And Good Friday tells us: they were right
And I wonder if, in our prayer, we have no sense of hesitation, no whisper of fear, no sense of our nakedness and shame, whether we are really praying to the living God – or to a god of our imagination.
Because here is the truth:
We cannot simply walk into the presence of God. Not ‘as we are’.
There must be a sacrifice
There must be a priest.
But the good news of Good Friday is that that is what the cross is.
Not a symbol
Not an example
But a terrible, real sacrifice
Jesus, the Son of God, goes to the cross and dies for us.
As Isaiah says,
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole … the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
Or as the hymn puts it:
“There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven and let us in.”
And so I turn again to our Hebrews reading.
To the original readers who were fearful about coming into the presence of God
The writer is telling them that everything has changed.
God has not changed. He is still holy, but there has been a sacrifice.
And there is a priest.
I call this the rabbit passage, because in it there are three ‘let – us – es’
1. Let us draw near with a sincere heart
We can come into the presence of Father God because of the death of Jesus.
It is the blood of Jesus which opens the door, gives us access into the presence of God.
‘We have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus’ (v19).
His name is the password.
It is because of the cross we have been washed clean outwardly and inwardly
The icon you have been given shows the cross over the skull of Adam. The blood of Jesus falls onto Adam. It is his death that brings us life.
And there is a priest.
I call this the rabbit passage, because in it there are three ‘let – us – es’
1. Let us draw near with a sincere heart
We can come into the presence of Father God because of the death of Jesus.
It is the blood of Jesus which opens the door, gives us access into the presence of God.
‘We have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus’ (v19).
His name is the password.
It is because of the cross we have been washed clean outwardly and inwardly
The icon you have been given shows the cross over the skull of Adam. The blood of Jesus falls onto Adam. It is his death that brings us life.
We can come into the presence of God ‘as we are’, but only if we are prepared to come metaphorically naked, stripped of all our achievements, the things in which we put our trust, of our reputation, of our successes and failures, of our morality and our falls – and with open hands receive the welcome and the love and the forgiveness of God as a gift.
Because Jesus has died on the cross we can come into the presence of God with confidence and assurance.
2. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope
We declare that hope most Sundays in church. It is the hope that God came into our world, of sins forgiven, that God can transform us, of a new heaven and earth – where there will be no sin, no separation, no death and we will be with him.
One of the earliest church symbols for Jesus was an anchor. That is appropriate here. It looks like a cross and it is something that holds a boat fast.
And when it says, ‘hold fast to the confession of our hope’, it means that we hold fast to the anchor, to the Lord Jesus. It is about him, and not about us.
3. Let us provoke one another to love and good deeds.
I thought we provoked people for bad! But Hebrews urges us to provoke people for good.
That means meeting together. Not meeting together is a habit that we fall into.
It means encouraging one another. The timely word. The kind action. The listening word. The praying for and with. The reading and thinking through with someone. The worship and praise and singing together.
The story is told of a man in the congregation who had got into the habit of not coming to church. The vicar went to see him. The man in the congregation knew why the vicar was there, but he was not really a man of words, and the vicar was not a man of words. So, he offered him a drink, and then they sat quietly together by the fire. And then the vicar got up and took one of the burning coals and put it on the hearth. And then sat down, and they watched the red-hot coal go cold. And then the vicar got up and put it back in the fire, and they watched it grow red hot again. And then he left. The following week the man was back in church.
Good Friday reminds us that we are on sacred ground.
It reminds us that God is awesome and holy.
But it also tells us of the love of God in giving us Jesus, of the fact that we can come ‘as we are’ into his presence with assurance - not because of who we are but because of Jesus. It tells us that the door we could never open has been opened, and it tells us of the price that he had to pay to open the door of heaven and let us in.
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