There is a scene in the movie Master and Commander with Russell Crowe where one of the “old salts” who are part of the crew needed a surgery on his brain. Right there on the ship, without anesthesia as far as we can tell in the movie, they decide to do the surgery.
The scene, and for that matter, various other parts of the movie, aren’t for the squeamish, and if you don’t like blood, don’t play this video. But if you want to see the scene, go to this video on YouTube.
In any case, the reason that I thought of the video this morning was the tattoo across the knuckles of the man upon whom the surgery was being perfomed. It says:
HOLD FAST
Evidently that is a famous tattoo for sailors or pirates, especially as they face the winds and waves on the seas, their faith in their ship, their captain, and their very selves being tested by the storms that come.
So I thought of this as I read Hebrews 3 this morning. The writer of Hebrews was telling his Israelite readers that they need to hold on, to not lose their faith as their ancestors did in the wilderness. They should keep the faith that they had from the beginning, and in that way they would persevere and enter the rest that God has prepared for them.
See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.
Hebrews 3:12-14
The easy path is the path that deceives us and turns us away from God. The difficult path is the one that stays the course, that holds on, that continues in the faith that had been given to them.
The context of this encouragement to the Hebrews is that the writer is reflecting back on the time of Moses. God had sent Moses to tell the Israelites that God saw them, that he was concerned for them, and he would take them to their own land.
The Israelites believed and followed Moses as God led him out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, and into the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land, into the land of Canaan.
But while they were on their way, God met them at Mt. Sinai and the Israelites rebelled. They hardened their hearts. They became dismayed by the fact that Moses had been away so long meeting with God on the mountain that they demanded a new “god”, thus making a golden calf, returning back to the ways that they had seen in Egypt. They went back to their slavery. In their hearts, they returned back to Egypt, preferring what they knew, even if it was literal slavery and forced labor, instead of the freedom that they had received in God.
Their hearts were hardened. They rebelled against God and his ways.
Now, the writer of the book of Hebrews is warning the believers in Christ: Don’t do the same. Hold on. Continue in your faith. Do not harden your hearts, but instead continue in what you have learned. In this way you will enter into God’s rest.