Like Adam, as soon as my eyes were opened, I went and hid. I felt that if my parents found out what I did, they wouldn't love me any more. In retrospect, that was a ridiculous idea, because my parents never shamed me. They were (and still are) consistent in their love for me. But at the time, I figured this was the end. I was ruined. I had sinned. And my only recourse was to make sure they never found out what I did.

Of course, what I did wasn't the point, so I'm not going to tell you. And if any of you asks me, I shall take the Fifth. The point was how I felt afterwards, and that "afterwards" lasted a long time.

For, you see, I was so incredibly ashamed of myself, I told no one what I'd done-and especially not Mom and Dad. I told no one when I was five, and no one knew when I was six, or seven, or eight. I carried around that burden of shame and guilt in the secret of my heart for at least five years. But then, one night-I must've been about nine or ten-I couldn't sleep. The shadows on the wall were haunting me, and all I could think about was this awful thing I had done when I was four years old and how it was eating me alive. Tears streaming down my face, I wandered into the kitchen. My Dad was making a snack there. He turned around and asked, "What's wrong, kiddo?" I said I couldn't sleep and he asked if I wanted to talk. Nodding my head yes, I climbed up into his lap, and with a very shaky voice confessed my great sin.

My father listened intently. He didn't interrupt. At the end, he was silent for a moment or two-time that seemed like an eternity to me as I awaited his stern judgment. But instead, he gently asked me, "Well, have you asked God to forgive you?" "Yes," I said, "but I don't feel it." His next words were carefully chosen. "Would it help to know that I forgive you?" I nodded my head, and my father said, "Well, I do." Let me tell you, those three words were among the most liberating words I've ever heard.

We prayed together, and he tucked me into bed. The next day, he did not mention our conversation, nor was there any need to; I was not wracked with guilt any more. I was free. In forgiving me, my father was an ikon of our heavenly Father. In the power of the Holy Spirit, he reflected the humanity of Jesus, who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. It was a powerful experience of forgiveness, of acceptance, of unconditional love.

Maybe it's that singular childhood experience that makes today's epistle reading from Hebrews so incredibly meaningful to me. Maybe it's that singular childhood experience that has enkindled a burning passion in my heart to share this message with others, to testify to God's all embracing love in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Of course, before I could testify to that love, I had to know that love. And before any of us can testify to that love, we have to know that love. And so I'm here this morning to ask: Have you felt the love that banishes all shame? Do you know it in your bones? If you have, I hope this message will remind you of it and enable you to live it out in your own life more fully. If you haven't, I hope I can encourage you with the proclamation that such a love does indeed exist, and challenge you to "approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

But before we approach that throne together, let's back up for a moment and take a look at the direction we're approaching it from, for this passage from Hebrews, chapter four, actually begins on a rather disturbing note: "The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account."

If the author of this letter to the Hebrews had stopped there, I'd be cowering in a corner, not preaching from this pulpit. These words, read alone, raise in me that old fear of being judged, condemned, found lacking, and therefore being found unworthy of love.

"Able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart…" "All are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account." These are not hopeful words, and that word, "naked" is intentionally reminiscent, I believe, of the third chapter of Genesis, which I alluded to earlier. There, we read: "They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, 'Where are you?' He said, 'I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.' God said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?'"

We know the rest of that shameful tale. Listen to God's voice, though. How do you hear it? Shaming? Concerned? Damning? Sorrowful? Loving?

"Able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart…all are naked and laid bare…" In our society, that word, "naked," is often associated with shame, or at least embarrassment. Within that one word is so much vulnerability. It's an uncomfortable state to be in-vulnerability. But vulnerability can also lead to intimacy. And that's where the author is taking us in the next verses, which go on to proclaim that since we have someone who sees us naked, we should rejoice. "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin."

I remember the first time I read Hebrews carefully. When I got to this verse, I was overwhelmed with the depth of Jesus' love for me, and suddenly, I felt I knew Jesus a little better. No longer was Jesus this distant stained-glass figure, cold to the touch and beyond human passions, but a real Jesus of flesh and blood, a person familiar with weakness…as familiar with weakness as I am.

Listen! Are you able to take these words seriously? Can you imagine what they mean? "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin."

When I first read that verse, though, I have to admit that something bothered me about it. I said to myself, "Now, wait a minute. It's all well and good to say that Jesus sympathizes with us because he was tempted, but what about those crucial three words at the end of that sentence, 'tested as we are, yet without sin.' Doesn't that make Jesus somehow less human, less able to empathize with us? After all, 'to err is human,' as the old saying goes."

But then I realized, it's not true that I'm better able to sympathize with you if I've sinned than if I haven't, for my sin hardens my heart toward you and toward myself. The more sinful we are, the less able we are to sympathize with those who, like us, are sinners. After all, the people who annoy me most remind me of what I like least about myself. Every sin I commit distances me from you, impairs our intimacy, inclines me to judge you in order to justify myself, in order to feel superior to you, so that I don't feel my own shame quite so sharply. It's counterintuitive, perhaps, but sinners don't really sympathize very well with other sinners.

I'm reminded of that famous quote from Oscar Wilde's play Lady Windermere's Fan, when Lord Darlington observes, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." It's a nice thought, but it neglects one crucial fact about human nature. For you see, just because I'm looking at the stars from the gutter doesn't mean I'll be inclined to roll you over so you can look at them, too. Rather, human nature being what it is, I'm more likely to think myself better than you for the fact that I can see the stars while you're face-down in the muck. Why, I'm just hard-hearted enough to try to prevent you from looking at those stars.

But not so, Jesus, who has "passed through the heavens," and is now beyond the stars some of us wistfully gaze at from the gutter. Because Jesus left the starry lights of heaven and came down to be with us in this gutter of a sinful and broken world; because he has faced down temptation rather than being planted face-down by it, he is able to sympathize more than any other human being that has ever walked this earth. In the Gospel, Jesus' ministry was spent, not just rolling people over so they could stargaze from the gutter, but in taking them by the hand and pulling them out of the gutter. As his disciples today, we are no longer merely stargazers but astronauts.

The author of the letter to the Hebrews concludes this passage by telling us how we ought to respond to the fact that we have a high priest who sympathizes with us. He writes, "Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

This leaves me asking, however, "With what kind of boldness should we approach that throne?" Thinking back to when I was four, I can answer, "With the simple boldness of a child who has not yet discovered what it means to feel ashamed. With the boldness of a child who has known the sting of shame, but also the healing kiss of love."

In fact, "boldness" is too weak a word. When I was sharing my thoughts on this passage in staff meeting this past week, our academy headmistress, Betty Legenhausen, offered a much better translation: "Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with chutzpah."

Intimacy, not judgment. Joy, not shame. Sympathy in weakness. Abundance of grace. And the chutzpah of a child. These are the gifts our great high priest has given us. Have you received these gifts? Can you testify to them in your own life and see them in others? Put another way, when was the last time you rolled over and looked at the stars, the heavens through which our great high priest, Jesus, the Son of God, has passed? Even more importantly, when was the last time you rolled the person next to you over to look at those stars, too? And finally, have you accepted that sympathetic hand extended to you and to each of us, the hand that will pull us from the gutter and raise us to the stars? For when we do accept that hand, we are empowered to approach the throne of grace.

Let us, therefore, approach that throne of grace with boldness. For when we do, we will experience that which the great poet and Anglican priest George Herbert wrote of in his poem entitled Love:

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.

"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here":
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.