"Our God is a consuming fire"

 In the first paragraph from this Sunday's reading from Hebrews 12:18-29, St. Paul combines imagery with theology in a way that is rarely heard from the pulpit these days. In the second paragraph he pronounces a warning that is rarely spoken on Sunday mornings in churches that use the Revised Common Lectionary followed by the hope of those who partake of the sacrifice represented in our worship.

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. (For they could not endure the order that was given, ‘If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death.’ Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ‘I tremble with fear.’) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking; for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven! At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.’ This phrase ‘Yet once more’ indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire.

The image of God as a consuming fire harkens back to the ancient Hebrews practice of animal sacrifice, but Paul applies it here in a couple of new contexts. First that our worship be a sacrifice acceptable to God, and second the unspoken idea that He consumes our sinful nature and makes us worthy and acceptable to Him. 

Paul's writings are not easy for young readers or hearers to digest, but as we grow in Christ they become more intelligible and more eloquent.