“For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted…”Heb7:26

I love the book of Hebrews, in part because it validates the rituals of the Old Testament without making it sound like that’s the stuff we’re still supposed to do. We don’t sacrifice animals anymore. Priests don’t make an offering for their own sin before making one for you and me. Jesus is the Great High Priest who has offered once and for all the final Final FINAL sacrifice. The Mercy Seat is now Jesus. The blood, the body, the sacrifice — is now Jesus. The Old Testament gave us foundation and foreshadow; the New Testament is Jesus fulfilling these requirements.

In this way, Jesus is separated from sinners. He goes to a place that we cannot because He is something that we’re not: holy, innocent, unstained. Jesus is with us, yes, but He maintains His separateness. He is fully man, but, at the same time, fully God. It couldn’t work any other way.

I say all that to say this: remember that Jesus isn’t with you. We remind each other — and rightly so — that Jesus is with us. Indeed (praise God) He is. But from a sacrificial and priestly angle, Jesus is most certainly not with us, for which we must be eternally grateful.