Guthrie on Hebrews 9:1-10

Brothers: this thought has been of particular help to me as of late. Be 'monotonous' in your love for and pursuit of Jesus.

'Some moderns would look at a passage like Hebrews 9:1-10 and yawn at the sheer monotony. Yet monotony may be a sign of vibrant, pulsating existence that revels in a place, time, and practice of what is right and beautiful. "A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, 'Do it again,' and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough....It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again,' to the sun; and every evening, 'Do it again,' to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies [or dandelions...] alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we" (Chesterton). The turn of the seasons, the beating of a heart, the revolutions of the earth, the year-to-year march through the decades of a committed marriage--all are signs of life that can never be labeled "dull." God seems to like rhythms, and we must join him in the rhythm of holiness: drawing near, living in a "monotonous" submission to his will. Jesus reflected perfectly this type of holiness, a wholeness of life centered on the perfect will of God' (Guthrie 305-6).