Unsettled seas, an anchor already lodged within the veil.

An anchor is meant to sink until it bites something that does not move. But the anchor in Hebrews does not sink at all. It rises — or rather, it has already been carried through the veil, into the holy place where the presence of God dwells. The seafloor of my circumstances keeps shifting; the sanctuary does not. That is the strangeness and the mercy of this hope: its hold is not in anything I can see or steady, but in a place already entered.

The verse calls this hope both sure and steadfast. Sure means the anchor holds because God's promise holds. Steadfast means it does not drift when the current changes. I confess that I have often judged the anchor by the weather on the surface, as if the heaving deck could tell me whether the chain is still attached. The chain does not depend on my grip. It depends on where the far end is fixed.

And where is that far end? Within the veil. When Christ died, the veil was torn; when he rose and ascended, he entered the heavenly sanctuary as our forerunner. Our anchor is not lodged in a future possibility but in a risen person already there. The resurrection that carried him through the veil carries our hope with him.