The Son - One of Us - Hebrews 2

                            

Last week we reflected on how Jesus is God. Now the writer focuses on Jesus’ humanity and why he became human like us. The writer warns us to pay careful attention to what we’ve heard so we don’t drift away from the truth. He uses the picture of a ship that is carelessly allowed to drift past a safe haven because the sailor forgot to allow for the wind, current or tide. Faith in Jesus is not something you just drift along with or into. Faith in Jesus is all about making a daily commitment to say “yes” to him, otherwise we’ll find ourselves drifting away on currents we have no control of and no idea of where we’re heading.

It’s like being on a life raft in sea currents, but the currents are taking you away from life instead of leading you towards life. For those who don’t know Jesus yet, even if they might have heard his name, our culture tells us that salvation is something we do for ourselves: we take care of our own, we earn our salvation by doing more good than bad, and when life gets hard or boring, we turn to other things to make ourselves feel better about ourselves, whether it’s booze, drugs, sex, work, or something else. At some point we realize that there isn’t anything out there that can save us from who we are and what goes on inside our minds, hearts, and souls. At some point, hopefully, someone introduces us to Jesus. Here’s that urgency we find in Hebrews; we’re strongly urged to not ignore our salvation, which has been boldly, loudly, and repeatedly announced through various signs, wonders, miracles, and the gifts given to us by the Holy Spirit; something to reflect on this Pentecost and Lord’s Supper Sunday.

G.K. Chesterton writes, “Man is not what he should be, frustrated by circumstances, defeated by temptations, surrounded by his own weaknesses.” We’re now shown the human side of Jesus. Jesus has been made a little lower than the angels for a time, he’s become human, a person just like us, but given all power and authority. The creator has become one of the created so that he can taste death for everyone. Into the mess of our world comes Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man to taste death for everyone.

God has made humanity different than angels. Psalm 8 points to who Jesus becomes, “what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet.” Humanity has been created to be stewards over creation in God’s name, the creation mandate we find in the beginning of Genesis at the creation of Adam and Eve. We’re being trusted to take care of creation and discover and develop the potential, the wonder, the beauty that God has placed within creation, created through Jesus.

Yet God can’t die, only humans and creatures die. God’s eternal, always was, and always will be. So how can this be? It’s a frightening thought, the thought that our God can die. Yet, it shows us how much God loves us and what he’s willing to do and become, so that we might be saved. Jesus comes to make humanity into who we’re meant to be: the image of, and presence of God as his representatives here on earth. Jesus does this is by taking the punishment of our sin on himself. This means becoming one of his creatures, becoming human so that he can die. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us, God’s grace isn’t cheap; even as it comes as a gift. Grace comes at a huge price paid by Jesus.

Paul puts it this way in his letter to Philippi, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” Life can be hard and suffering hits us all. No one’s free from getting hurt, we’re all sinners and affected by other people’s sins against us. Jesus experiences the same kinds of suffering we do, and so much more. “God makes the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.” This thought is a hard one, that God makes Jesus perfect through suffering. Isn’t Jesus already perfect, how can Jesus be made perfect?

The word perfect in Greek comes from “teleioo” which means “to consecrate, finish, fulfil, make perfect.” The verb is in an aorist form, meaning it’s something already accomplished, a past action. Jesus, in becoming human, fulfills God’s plan of salvation, he fulfills the prophecies from the Old Testament of a Messiah coming to save his people, pointing to the temple image of consecration. Jesus makes his people holy and dedicated to God the Father. This is the temple image of salvation; an invitation to be made holy and perfect through Jesus; this is how we can be holy as God is holy as God commands in Leviticus, or be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect as Jesus calls us to be in Mathew 5.

We’re now given four images of who Jesus is. The first image is that of Jesus as the pioneer, or perhaps more accurately, the originator of our salvation. After humanity made the choice to listen to other voices instead of God’s, and chose their own path instead of God’s, God chooses a path forward for our salvation and it all originates in Jesus becoming human like us. There’s no other salvation from our sin except through Jesus becoming one of us, dying for our sin as the perfect sinless person, and confirmed in his resurrection from death, defeating death’s power, rescuing us from its grip of fear. As Tim Keller wrote about dying, “All death can do to Christians is make their lives infinitely better.” Death is now the doorway into the presence of God, all because when we die, we die in Jesus, the author and originator of our salvation, taking us home to the Father’s mansion.

The second image is that of Jesus as our older brother, “Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing your praises.” When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Our Father who is in heaven,” he’s shows us that God is more than our creator and giver of life, he’s more than our king and master, he desires a more personal relationship with us where he’s our father and we’re his children and Jesus is our older brother who comes after us to bring us home again.   

Jesus as our liberator is the third image. Through his becoming human like us, his death becomes powerful, powerful enough to defeat Satan who holds the power of death over all those who have sinned. In an unexpected twist in the universe, Jesus becomes our liberator by embracing weakness in becoming human like us, making him vulnerable to suffering, all the human emotions and struggles such as fear, temptation, and even doubt; think Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus’ cry to do things a different way than the cross, and yet in his humanity Jesus remains sinless, completely walking in God’s will, leading to Satan’s defeat. Jesus takes away the punishment and the fear of death from us, transforming death into the last doorway bringing us into the presence of God our Father. 1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”

As the son of immigrants from the Netherlands, my parents and grandparents shared with us their feelings of amazing joy when the Canadian tanks rolled into their village and they knew they were finally free. I’ve heard the stories of prisoners in the concentration camps and how many of them broke down; uncontrollably weeping when they were freed knowing that they could finally return home to their families and didn’t have to live in fear any longer. Most of us are so comfortable today, that we’ve no real idea of what liberation means, we don’t really have an emotional or spiritual understanding of what Jesus has done as our liberator from Satan and death. This often leads to a lack of appreciation for Jesus’ sacrifice and its cost. Today, for many people, salvation comes from believing the right things, and we underappreciate the importance of our relationship with Jesus as our older brother and God as our Father. We miss out on the strength and joy this relationship brings us.

The fourth image of Jesus is our “merciful and faithful high priest.” Jesus becomes human, just like us in every way so that he might “make atonement for the sins of the people.” He gives his life so that his adopted brothers and sisters might have eternal life. The writer writes of being tempted, reassuring us that there’s no temptation that Jesus didn’t face. Jesus gives us his Spirit to help us face any temptation Satan uses to try to lure us away from Jesus. Jesus knows hurt and suffering, temptation, loss and weeping; he knows loneliness and despair, sitting at the right hand of his Father, reminding the Father that we’re God’s children and Jesus has taken our place and purified us from our sin as the high priest by becoming the sacrifice to end sacrifices.

Jesus’ sacrifice brings healing to our souls. Out of gratefulness and a desire to live the way God created us to, the Spirit begins to transform us in how we live with God, and with each other, shaping our lives to be more and more like Christ. Because of who Jesus is, because of what he endured for us and what he’s done for us, the Spirit calls us to make Jesus the center of who we are. The one who saves us, our older brother, our liberator, and high priest can transform you and your life in ways you could never imagine because he’s become one of us and truly knows us!