Sermon on Hebrews 2, cf. Psalm 8
"Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels.
But someone has testified somewhere,
‘What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
or mortals, that you care for them?
You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honour,
subjecting all things under their feet.’
Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them,
but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
It was fitting that God,
for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children
to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through
sufferings.
For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father."
To
begin this morning, let us envision a hiking trail. This is not a
National Park service, all-handicap accessible kind of trail. Oh no!
This is a trail for an adventurer, no path paved off, no rocks
blocking off the wild terrain from the sandy, previously tread way.
This trail will require equipment, good footwear, lots of trail mix
and a healthy love of risk.
Oh,
it could also use a really good leader who is not afraid to make the
cuts necessary in the thick brush or to take the initial step in the
thick tundra where the ground cannot be seen, a good leader who can
look up as needed and see far ahead, who can read a map and a
compass, who knows when people are tired and cranky and need a rest.
In short, this hiking trip needs a Captain Kirk, explorer of the
Final Frontier, boldly going where no human has gone before.
Our
Hebrews passage today tells us of this kind of trail- specifically
the trail to the crown of honor and glory, eternal life with the
Triune God. The chapter begins with encouragement that there is in
fact, a trail in existence that we must not drift away from lest we
roll our ankles on rocks or stray so far that we can no longer see
it, the trail is kept clear by those mothers and fathers of the faith
who have traveled ahead of us and surrounded us with their miracle
stories of walking this trail with God. The Holy Spirit enables us
to walk the trail, by shedding light, bringing people to the
trailhead and revitalizing them along the way. This trail is tamed
by Jesus Christ, the trailblazer, or pioneer, of our salvation, as
verse 10 says. This is the main focus of the passage.
(Therefore
we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do
not drift away from it. 2 For if the message declared through angels
was valid, and every transgression or disobedience received a just
penalty, 3 how can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? It
was declared at first through the Lord, and it was attested to us by
those who heard him, 4 while God added his testimony by signs and
wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit,
distributed according to his will.)
First,
let's explore the nature of the trail of glory. The author of
Hebrews borrows from the words of the Psalm reading for today.
"What
are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals,
that
you care for them?
You have made them for a little while lower
than the angels;
you have crowned them with glory and honor,
subjecting all things under their feet."
Do
you realize that God has made you and all humans for glory and honor
and victory?
Let's not excuse that but just let it sit
really sink in.
It is clear that this is mind-boggling from
the Psalmist's question about how God could possibly care for us
mortals. So, we are in good company if it also blows our minds. CS
Lewis solved this dilemma by saying, as he is now famous for, that
none of us has ever met a mere mortal. But, what the Psalmist
realizes is that God has actually created us for good and for life
with Him. This is the whole object of our lives: to receive the
crown of glory and honor that He has prepared for us. That is the
reason for the journey, the sight of that beautifully clear and
roaring waterfall that is at the end of the trail, of which we drink
forever: where we behold and know God as He is and we are fully
known.
The
author to the Hebrews knows that this vision is key to the hike on
the trail and so begins there that we might follow it all the way
through to the end. Let us keep this in mind as we go through the
rest of the passage.
For
very shortly, obstacles begin to appear.
Now
in subjecting all things to them,
God left nothing outside their
control.
As
it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to God or to us
The
author of Hebrews is not out of touch with their own audience, nor
apparently, with ours. The newly birthed church was facing shame,
some even unto death, for the sake of being Christian, an awfully
high price to pay in that time. And don't we also think that well,
it's a great thing to be called to glory and honor, but where on
earth is this glory and honor and subjection of the world to God and
us??? I am sure we come up with numerous things a day that evidence
to us that things are not as they should be, let alone that we are
crowned with glory and honor. I think you all know what I mean, it
could be anything- ranging from running late for work to car
accidents to chronic pain to starvation to our sin struggles. The
trail looks overgrown and it just rained last night and now I'm being
stung by mosquitoes and that made me look away from the trail so then
I slipped and then the person behind me also slipped?! No thanks,
many of us say. The author of Hebrews provides an answer that is an
oldie, but also a goodie.
They
say, we may not see the trail clearly but we do see Jesus!
He,
like the Psalmist said of us, for a little while was made lower
than the angels, but is now crowned with glory and honor because of
the suffering of death
Though
what we see around us leads us to give up on the end of the hike, we
see Jesus, our guide, already crowned with glory and honor, already
having that which we, too, are promised.
In
what way can he be said to be a trailblazer? It's a little weird
that Jesus is crowned because
He suffered and died. This part of His trailblazing meant that He
had to step out first, be the one to suffer injury and distress but
to plunge forward confidently, always steadfast to the vision. So,
Christ was made like us, a little lower than the angels, in His
Incarnation, so that He could take up in Himself our human nature
which Gregory of Nyssa points out is “thorny because of sin”,
transform it in Himself, through a life of suffering and
faithfulness, into a crown of thorns in order to weave a crown of
glory and honor for us, to get us to the end of the trail.
It
was fitting that God, in bringing many children to glory, should make
the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
He
led the way in suffering and showed that there really is an end to
the trail, a good and glorious end. It
was exactly through death, as a portal, that Jesus, fully human and
fully God, was perfected, and through death he brought human nature
up to its proper glory by bringing us into contact with His own
divine nature. He showed in this way, the manner of hiker we are to
be, one who follows literally in the way that He has already put in
subjection under His own feet, united to Him, our hope of glory.
We
also learn that Jesus is the trailblazer because he is not only a
lantern of hope to the hikers who look up and see Him, but He
suffered because He was on the lookout for those things that would
slow us down and keep us from God. So, Jesus tastes death for
everyone. He shared our flesh and blood and became
exactly like us so that through death he might destroy the one who
has the power of death, and free those who all their lives were held
in slavery by the fear of death.
He
clears away from the path those things that really make us stumble:
doubt, fear of death, and bondage. Even death is now just a trail
marker, the last sign on the way to the crown of glory and honor.
In
the same way, Jesus became a merciful and faithful high priest in the
service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for our sins. Sin,
as we said earlier, was overgrown in us and paralyzed us, keeping us
from God. Even still, it can slow us down on the trail. But, we
know that Jesus sacrificed Himself for us to destroy this as an
obstacle—and in His example, He shows that actually sin and death
have been made foreign to us now, no longer that which is most
familiar to us because we are part of God's family, but the shedding
of this will likely cause suffering. And in a world to whom sin and
death are most familiar, we will suffer as those who are on a
different path.
The
author of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus is completely aware of our
weakness and the ways of this world, having become just like us, and
because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to
help those who are being tested. He
is completely aware of the difficulties found on the trail because He
has already hiked it. He is asking us to follow, to look like
Himself. He knows thoroughly who we are as humans and He holds in
Himself the image of the human fully alive, crowned in glory and
honor.
So,
we're now back to the original vision, laid out here in Hebrews by
way of Psalm 8. Jesus bore the weight and burden of our glory
through His perfect humility and suffering, all the way down the
trail. He was not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters.
He has set the trail ablaze
for us to follow and is readily available to renew the vision through
the Holy Spirit.
Do
you really know that you, and every human you meet, are made to be
crowned with honor and glory? Take hold of this promise!
Jesus,
our brother and trailblazer, please help us to continue in courage
and joy on the path of salvation you have already tread for us and to
love one another as creatures bound for glory.
AMEN.
