Hebrews 1:1-4 & 2:1-4
Over the next few months, our morning gatherings will be working through the book of Hebrews, and our evening gatherings through the book of Daniel.
Readings for this week May 1 - 5
Click here for a pdf of this week’s readings.
Day 1 – Something New
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 1:1-2
In just a couple of verses the author of Hebrews does a marvellous job of situating his audience, telling them where they are and what is going on, so that they can immediately place themselves in the story, in relation to the action unfolding, and begin to see how they are affected by the unwinding tale. In the past God used many methods to send his messages to his people: he sent visions, he appeared in dreams, he spoke personally to Moses and Abraham, and he sent his prophets to speak to the people on his behalf. ‘This is the story we are in’ the writer is saying; this is the God we are talking about here, a God who reaches out and communicates with his people. This is who God is and who we are. And then, at the start of verse 2, comes that wonderful connective “but”...
Something astonishingly new has happened with Jesus. God has come closer to us, he has become flesh, one of us, he has walked and lived among us. And this person, this Jesus, is God’s own Son in the flesh, “God with us”, God speaking his love to us and embodying his desire for us. God is the God of the new thing, the impossible step, the redemptive arc. Chances we thought missed, opportunities long gone; new things believed impossible, unknown pathways miraculously appearing – God is always creatively moving, always showing his faithfulness in new and surprising ways. He does not give up on us. He makes a way where none seems possible and calls us into greater things than we think we can do.
Questions to Consider
How has God been the God of ‘new things’ for you? What new thing is God calling you to now?
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you for the new things you have done and the new things you are doing even now. Give me the eyes of faith to see where you are moving and how I can join you in your work. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 2 – Better than the Angels…
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 1:3-6
Jews knew of angelic beings, messengers and servants of God. The Hebrew bible contains many instances of angelic appearances – a particularly well-known example of a (named) angel occurs at the end of the very book we are just starting to look at in our evening services: Daniel. And the tradition of angels as the intermediaries who delivered Yahweh’s Law to Moses on Sinai was even commented on in the New Testament (see Acts 7:38, 53 and Galatians 3:19). In the divine order of things angels were considered to be higher than human beings. And yet the angels worship Jesus, God’s firstborn. Why is this?
Lest anyone for any reason think otherwise, the writer of Hebrews is very clear about the exalted status of Jesus. Doesn’t his humanity mean Jesus is lower than the angels? No, he is not inferior to angels, but rather is God’s firstborn who came into the world. Well, does his divinity put him on a par with the angels then? No, he is above the angels, calling God Father and called Son by God. The angels, God’s servants, worship Jesus, who is ruler, prince, king – and Son. Jesus is just as far above the angels as God is, as Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of [God’s] being” (verse 3). The superiority of Jesus is made plain. So whatever (proper and necessary) importance may have been attached to the Law of Moses is easily outstripped by the importance that should now be given to Jesus and what he has said and done.
Questions to Consider
Why was the writer so keen to emphasise Jesus’ superiority to the angels? What was he trying to get his readers to understand?
Prayer
Almighty God, teach me proper reverence for your Son, to see him as Lord and God and King. May my words and actions exalt him as Lord in all that I do. In his name, Amen.
Day 3 – …And Even Better Still
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 1:7-9
Jesus is superior to the angels. But that is just the beginning of the claims that the writer of Hebrews is going to make. In these three verses today, he steps it up a notch and aims his rhetoric even higher. In verse 8 the writer has God himself quoting Psalm 45:6-7 (which is addressed to the king), saying about the Son, “Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever.” Outrageous – addressing the king as if he can be called God! Only God is God and nothing but God is God. And yet the king is described in a godlike way, bringing justice, ruling with righteousness, and reigning for ever and ever. It is no coincidence that this description sounds an awful lot like the role of the Messiah…
Yes, only God is God and nothing but God is God. God himself says so. And yet God calls the Son God. The divinity of Jesus could not be stated more clearly. Right from the beginning of Hebrews, the author is clear about the place and position of Jesus – a position acknowledged by God himself. Jesus is, in his very nature, God. He is not created. He is not elevated to the status of a divine being by God. He is God, the very same nature, the very same substance, fully and completely God. This is not a minor claim. It is consequential. It is world-altering. As this entire opening chapter makes clear, everything stands upon this new revelation; as the writer will soon show, this new understanding informs, undergirds and empowers the new reality in which the people of God – of Jesus, the Messiah – now find themselves living.
Questions to Consider
How do you understand the divinity and humanity of Christ? What does the incarnation mean for us? What does it mean for God?
Prayer
Gracious God, thank you for coming to us. That you took on flesh for us shows how much you love us and long for us to return to you. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 4 – The Messiah
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 1:10-14
There are many things that people say that Jesus was. Some focus on his role as a prophet, and the way in which his words and actions fit into the prophetic mould familiar to the Jewish people. Others prefer the phrase ‘wise man’ and are more interested in placing his teachings (and only his teachings; there is no Calvary or tomb in this scheme) alongside those of other great teachers, both (distant) past and present. Still others are drawn to the revolutionary aspect of Jesus’ defiance of the Roman authorities and the empire looming behind them. It seems Jesus and what he is and what he stands for can be pulled in many different directions, given many differing emphases.
The opening line of Hebrews linked Jesus with the prophets but since then the author has been steadily raising the stakes so that no one, whatever their own view of Jesus may be, misses the point about who – and what – he really is. A prophet, yes, but more than that. Not an angel, no, but more even than this. God of God in fact. And now, in these verses, he is given the title of Lord. Psalm 102:25-27, quoted here in v. 10-12, tell us what this means: the law and the prophets have met their fulfilment in Jesus, the Messiah, and it is the Messiah who will see God’s plan of salvation through to its glorious conclusion in the new heavens and the new earth. Greater than the prophets, greater than the angels, Jesus is God himself come to us to usher in the restoration and renewal of creation and reconciliation, heralding a time that “will never end.”
Questions to Consider
What does it mean to say that Jesus remains the same? Why is this important? What does it mean for us that this is so?
Prayer
Loving Father, thank you for your constancy, your faithfulness, never abandoning us or turning your back on us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 5 – So We Don’t Drift Away
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 2:1-4
The law was a message sent by God – an important message, sent by a loving God to his chosen people. And yet, even allowing for the law’s divine provenance, people still failed to heed it and transgressed badly. So now, rather than entrust another angelic messenger with a message for a new generation’s Moses, God has done something even more remarkable: he has turned up in person. The King himself has turned up, speaking the gospel message to us directly. And the author of Hebrews makes it really clear that yes, it really was God who turned up, in the person of Jesus, to share that message of the good news of God’s kingdom – the testimony of those who heard Jesus, and the signs and wonders that God sent to accompany the message, confirm it.
So surely, having heard from the King himself, we should be more than ready to act on the message, to take it to heart, and make sure we stay tuned to what the King has to say. Otherwise, as verse one says, we may find ourselves drifting away. Our fidelity to the message is not guaranteed just because we’ve heard it. If we don’t consciously keep our eyes on Jesus; if we don’t practise regular rhythms of prayer and community; if we don’t walk each step of each day seeking the presence and movement of Jesus in the world around us; if we don’t commit ourselves again to following where he calls – then we will drift further and further away. We need to pay close attention to the message and stay close to the messenger so we don’t drift; so that Jesus is always visible in our lives.
Questions to Consider
Are you a drifter? What causes you to drift? How can you combat this tendency?
Prayer
Lord God, help me stay focused and attentive on all you have said and all you are saying and doing. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)