Hebrews 2:5-18
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 8 - 12
Click here for a pdf of this week’s readings.
Day 1 – What is Man?
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Psalm 8
This rather well-known psalm asks a very pertinent question, one asked by anyone who has ever looked at the world around them and struggled to find their place in it; struggled to understand who they are and why they matter. What are human beings, asks the Psalmist, that God would treat them in such a special way? Why is he mindful of them? Lower down the pecking order than God, Jesus, and the angels, why are human beings important to God? Compared to everything around them – the glorious immensity of creation and all that fills it, and the majesty of the one who created it – humans are so small, insignificant and inconsequential. So why is God so enamoured of them? What is the point of them?
It is clear from the psalm that the answer to this question is a powerful endorsement of our intended role as the world’s true stewards, created by God to govern creation and to rule over the works of his hands as verse 6 attests. This is what being crowned with ‘glory and honour’ means in the previous verse. Right from the beginning, as Genesis 1 and 2 show, we were created and called to be God’s stewards of his creation, working in tandem with him to help his creation realise its full purpose in him. This was the original purpose we were called to, that Israel was called to as a beacon for all nations – the purpose we all failed. The one that the redemptive power of the cross and resurrection has now made possible again.
Questions to Consider
What is your understanding of the role that God intended for humanity? How do you see yourself fulfilling that role in your life?
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you for wanting us with you as stewards of your creation and co-workers in the kingdom. Teach me and empower me to be your true representative in this world as you always intended. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 2 – The Messiah as Representative of Us
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 2:5-9
As the writer of Hebrews has made clear up to this point, Jesus is superior to the angels. This was always God’s intention. But now the writer enlarges on this theme by looking at the future role that has been laid out for the son to undertake. Now we look ahead to the ‘world to come,’ to the role of Jesus in God’s plan for creation – but we do so in the light of what Jesus is doing now, in the light of where he is now, the reality of his already exalted position as Lord. Humans were created to be set in glory over creation, to have authority over it. But this didn’t happen. We messed up and failed to fulfil our purpose. We are not ruling the world and bringing God’s justice, compassion and love to bear on his creation.
But Jesus is. That is the point of Hebrews. His ascension and exultation, after his ministry, suffering and death, now see him enthroned and ruling with all the authority that was originally earmarked for us. He is fulfilling the role that was ours. He is the representative of his people, humanity renewed – truly and fully human, what we always should have been – but he is also our substitute, doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Jesus brings the justice, order and peace of God’s future into our now so those who are in him can live in the light of this new reality and share it – and the one who makes it possible – with the world. How this happens, the writer will soon explain. But it is something worth celebrating.
Questions to Consider
How is Jesus true humanity? What is it about him – what he said and did, and what he is doing now – that makes him so? What does this tell us about ourselves?
Prayer
Heavenly Father, teach me more about who you are so I can understand more of who I am, and who I am meant to be in you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 3 – Big Brother is Loving You
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 2:10-13
Today’s passage and tomorrow’s passage are the same. This is not a mistake. There are two important things I want to highlight about the passage, so we get to go over it twice. The first is the astounding assertion that Jesus calls us brothers and sisters. We are of the same family: “The one who makes us holy and those who are made holy are of the same family” (verse 11). We are children of God, on his say so. Whatever else we may be – and we are many things to many people – God calls us his children. That is our foremost identity, the marker that trumps everything else about us – including everything else people may say about us. Regardless of whatever names people throw at us, God calls us ‘child’ – his child. We are brothers and sisters of Christ.
God is the one who called the family into being and who welcomes all people to join, especially those not yet a part of the family. It is his family we join, his family that he wants us to be part of. He calls us and makes us holy so that we might serve him and help fulfil his kingdom purposes for all people. God is the good Father who calls us his own, and Jesus is the Son who calls us his siblings. Jesus also calls us out into the world to show love to those who do not know it and to seek more people to welcome into the family as our – and his – brothers and sisters, so they may also come to know themselves as children of God.
Questions to Consider
What is your experience of family? How has this shaped your view of God’s family and your place in it?
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you for opening up your family to me and to everyone, for being the Father of us all. Help us be worthy brothers and sisters of your son as we join in his kingdom work. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 4 – The Cost of Family
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 2:10-13
The second thing to say about this passage is the writer is careful to highlight what it took to save us and bring us into the family, what needed to happen to make it possible for us to be the brothers and sisters of Jesus. It may look like a minor, throwaway line, just a couple of words in the middle of verse 10. But it is actually crucial, the centre around which the argument – and all the writer of Hebrews is describing as the new reality made possible by Jesus – revolves. And that is “through suffering.” As great as the honour of being brought into the family is, as truly transformative as creation’s new reality is becoming, it cost something to bring it about. And that cost was huge: the suffering, torture, crucifixion and death of Jesus.
His suffering was undeserved. And so are the benefits that accrue to us. We did nothing (because there was nothing we could do) to make it happen. We offered nothing (because there was nothing we could offer) to aid in its accomplishment. It is a gift of grace freely given that we can either accept or reject; that we can either live into or turn away from. And Jesus calls us – and challenges us! – to live into it. To accept his precious gift, to honour it, to remember his sacrifice. To praise and thank him for his sacrifice. And to live a life of prayerful worship and humble sacrifice, doing all we can – as well as what we can’t but God can – to imitate the life he lived in which he showed us how to be true children of God.
Questions to Consider
What do the sufferings of Jesus mean to us? How might they be something to be imitated?
Prayer
Almighty Father, help me to always remember the cost of being in your family and the responsibility that comes with being a child of God. May I not take your sacrifice – or your love – lightly. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 5 – One of Us
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Hebrews 2:14-18
Whatever we face, Jesus has faced too. Whatever tempts us is a temptation that Jesus had to respond to as well. The beauty of the incarnation is that it is the perfect coming together of the human and the divine. In Jesus, both are revealed: the fullness of God and the fullness of humanity. God reaches out to us as himself but also as one of us. However much we might fail to recognise God – because of our sinfulness, our turning away, our desire not to acknowledge him – we can’t fail to recognise the humanity Jesus fully bears. We may have a lot to work out and understand about the Son, but we know he has lived a human life and encountered all the drama, boredom, love, sorrow, loss and joy of what being human entails.
Jesus has stood where we stand; he has tasted the life we live; he has faced the trials, temptations, emotions and experiences we face every day. It is through taking on our humanity that Jesus is able to save us from death. He is the sacrifice – the one and only sacrifice, fully for all time – who is able to enter the holy of holies and whose blood, shed for us, brings redemption and atonement: at-one-ment with God. We are no longer separated from God. And we do not need to be fearful of being separated from him again. Jesus experienced a human life; he now offers us his help and guidance in living our eternal lives for him and his coming kingdom. Death – and the fear of death – has been defeated. We need no longer be afraid.
Questions to Consider
How are we to live in the face of the ultimate defeat of death? Has this become a reality in your life? How? What does such a life look like?
Prayer
Loving God, thank you that I need no longer fear death – that you have defeated the final enemy and we can live without fear. May all I say and do reflect this reality to others so they may come to know it too. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)