|
To listen click here
To save for later, right click and ‘Save as…’
Hebrews 2:14-18
What is Christmas all
about? We’ll try to think about
that for the next few minutes.
What’s the reason for the season?
As we look at Hebrews 2, we’re going to think about What
Christmas is, What it does, and How it does it.
So as we begin
thinking about What Christmas is, let me ask you a question: What would it be
like for God to really grab hold of you?? How would it be for God
to catch up with you and lay hold of your life? How do you feel about such a prospect?
Do you fear the idea? Do you
dread the notion of God ever catching up with you? Maybe you’re worried about how He will
treat you up close and personal?
Or maybe you thrill to the idea.
Maybe you long for your life to be taken hold of and put
right. Maybe then you’d
break free from the ruts you’ve been stuck in. Maybe then you’d get your life on track.
How do feel about God grabbing hold of you?
Well Christmas means that God has already
gotten His hands on us!
Look at verse 16. I’ll read
what it literally says in the original language.
Verse 16: “Surely it is
not angels that He lays hold of but it is the offspring of
Abraham that He lays hold of.”
The word ‘help’ there in your church Bibles is a really weak way of
translating a very strong word.
This is the word for ‘seize’ or ‘arrest’ or ‘catch’. It’s got the idea of being taken into
custody. Now in verse 18
there’s a word for ‘help’ that’s quite different. There it’s the idea of ‘coming to the
aid of’. In v18 it’s more
like ‘lending a helping hand’. In
verse 16 it’s more like ‘Man-handling’.
Verse 16 is the idea of Jesus Christ taking Abraham’s descendents
into His hands, taking the offspring of Abraham up into His
possession. That’s the kind of
help Jesus offers. He lays hold
of us.
It’s a bit like our cats.
Many is the time when Emma and I decide that the cats really
should go outside. And so I will help
our cats make that transition.
Here’s how I help them. I don't simply provide clear instruction. I don't simply
command or cajole. I don't simply open the way. I don't simply clear the
path and make safe passage. I'm very hands on in the ‘help’ I give. I
seize them. I catch them, I
gather them up in my arms, whether they like it or not. And I walk across the threshold
carrying them under each arm. And
in this way I deliver them into a whole new realm. That’s how I help my cats make the
transition.
It’s the same with Jesus Christ. He looks on a humanity that needs
delivering (we’ll see in a minute what we need delivering from). But Jesus decides rightly that we need
to be transferred from one realm to another. And so He “helps” us make the transition. Now He doesn’t simply provide helpful
instruction about how we make the transition. He doesn’t simply command
or cajole. He doesn’t simply open up the way. He doesn’t simply clear the
path and make safe passage. He is very hands on in the help He gives. He
gathers us up, whether we like it or not and He strides across the
threshold Himself and delivers us into a whole new realm.
That’s what Christmas is.
Christmas is the time Jesus Christ lays hold of His people. Because Christmas is the time when,
according to v14, Christ comes to share in our humanity. Or to put it in the words of v17,
Christmas is the time when Jesus was made like us in every way. Christmas is Christ taking hold of us
in all our humanity.
And it’s a very comprehensive taking hold of. Look at v14, it’s flesh and blood that
Jesus shared in. Flesh that can
be cut, bruised and pierced.
Blood that can be spilt.
It’s very much our flesh and blood that Jesus shares
in. Jesus didn’t come to earth
with indestructible, heavenly, glorified flesh and blood. Jesus’ flesh would be cut, bruised and
pierced. His blood would be
spilt. Look in the manger, this
is our humanity that Jesus takes to Himself. Look at v17 – He’s made like us in
every way. Jesus Christ did not
float 3 inches off the ground. He
did not, as in so much Christian art, shine in ethereal glory or have a
halo. He was wrapped in swaddling
cloths and laid in a manger.
Verse 18 – Jesus suffered and was tempted. Contrary to the Christmas carol – the
little LORD Jesus MUCH crying He made. He got hungry, thirsty, sore, tired. He suffered, was tempted, He bled, He
cried, He died. And you know
nothing could show the full humanity of Jesus better than Christmas. Jesus did not descend from glory as a
full grown heavenly Man but He came as a wriggling, crying, needy,
speechless, baby. Flesh and
blood. Our humanity. Like us in every way. Suffering and tempted. Jesus earthed Himself to man.
And that’s how He laid hold of us.
Do you notice in v16 that those Jesus lays hold of are described
as ‘Abraham’s descendents’? (Now
bear with me on this, I will take 90 seconds of concentration but I think
it’s really worth it.) The phrase
‘Abraham’s descendents’ is used all over the Bible. It’s more usually translated as ‘the
offspring of Abraham.’ And the
origins of that phrase can be traced right back to our first reading from
Genesis 3. There the Offspring of
Eve was promised as One who would be born of a woman to defeat Satan and
save humanity. It was a promise
of the first Christmas – Christ born of a woman – born as the offspring
of a woman – He would come to save humanity.
Well the promise of the Offspring from Genesis 3 was later re-stated
to Abraham. He would father
Offspring. And right there you
can hear a double meaning to the word offspring. Offspring can mean many descendents,
and Offspring can mean One particular descendent. (Stay with me on this, I promise it
will pay off). Abraham fathered many
offspring – He was the father of the Jewish nation – the people of
God. But Abraham also, ultimately,
fathered the one Offspring – Eve’s promised Offspring – Christ. The Offspring of Abraham is a
people and it’s also a Person.
It’s the people of God, and it’s also Christ. And it’s this double meaning that the
Bible often plays around with. In Galatians chapter 3, Paul insists that
Christ is the One Offspring of Abraham.
But just a few verses later he says that all who trust Christ
become the many offspring of Abraham.
So, now, in v16. Christ who
IS the SINGULAR Offspring of Abraham, takes hold of His people who are
the many Offspring of Abraham. At
Christmas Jesus comprehends in Himself His whole people. He singularly IS what His people are en
masse. He sums up the people
of God in His own Person. Jesus
IS the Offspring of Abraham, just like we are the offspring of
Abraham. In a very profound
sense, Christ IS His people.
Jesus is unbelievably closely united to His people. Sometimes the Bible says He’s the
Bridegroom, we’re the bride.
Sometimes it says He’s the Head and we’re the body. Or, stunningly, Jesus says He’s the
Vine, we’re the branches. He
doesn’t say He’s the Root structure and we’re the Branches. He’s the whole vine, and we
take our place within Him as the branches. It’s the same here in v16. He is THE descendent of Abraham, and
even we non-Jewish people, find our place as descendents of Abraham IN
HIM.
Jesus comprehends in Himself the totality of His people. This is a
comprehensive ‘laying hold of’!
He’s made like us in every way and sums us up in His own
Person. That’s what Christmas IS.
What do you see when you look in the manger?
Just a cute baby?
Just a symbol of new life in the darkness?
Just a distant Saviour for a far-away people?
No. Look in the manger and there you see your humanity taken
up by Christ. He has descended to
our predicament and taken it up into Himself. Christ has laid hold of us in the most radical and
thorough-going way. He has commandeered the whole of our life from
the cradle to the grave.
You might wish that Christ had a more ‘hands-off’ approach. You
may want to think of yourself as a free agent who can consider whether or
not to offer Jesus the hand of fellowship. But no. He has
already laid hold of us. We are
already claimed, already grabbed, already Man-handled by Jesus.
Now, whatever you see Christ doing from the manger onwards that’s Him
living your life – and doing it right.
That’s what Christmas is – it’s Christ becoming like us in every way
so that He can do humanity for us.
That’s what Christmas is, Christ laying hold of us. Now let’s more briefly consider what
Christmas does.
What does Christmas do? Well
think about my cats. I take hold
of them to deliver them. To bring
them into a new realm. And Jesus
is the same. He gathers us up in
order to deliver us from one realm and into another. So what is it that Jesus delivers us from.
I think this passage tells us four things Jesus delivers
us from. Without Jesus’
deliverance there is darkness below us, darkness within us, darkness
above us and darkness around us.
First there’s the darkness from below. It’s there in v14.
There we see ‘him who holds the power of death – the devil.’
Genesis 3 introduced us to the devil. There we saw how Adam and Eve trusted his lies
rather than the Word of the LORD.
Humanity prefered to align itself with Satan rather than the
LORD. And so the LORD pronounced
His death-sentence on humanity.
Interestingly in Genesis 3, the LORD pronounces the
death-sentence, but He makes Satan the executioner. I wonder if you noticed: He says to Adam ‘because you’ve
disobeyed: Dust you are and to dust you will return.’ And He says to the devil ‘You will eat
dust all the days of your life.’
Satan is a man eater. The
power of death is given over to Satan.
We all die under the LORD’s holy death sentence. But apart from Christ, we die at the
hands of the devil. He holds the
power of death.
So that’s the darkness from below.
Then there’s the darkness within us. FEAR of death.
Verse 15 says we are slaves to a fear of death. Isaiah 9 puts it memorably: we live in
the land of the shadow of death.
Everything we do is overshadowed by the grave. Now very few of us face that shadow
head on, very few would articulate their fears as a fear of death. But it woudn’t take long to trace them
back to the ultimate source. We
fear loss, we fear the unknown, we fear separation – and without Christ
death is the ultimate loss, the ultimate unknown, the ultimate
separation. It’s the root fear
out of which all other fears grow.
And it’s a slavery. There
is a driven-ness to a life without Christ that ultimately dances to the
tune of this fear. Before Christ
gives us an answer to death, we are captive to this fear. It is a great darkness within us.
That’s the darkness below, the darkness within. Now the darkness
above us. And that’s God’s anger
at us in our sin. Verse 17 says
that the sins of the people required a sacrifice of atonement. This word for atonement means that
God’s anger at sin needed to be turned away from us. His anger was directed towards us in
our sin. And Jesus turns that
anger away from us. This is so
important. Our problem is not
just that we sin. Our problem is
that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are provoked to holy wrath by our
sin. Bad things are an offence to
the Good God, and He is righteously angry at us in our sin.
If our problem was simply that we did bad things then the
solution would be in our grasp – we could just stop doing bad
things. But the real problem is
above us. God’s anger at us in
our sin – that is a problem that’s out of our hands. God’s wrath is the dark cloud above
us.
So without Christ’s deliverance, there’s darkness from below,
from within, from above and then there’s darkness around us. Verse 18: we are assailed daily by
suffering and temptation. And these will hit you from all sides whether
you’re good, bad, naughty or nice, Christian or non-Christian. These are the atmosphere in which we
live. We can surround ourselves
with roast turkey and tinsel and crackers and Christmas TV but we know
that none of these insulate us from the real atmosphere of our lives:
suffering and temptation.
This is our darkness – from below – the devil. From within – fear of death. From above – God’s anger at our
sin. From all around – suffering
and temptation.
It’s a hell of pit we’re in. But
– Christmas. The people walking
in darkness have seen a great light.
On those living in the land of the shadow of death a Light has
dawned… For to us a child is
born, to us a Son is given.
Christmas is the time Jesus comes to lay hold of us in our
darkness. He descends to the
bottom of the pit in order to grab hold of us. He takes up our humanity in Himself in order to deliver us
from this realm.
Hudson
Taylor was a missionary to China, and one man converted through his
ministry was a Chinese confucian scholar. This ex-Confucianist used to tell a story to explain his
conversion which Hudson Taylor often repeated:
A man fell into into a dark and slimy pit. Try as he might, it was impossible to
pull himself out. One day Confusius himself came past the pit and said:
‘Poor man, if only he’d listened to me, he’d never have fallen into the
pit in the first place.’ Some
time later the Buddha came past.
Looking down at the man he said: ‘Poor man. Just come up here and I’ll help
you.’ And he walked on. And then Jesus Christ walked past and
he said, ‘Poor man.’ And He
jumped into the pit and lifted him out.
That’s what Christmas is.
That’s what Christmas does.
But finally, how does Christmas do it.
Well in two ways. The
Christmas child grows up to take on two key roles according to our
passage. He grows up to become a
sacrifice, and He grows up to become a priest.
Let’s look at the sacrifice job.
I hope we are struck by how this passage runs Christmas and Easter
together. Look at v14: “He too
shared in their humanity so that by His death.” Christmas, so that Easter.
It’s very stark. The same
thing happens in v17: Christ is made like His brothers ‘so that He might
make atonement’. Christmas, so
that Easter. The road from
Bethlehem leads to Golgotha. The
descent from the throne to the manger is a descent that would keep Christ
going all the way down to the cross.
As one writer puts it: “The crib and the cross were cut from the
same wood.”
It got me thinking this week about the similarities of Christmas and
Easter:
God in a
manger
Defenceless,
enfleshed
Immanuel
crying
And fighting
for breath
God in a
manger
Wriggling
and raw
Laid out on
the wood
Enthroned on
the straw
God at
Golgotha
Pierced in
His flesh
Immanuel
crying
And fighting
for breath
God at
Golgotha
Forsaken and
lost
Stretched
out on the wood
Enthroned on
the cross
They naturally go together.
Christmas leads to Easter.
Jesus is born to die. And the
picture of His death we get in v17 is the picture of a sacrificial death
set in the Old Testament temple.
In that building there was a Most Holy Place where the LORD dwelt,
there was a Holy Place where priests worked, and outside there was an
altar where sacrifices were made.
The picture of v17 is really of the LORD sending all the
priests and all of the sacrifices out of the temple. And He Himself climbs off His throne
(this is the meaning of Christmas) He climbs down off His throne. He descends down through the Holy
Place and out to the altar. There
He lays down and is slain as a Lamb.
And in His death, the death-sentence for our sin is truly and
finally satisfied. God’s anger at
us in our sin is turned away from us because it has been turned on Christ
and exhausted in Him. Christ has
summed up our rebellion, faced the anger it deserves, paid for it in full
and put it away for good. This
was a work He was born to accomplish.
When you see Him in the manger you see Him en route to the
cross. When you see Him on the
cross, you see the fruit of the manger.
Christ laid hold of us, summed up our predicament, took
responsibility for it on the cross and then rose again. He crossed the
threshold, coming into a new realm beyond the darkness of death, fear,
wrath and suffering. And
remember, He’s done all this, as one of us, as our champion, laying hold
of our humanity, carrying us with Him.
And that’s really the heart of the second job Jesus does. He’s not only our sacrifice, He’s also
our priest.
Again we see this in v17: Jesus was made like us in every way ‘in
order that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest.’ Again we’re thinking in temple
terms.
Every year in Israel there was a special sacrifice of atonement
that happened. It was looking
forward to the work of Christ, the Great High Priest. What would happen is, the sacrifice
would be made outside on the altar.
But then the blood of the sacrifice was brought by the High Priest
through the Holy Place and into the Most Holy Place. On the basis of the blood the High
Priest could enter. And He
entered with the names of the sons of Israel written across his
breast-plate. The High Priest was
literally carrying the people of God on His heart before the LORD.
Now Jesus, because of Christmas morning, is both the sacrifice and
the priest. Jesus made the
sacrifice at the cross, but then He rose again and went into back into
heaven as our High Priest.
Remember He has laid hold of us, He sums us up, He is our
Representative, our Priest. And
there He is even now seated at the right hand of God representing US
before the Father. We are brought before God Most High carried on the
heart of Jesus.
So what do you fear? Do
you fear death? Jesus is already
on the other side of death. Our
Head has passed through into glory – do you think the body will not
follow? Do you fear God’s
anger? Do you feel He may not
have forgiven that sin?
Jesus has summed up the whole of your life, all your
transgressions and sins, and He’s put the whole sorry mess to death. Are you surrounded by temptation and
you don’t think you can resist.
Jesus has laid hold of your life. He has wrenched you from the powers of darkness and
delivered you. Your life is now
hidden with Christ in God. Set
your heart and mind on that truth, not on these temptations. You dance to a very different beat
now. Are you surrounded by
suffering? Jesus, the One on the
throne of the universe knows first hand all these experiences. Pour your heart out to a sympathetic
and merciful High Priest. Face
suffering knowing Your Brother is with you in this and He has triumped
over it.
As you look
into the manger this Christmas, look with irrepressible hope.
There, in the face of Christ, you see not only the Father’s self-giving
love. There also you see yourself. There in the manger is
your humanity laid hold of by Immanuel. There is your life, hidden
with Christ. And His victory is
your victory, His future is your future, His righteousness is your
righteousness, His joy is your joy.
God has gotten hold of you, permanently, irreversibly. Christmas guarantees it.
Back to sermons...
|
