I wonder what struck you about our reading from Hebrews 1:1-6? It’s not a long reading, and as I read this I could imagine God the Father in a rather frustrated state - they his children know him but most are just going along living there lives without a care in the world for God or his word. The Bible tells us that even the priests at the temple were corrupt.
Now most of us have been parents and we are all children of someone, can you feel God’s pain? Now I remember when my daughter was younger in her late teens and yearly twenty’s she would do things that would wind me up I would ask her not to do it and she would say she was sorry, but then do that thing again, and again, until I got really wound up and I started to shout at her, at which point she would cry and tell me she was really, really sorry and I would say but why do you keep on doing it say sorry once and never do it again. It would drive me nuts, but her crying would make me so sad that I had trouble dealing with the emotions. I wanted her to not slam the door, or to close the door or turn of the lights, or to lock the door, or to clear up after herself, just normal stuff, easy to do you would think, I did not enjoy making her cry, it would send me into a tail spin. Whereupon I would get the hump and not talk to anyone. A grumpy Kenny is not good - or so I am told.
But what does the writer of Hebrews say God does? He sends he son to live amongst us, he does not send a ready-made King, he does not get the hump and cut his self-off from his people, but He comes and is born into a poor household, can God relate to us to our lives, why not he lived with us, he eat with us, at its base level Jesus even had to go to the toilet.
The God-man who made the universe walked among men and women, eat food and wine, slept and washed, cried and got angry he showed emotion. Jesus God son is part of our Trinitarian God, Father Son and Holy Spirit. This God Man Jesus not only told us how to live Godly lives He showed us. Not only that, but as John 1 says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
God came to be a man and being God knew who that life would end, that as a man he would feel separated from the rest of the Godhead. But because of His love for us He still came. And through the life of Jesus we can see just what the Father is like, what do we learn from a study of Jesus, that God loves us, that he loves us as we are all different, but all the same, that God is Holy set apart but wanting a relationship with us. And that he cares so much that he has left us a copy of what he is like of who he is in the scriptures, as I mentioned last week the Bible tells us that all scripture is God breathed.
And then what did Jesus the man-God do, he paid the price for our sins, Jesus went to the cross for us, could he have stopped it, yes he is God would he want to stop it no His love for us is so great that He is willing more than willing to do this. Now I think that when Jesus was on the cross it was the human part of Jesus that called out “my God my God why have you forsaken me” The God part of Jesus was on that cross with God, as God the father wrapped his arms around Jesus the son and the Holy Spirit covering both with His presence. I have had this picture a few times lately and have tried to draw it, a two year old could do a better job I am sure. And after Jesus comes as a baby in a manger in Bethlehem, lives as a boy, a teenager, a man and dies that gruesome death, he returns back to heaven to be with the father, to sit next to the Father to be equal with the Father and to be higher than the angels. And wants to spend eternity with us, it is just as well that Gods ways are not our ways.
I wonder why the writer of Hebrews mention that Jesus was higher than the angels, for us hopefully that may be a given, it is obvious. But at the time this letter was written many Jewish believers in Jesus were having difficulty in placing Jesus in the pantheon of leadership, was Jesus a God a little lower than Father God. Was he just the top angel? Some today still have a problem with this - the Jehovah’s Witnesses still believe Jesus was and is now the Archangel Michael. I must be honest and tell you I have no idea where they got that from its not in the Bible as far as my research as gone I cannot fathom it, Archangel Michael is mentioned five times in the Bible but not as being connected in any way with Jesus.
But the writer of Hebrews is quite clear Jesus sits next to God the Father who says: ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father’, and ‘I will be his Father, and he will be my Son’ and ‘Let all God’s angels worship him.’ And so should we, we should worship Jesus Christ, and just so it is clear Christ in New Testament Greek means “the anointed one”. It is a title for the saviour and redeemer who would bring salvation to the Jewish people and mankind. So Jesus name is this Jesus the anointed one, or Jesus the saviour and redeemer.
In this season of Advent this season to focusing on expectation and waiting in anticipation of the Christ’s birth, lets focus on what a loving grace giving God we have, a God who was and is willing to die for you for me, if we truly turn to Him in faith and repent of all our sins. God came down as a baby to be like us - vulnerable. I bet he even got splinters off the wood. God knows what it is like to be human, he not only made us but he was one of us. So in this advent season lets focus on the anticipation of what Jesus and the trinity of God has done for us with these well know verse from the bible: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus said ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’ Jesus also said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
And finally when Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, Jesus said ‘If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
Lets Pray: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thank you that you love us so much that you came as one of us that you were and are willing to personal save us help us to draw closer to you during this Advent season and through the rest of our lives. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.