HEBREWS 2

TEXT TO REFLECT ON

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. HEBREWS 2:1

REFLECT

Contrary to popular belief, it is incredibly easy to drift away from the truth of the Gospel message. The Gospel is counter-cultural and counter-intuitive. It goes against the principles and values espoused by the world; in fact it sometimes appears to go against what we commonly deem commonsense. This does not mean that the Gospel is foolish. It does mean that the Gospel is foolish in the minds of many. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:18: “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Paul then continues, ““(God says) I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:19-24).

The world in its wisdom and ambition can never recognize the power of the Gospel. To the world, the Cross is weak, ineffective, and foolish. Far from displaying power and dominance which the Jews (the God-people) seek, the Cross displays God’s weakness and impotence. And who among the great thinkers of the world can make any sense of God submitting Himself to the domination of evil men who humiliate and kill Him in the most cruel and demeaning way? God who does not strike back, but who allows His dignity to be mocked is no God at all. He is a wimp. So says commonsense.

We baulk at such a concept of God. We prefer a God who will show Himself as powerful, who will strike our enemies, who will dominate all others who do not agree with us. The writer to the Hebrews argues that we do have such a God. He is no wimp. He is not impotent. In fact, throughout history, He showed Himself through signs and wonders and many miracles. And He brings retribution to the wicked. He is everything that we want God to be. BUT… “we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” (Hebrews 2:9). For a time, God becomes powerless, lower than even His servants the angels. In that period, His glory and honour is not in His great power and might, but in His willingness to taste death for humanity. 

Why would God lower Himself to such an extent? Because Jesus considers Himself our brother, and so He becomes like us is all our weakness. And being like us, He faced our greatest and most feared enemy, death. By dying and then being raised, He showed that we need no longer be slaves to our fear of death. Like Jesus, we too will be raised. But Jesus did not die a painless death. He identified with all who die, especially those who die in the most humiliating and excruciating way.

The all-powerful and almighty God, the one who shakes mountains with His voice, the all-consuming Fire before whom no one who approaches Him can live; this God chose to be weak and vulnerable so He could be like us ignoble humans, and bring us to glory. What a God this is! But how easy it is to forget that this our God loves the world so much that He would be willing to descend to such depths for our sakes. So it is that if we do not constantly pay close attention to this truth, we will so easily drift away from the Gospel.

RELATE

One of the truths of the Gospel that strikes me the most is God’s quest for the least, the lost, and the last. That is at the core of God’s heart. While Jesus was on earth, he did not merely identify with humanity. He sought out the outcasts, the sinners, the ones who expected no mercy from God. There were many in His time who did not qualify for God’s approval – the tax collectors, the sinners, the drunkards and those who frequented bars, the prostitutes, the demon possessed. All the ones who were not respectable. All the ones whom the religious community closed their doors to. And Jesus did not open doors for them. He went to where they were and sought them out.

This is the legacy that Christ leaves to us – a quest for those whom the religious community (including the Church) has shut its doors to. It is so easy to stray from this legacy. It is easy to want to be in a respectable church, to be influential in society. But we need to constantly examine what God did by calling us sinners His brothers and coming to seek us out. And then tasting a cruel death for our sakes. To be reminded that this is God’s heart – to seek out the least of His brethren. And if the doors of the Church are closed to them, then to journey with them where they are.

REST

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face;

And the things on earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His Glory and grace.

Chiu Ming Li