some thoughts on hebrews chapter 2

Looking at Hebrews 2, and some thoughts that come out of it.

I see the church as larger than one group and their wishes. I see it as the body of Christ universal which transcends any one building or group or even theological philosophy. I have always been blessed ( or cursed, depending on how you look at it), with a larger view of the church than those around me.

It has made it hard on my ministry, but I will not trade it for a housekeeping mentality.

5 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking.
6 But there is a place where someone has testified: "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
7 You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor
8 and put everything under his feet."(Psalm 8:4-6) In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. 

That is part of what the writer says here in Hebrews: we are greater than our surroundings and have the world subjected to us. We stand in the presence and bloodline of Jesus Christ, the Holy Son of God, and as such we need to remember that.

We cannot let the petty things of this world weigh us down until we can no longer move.

We are not dependent on lawyers or judges to set us free. We are free by the precious blood of the Lamb. We have something the angels will never know: the saving grace of Jesus Christ and his love for us in spite of our own unworthiness.

They don’t know that and cannot know that because they have always stood in the presence of God and have always participated in his glory. For them to understand that would be like a eunuch from birth trying to understand what it would be like to go to bed with a woman; for a blind man from birth trying to understand what it would be like to paint a beautiful picture; for a man deaf from birth to try to understand what it would be like to listen to a really good jazz group.

The eunuch could read about it, the blind man could feel the textures of the painting, the deaf man could feel the vibrations of the instruments and beat and as such have at least a small participation in the event. But they could never understand the basic point of sex or color or harmony.

The angels can watch and listen and see, but cannot feel the joy in forgiveness, or the pleasure in the acceptance of God. They have always had it and cannot understand what it would be like to be without it.

The men you come in contact with are like that in some ways. They, on the other hand, have felt nothing more than the sorrow of blame, the guilt of shame, the knowledge of the lack of God.

You can bring that knowledge to them when they see you being loving anyway, being cheerful anyway, allowing the love of God to flow anyway.

Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him.

Of course, not even death is subject to Jesus yet. I Corinthians 15 says that the last enemy to be subjugated will be death, and that will only come when Jesus is finally glorified and is set up as King in his Kingdom.

That is why men can fly planes into buildings and kill thousands of innocent people, why wars go on, why there is sickness and pain and suffering.

As long as people have choices, there are also the consequences of those choices. At the end, when all is subjected to Jesus and he will be “all in all”, back to as he was in the beginning, then there will be no more pain nor sorrow not suffering, and as Revelation says, he shall wipe every tear from our eyes.

That, of course, is why some people are free physically and some are not. Sin has consequences and not always on the ones who sin. However, the child of God knows something that others may never know: the love and forgiveness of God. In that way, that child of God is more free than the others can ever imagine being.

9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
10 In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.
11 Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.

But here comes Jesus, come to show us how to overcome and to give us help in overcoming. Made like us and living like us. Philippians 2 says he was made in the form of a servant, and became obedient even to death on the cross.

He came to show us that God loved us. He also came to show us that those who died for him, whether literally physically or in giving up those things that kept them from him, would also be crowned with glory. Paul calls it the “crown of righteousness” which he says he will give anyone who waits for him (2 Timothy 4:6).

And the Hebrew writer says that we are both of the same family: the one who gives the holiness and the one who gets it. When we become a Christian, the blood of Jesus flows in our veins and we become God’s children as surely as Jesus himself is. And Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers.