Pastor Bobby Gilles preached from Hebrews 2:10-13. He taught that Jesus is like us, he is for us, and he stands with us. Want to feel this is your bones? Then stand with someone else. Lector: Erin Warmbier
Pastor Bobby Gilles preached from Hebrews 2:10-13. He taught that Jesus is like us, he is for us, and he stands with us. Want to feel this is your bones? Then stand with someone else.
Lector: Erin Warmbier
On some level, I think everyone wants a big brother or sister. Not like the one some of us were growing up, or the one some of us had. The mythical one. The hero.
Not quite a parent – someone who is like us, but bigger, smarter, who looks out for us. Someone who loves us and is for us. And even though you’re just the dorky little brother or sister, you know your flesh-and-blood hero wants you around. But it’s even more than that.
They’re not just hospitable to you. Hospitality says, “I welcome you.” Acquaintances can be hospitable. Churches are often hospitable. I want something deeper than hospitality. Someone who goes beyond saying, “I welcome you.” Someone who says, “I stand with you.” I want solidarity.
I want to know who has my back. Who believes in me? Who would weep with me? Who would fight for me? Who would say, “I’ve been there, and it’s awful, but I’m here, and we’re going to walk through this together?” In short, I want someone who is like me, who is for me, and who stands with me.
Do you want that? Do you ever feel like others won’t stand with you because they don’t think you’re worth it, or there’s too big of a risk you’ll let them down? Maybe because you’ve let people down before?
Do you feel that way about anyone else? Do you refuse to consider what someone could become if they even had one person who believed in them?
In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. – Hebrews 2:10
Consider how this may have sounded to the people who heard the message of Hebrews for the first time. These people had endured suffering in the past, they were being ostracized in their present, and they were facing persecution in the future.
Do you know why early Christians felt shame and contempt? It was customary to worship all the gods, including the hometown gods wherever you lived or traveled. If any bad thing happened in a community, and that community knew of a person or family who hadn’t respected the local gods, then the whole community said, “It’s their fault.”
Imagine if a natural disaster hit New Albany and this whole city pointed at us and said, “It’s their fault.” Is there anything more devastating than feeling exposed and vulnerable, and everywhere you go, you are scorned and shamed?
The preacher of Hebrews gives them hope, and in doing so, gives us hope.
And the preacher shows us by writing something called prosopological exegesis. That’s a $10 term. You’re all about to become scholars. Before we learn what it means let’s practice saying “prosopological exegesis” aloud on three. One, two, three: prosopological exegesis.
Prosopological exegesis occurs when an author takes quotes from an earlier text, like an earlier book of the Bible. The author uses quotes that were ambiguous or applied to an earlier person in the original book and are now being applied to a specific or new person in the new book.
The author of Hebrews takes these Old Testament quotes and says, “That was God the Father talking.” Or “That one might have originally been a king or a prophet, but in its fullness, the quote belongs to God the Son. And this other one was God the Spirit.” Hebrews uses these ancient quotes in a startling new way, putting the persons of the Trinity in conversation.
Back in Hebrews chapter one, the Father spoke to the Son, and we got to overhear it. Today, the Son speaks to the Father while we witness it. In chapters three and four, not only will the Spirit speak, but the Spirit speaks to us.
Why is it helpful that the author of Hebrews gives us these conversations? Madison Pierce is a Hebrews scholar who wrote her dissertation on this, and she says:
“It is, after all, one thing for the author to say, “Jesus is God and Lord,” but it is another entirely for God the Father to say to Jesus, “You are from the beginning, O Lord (1:10), and “Your throne, O God, is forever” (1:8). – Madison Pierce
And by giving these quotes using “speaking verbs,” the author is suggesting that these old words on ancient scrolls are living and active, speaking to us today. So, let’s eavesdrop on God the Son’s words to God the Father and see if it speaks to our need to have someone who is like us, who is for us, who stands with us.
Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. – Hebrews 2:11
Remember Pastor Sam’s sermon last week, where Hebrews interpreted Psalm 8 to say that one human representative would restore us as image-bearers of God, leading us to glory. Talk about a hero.
This is the story of Scripture. Humanity, created to bear God’s image and steward his creation, instead submitted to idols, to Sin, to evil spiritual forces. God entered our story, born of the virgin Mary to the nation chosen to represent God and lead the rest of us home. To do this for us, he had to be made like us and experience this broken world as one of us.
In your lowest, loneliest moments, the one who endured a shameful death on the cross is not ashamed to call you “sister.” “Brother.” He is like you, and he is for you. But it’s even better than that:
He says,
“I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters;
in the assembly I will sing your praises.” – Hebrews 2:12
Not only does Jesus call us siblings, not only is he like us and for us, but he stands with us in the assembly. You may have heard that this text teaches that Jesus is our worship leader, leading us in singing praise to the Father.
But it isn’t that he’s up here on a stage and we’re down there. He is with us. Jesus is spiritually present in our assembly this morning, right next to you. He is singing with gusto, and if you could imagine it, you would sing a little louder and freer, matching your volume to your big brother’s, who is not ashamed if you’re a little off-key.
But there’s more. This quote that Hebrews applies to the Son is from Psalm 22, written 1000 years before the crucifixion of Christ. Psalm 22 begins with something Jesus quoted in the Gospels as he hung on the cross:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Psalm 22:1
In the first twenty-two verses of Psalm 22, the speaker pleads for rescue and cries in agony. Remember Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus beaten and scourged by the Romans, Jesus nailed to the cross as our substitute, our ransom, breaking the powers of the realm of death but doing so at a horrible cost to himself.
Then in the last eight verses of Psalm 22, the psalmist pledges to praise God when God delivers him. That’s what the risen Jesus is doing now in Hebrews, for us to hear because his story says to us, “I’ve been there. I am like you, and I am for you, and I stand with you. I know the pain that this world can bring.”
He understands when you suffer a loss so deeply that you don’t know how you can make it another day. To everyone who’s heard a spouse say, “I’ve met someone else,” or a doctor say, “We did all we could,” Jesus says, “I’m here. You’re going to make it. And you and your big brother here are going to praise the Father together.”
And again,
“I will put my trust in him.” – Hebrews 2:13a
This is a quote from two places. First, from the Greek translation of 2 Samuel 22:3 where the victorious King David says my God; he shall be to me my guard, I will trust in him …
And then Isaiah 8:17, where the troubled prophet trusts God despite a massive military assault from Assyria. Distressed prophet. Victorious king. Jesus knows the depths and heights of life, and he teaches us to trust our Father as he stands with us.
And again he says,
“Here am I, and the children God has given me.” – Hebrews 2:13b
This is from Isaiah 8:18, originally about the prophet’s own children, who were signs of God’s faithfulness. Think of that. Jesus is not only unashamed of you, but he regards you as a sign of the Father’s faithfulness to him.
But wait, the children God has given him? Are we his siblings or his children? A family patriarch in the first century would often appoint his eldest son to care for his minor siblings and their inheritance until they became adults. The father expected his firstborn to cherish and train the others to be like him so the father could be proud of all his kids.
Jesus is like us, he is for us, and he stands with us. Our older brother is beaming as he presents us to the Father. He stands beside us in the assembly, saying, “I’m with them. I did what you asked, and you’re going to be so pleased. I’m bringing them with me to our family feast.”
This all points us back to verse 10: In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God … should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.
So, what do we do with all this?
First, imagine what we’d be like and what we could do together if we embraced our big brother’s solidarity with us. Imagine if we lived as if our brother and hero is like us, he is for us, and he stands with us.
How would it feel to know in the darkest night of your soul that your elder brother has been there, and he will see you through, walking with you every step of the way? How would it feel to know that you have sisters and brothers who are being made like him, whom you could lean on?
Second, imagine if our words and deeds told our neighbors, especially those who suffer, who are marginalized, who are ashamed, that we are like them, we are for them, and we stand with them.
The poet Amanda Gorman says,
Just like a skill or any art,
We cannot possess hope without practicing it.
Amanda Gorman, “Every Day We Are Learning”
Call Us What We Carry
Monday Challenge:
This is my Monday Challenge to you. Think and pray about who needs you to stand with them right now. Who needs you to tell them that you stand with them? You probably know someone, and he could be in this room. She could work at your company. They could be an old friend you forgot, a relative you fell out with, a neighbor raising kids alone.
If you don’t know anyone, look to the voiceless, the poor, the outcasts. That’s what your big brother did. We all bleed the same color so at the end of the day, no matter who it is or what they’ve done, you’re like them. Let them know you’re for them and you stand with them.
What if they let you down? Can you risk that? You have all of God’s riches at Christ’s expense; can you risk being let down? Will your eternal inheritance make up for that?
What if they’re sinners? While we were yet sinners, Christ gave himself for us. You’ll catch a glimpse later when we take communion, which is what this whole worship service is leading toward.
Tonight is Trunk or Treat. Tonight, we show hospitality to our neighbors.
“We cannot possess hope without practicing it.” You want to feel in your bones that Jesus is like you, he is for you, and he stands with you?
Then stand with someone else.
Let’s pray.