Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
Hebrews 2:14,15
Back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, televisions were just black and white. Can you imagine that? The only colors available were shares of gray on the screen. And TV screens weren’t flat either. They all had this huge bulge in the back. There was no way to hang them on the wall.
And there was something even more ancient. More difficult to live with. More work than anyone could imagine. There was no such thing as a remote control. To move between the three or four available channels, you had to walk to the TV and physically turn the dial.
That is, unless you were at my house. We had the original, first-generation remote-control channel changer in the world. My parents or brother could command the TV to change channels, and it instantly happened. When they gave the command that was my que to get up and change the channel. Pretty neat stuff.
And like all new advancements in technology, there was a downside. There was a cost to be paid. There were unexpected consequences that no one foresaw. You see, since I always had an assigned seat in the living room where the TV was located, I wore a straight line in our carpet to-and-from my seat and the TV.
During those ancient days of black and white television, Certs mints had a commercial about how it wasn’t like any other mint. It was a candy mint and it was a breath mint. It was two. Two. Two mints in one[1]. A more modern version of this same idea is in the Travis Kelce commercial about how you can get do two things at once[2] when you get your flu and COVID shots together.
We like getting more than one thing at a time. Sometimes it’s called a teaser. Or we use the four letters that we so like to see: BOGO. We buy one and another one’s thrown in for no extra cost.
This same twofer idea is in the head of the writer. They may not have ever heard of BOGO when it came to shopping, but they definitely believed it when it came to our relationship with God.
You see, the truths about Christmas and Easter are all rolled together here. The birth and death of Jesus are so tightly tied together that you can’t talk about one without the other. When the Hebrews read these words, they knew about how these two ideas were all rolled into one.
Shared in their humanity. When Jesus came and entered this world at Christmas, he became a man at a point in time and stayed that way. He didn’t invade a person and then leave. He became a man and is still that way. So, even though he’s in heaven, he hasn’t abandoned his body. He can still see the scars[3]. He still knows our weaknesses[4].
His death. We were so lost and far away from God that he had to do something about it. He had to pay the price for our rebellion and sin by dying for us. In our place. It was only through his death that we’d be able to be reunited with God. For him to put heaven and earth back together again. To restore us to himself. Each other. And to all of creation.
It may sound silly, like something that doesn’t need to be said, but Jesus had to first be born so that he could die. You’ll never get to death unless there’s a birth. There’s no death certificate unless there’s been a birth certificate.
This is one of the great truths that makes Christianity so wildly different than any other faith, religion, philosophy, or lifestyle imaginable. In all the other ways to live and approach God, it’s all up to us. We’ve got to get better and better until God can finally accept us. Whether it’s through good works, reincarnations, or something else we do to earn God’s favor and heaven.
But Christianity rolls everything into one person: Jesus. He’s fully a man just like us and yet he’s fully God at the same time. And it’s God who lives the perfect life. It’s God who pays the price for all our sins. It’s not up to us because God’s already done it all. It’s like the old hymn.
Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow[5].
With God rolling everything together into one person, is it any wonder that we should respond in worship? We don’t have to run all over the place, looking for different people who contributed to our salvation. Jesus alone did it all. It’s time to return to him.
Noodling Questions.
What things do you like to be all rolled into one thing?
Does Jesus’ humanity or his death rock your world more? Explain.
How does Jesus’ humanity impact worship? Describe.
[3] Revelation 5:6
[4] Hebrews 4:14,15
[5] Jesus Paid It All, Elvina M. Hall (1865)
Kommentare