Sunday, October 07, 2018 - 9 AM

Experience – Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12 Bascomb UMC / October 7, 2018 / 9 AM Focus: The human experience that God willingly assumed for our redemption in Jesus Christ. Function: To invite believers to remember, renew, and keep seeking a fresh experience with Jesus so that we don’t become a jaded church like the one addressed in Hebrews. 5 Purpose Outcomes of the Church: Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Evangelism, Service Hebrews 1:1–4, 2:5–12 Chapter 1 - The Son is God’s ultimate messenger 1 In the past, God spoke through the prophets to our ancestors in many times and many ways. 2 In these final days, though, he spoke to us through a Son. God made his Son the heir of everything and created the world through him. 3 The Son is the light of God’s glory and the imprint of God’s being. He maintains everything with his powerful message. After he carried out the cleansing of people from their sins, he sat down at the right side of the highest majesty. 4 And the Son became so much greater than the other messengers, such as angels, that he received a more important title than theirs (SON). Chapter 2 - Jesus is the enthroned human being 5 God didn’t put the world that is coming (the world we are talking about) under the angels’ control. 6 Instead, someone declared somewhere, What is humanity that you think about them? Or what are the human being that you care about them? 7 For a while you made them lower than angels. You crowned the human beings with glory and honor. 8 You put everything under their control. When he puts everything under their control, he doesn’t leave anything out of control. But right now, we don’t see everything under their control yet. 9 However, we do see the one who was made lower in order than the angels for a little while—it’s Jesus! He’s the one who is now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of his death. He suffered death so that he could taste death for everyone through God’s grace. Qualified to be a high priest 10 It was appropriate for God, for whom and through whom everything exists, to use experiences of suffering to make perfect the pioneer of salvation. This salvation belongs to many sons and daughters whom he’s leading to glory. 11 This is because the one who makes people holy and the people who are being made holy all come from one source. That is why Jesus isn’t ashamed to call them brothers and sisters…. There’s a new sitcom coming to CBS this fall – look………. (video clip: God Friended Me – Trailer) That goes well with the old joke that a poor man tried to join a very rich church and was put off at every turn. When God friended him on Facebook he asked God how to get into that particular church and God said: “It’s impossible, I’ve tried to get into that church for years and even I can’t do it!” A new preacher went to that same church and delivered the same sermon four Sundays in a row. Finally, the worship committee sat him down and requested another sermon. “But you aren’t living out the first sermon, why should I preach a second one?”  This is the context of Hebrews. Most scholars think Hebrews is not a letter at all, but a sermon to a disillusioned church, a tired church under persecution. This text could have been written as early as 60 years after Jesus, when tensions were high between Christians and Jews and between all of Jerusalem and Rome– a look into early church life -into a congregation that needed a booster shot. I’ve told you about the podcast “Make Me Smart” and the last question they ask their guest as they close is: “what did you once believe to be true that you now know is not true?” That question could be asked of the early church. They expected Jesus to return in their lifetime. The single greatest challenge for the NT Church is called “the delay of the Parousia,” a fancy word for the return of Christ. It’s pretty clear the apostle Paul expected Jesus to return in the next few months or within the year at least! The delay was a crisis for the early church when the disciples began to die off and Jesus had not come back. What they once believed was true they now know is not true. Mind blown! In addition, the first generation church struggled with the humanity of Jesus. The disciples understood Jesus as human because they were with him in the flesh. After Jesus ascended into heaven, questions came from the opposite direction. The first heresy floating around the early church like Hebrews said Jesus wasn’t truly human. For two thousand years we have seesawed back and forth. Some communities rejected his deity while many of us struggle to understand his humanity. But note this! Jesus had human emotions: Jesus clearly feels human emotions. John Calvin summed it up, “Christ has put on our feelings along with our flesh.” And Jesus had a human mind. Remember he said this: “But nobody knows when that day or hour will come, not the angels in heaven and not the Son. Only the Father knows” Mark 13:32 (CEB). Can this be? Wasn’t Jesus divine? This seems like trouble, but we accept that, in addition to being fully divine, Jesus is fully human and human minds don’t know everything. Jesus would know all things as God and yet doesn’t know all things as a man. Mind blown! I take comfort in this because mystery is part of faith. God is not a logical human invention. OH, and Jesus had a human will. Jesus said: “I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of the One who sent me” John 6:38 (CEB). We can never forget this prayer: “My Father, if it’s possible, take this cup of suffering away from me. However—not what I want but what you want” Matthew 26:39 (CEB). Jesus is indeed human in every respect — human body, heart, mind, and will — EXCEPT FOR ……..sin. Jesus, God with us, is able to say YES to the Father every time! The divine Son of God would not just take on part of our humanity that first Christmas, but all of it – Jesus was ALL IN — he took true humanity all the way to the cross for us, and now our redeemed humanity has been taken into heaven and we will share in the new creation – a new heaven and a new earth in our new bodies! God took a human body to save our bodies. And he took a human mind to save our minds. Without becoming human in his emotions, he could not have rescued our hearts. And without taking a human will, he could not save our broken and wandering wills. I repeat from a few weeks ago - in the words of ‘ole Gregory: “That which he [Jesus] has not assumed he has not healed.” He became human in full, so that he might save humanity in full. A good lesson for World Communion Sunday. All of humanity is sought out by God and therefore, should be sought after by the Body of Christ, the church. Don’t be a church obsessed by who is going to hell - be a church determined to take everyone into God’s kingdom. Our message is that Jesus is a marvelous Savior for all humanity. Now I like the Common English Bible translation and I’m an advocate of inclusive language; I am careful to include women and men at every opportunity by saying “brothers and sisters,” or “humanity” instead of just “MAN.”. Some of my teacher friends here at Bascomb tease me for being so politically correct. My response to you is, “The general use of “man” can mean “women and men,” and it does much of the time, until it doesn’t.” Francis Willard and several other women were sent by her local Methodist Church to represent them at General Conference, but the gatekeepers would not seat them on the floor of the Conference, nor let them have voice or vote because the Book of Discipline said that only MEN could be seated on the voting floor. “Men” may include men and women as a general term - it does much of the time, well, until it doesn’t. All of that to say this: In many modern translations, the quote here in Hebrews from Psalm 8 is miss-appropriated in its attempt to use inclusive language. The CEB (and other translations) use humanity instead of “MAN” and “they or their” instead of “MANKIND” intending to be inclusive. But Hebrews is a sermon that intends to use Psalm 8 to make the church understand “Jesus” as THE only worthy human – the author of Hebrews did not want you think of ALL humans. The better translation is the New King James: “What is man that You are mindful of him, Or the son of man that You take care of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, And set him over the works of Your hands. You have put all things in subjection under HIS feet” Hebrews 2: 6-8 (NKJV). Jesus is human but also divine. I can’t die on the cross for your sins – only Jesus. You can’t die for my sins – only Jesus. It was an experience only God could endure for us. But the experience of being human was an experience vital to God’s plan of relationship. The phrase “been there, done that” is a cynical remark people say to invalidate your experience. “Oh, I’ve been there, I’ve done that! Your experience is no big deal!” But think about the love it took for God in Christ to say: “I’ve been there, I’ve done that, even to the point of death.” Nothing is a meaningful as a shared experience. If you say “I know what you are going through,” you better have had that experience. I have to be careful not to say that when I don’t have any idea what you are going through. But God says –because of Jesus, “I know what you are going through.” The Good News for today in this sermon called Hebrews is that God does understand us. That Jesus has traveled the arch of salvation from the heavens of creation down to the depths of death and back up (in our new redeemed body) back into heaven to intercede for us. One of our church fathers believed was God going to become human anyway – sin or no sin? “Been there, done that” is vital to God’s relationship experience. So God had an experience of humanity for the sake of all creation. But what about us? Have we had an experience with God? We don’t want to get into the kind of “slump” the church in Hebrews got into, so the author of this sermon invites us to a fresh experience with the only relatable God – Jesus. We have God’s promise: “When you search for me, yes, search for me with all your heart, you will find me.” Jeremiah 29:13 (CEB). Well here he is, the Human One, the Son of God and Son of Man offered to you now in this bread and in this cup. Service of Holy Communion (The elements are distributed AS music plays under) ONE: On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." (the people eat the bread) Because there is one loaf and one body of Christ, we eat in unity with Christians all over the world. When the supper was over, he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." (the people drink the cup) Because there is only one Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world, we drink in unity with Christians all over the world. And so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ's offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith. ALL: Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. (music begins under) ONE: Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on our communion table. May the bread and wine be… in us, the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. Renew our communion with your Church throughout the world and strengthen it in every nation and among every people to witness faithfully in your name. By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory, and we feast at his heavenly banquet. Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy Church, all honor and glory is yours, almighty Father, now and forever. ALL: Amen and Amen