Blog
Blog
Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, October 6, 2024
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
About one year after my dad’s mom (my grandma) died, I got to visit some of my Norwegian relatives with my brother, who has since moved to Norway. I had not been to Norway since I was ten years old, so my memories of these family members were somewhat hazy. When we had lunch with my grandma’s cousin, I was emotionally overwhelmed. She looked so similar to my grandmother, it was almost as if my grandma had come back to life. Not only her appearance, but her mannerisms and gestures and the way that she smiled brought me almost to tears – even though she barely could speak a word of English. Clearly, my grandma and she were related! I have had the blessing of visiting my Norwegian family several times now, and there’s just something so powerful about knowing we are connected, related, to people across time and space. I feel this connection deep in my bones, and even with loved ones like my grandma who have now passed, I treasure these reminders of relatives who have gone before us whose likenesses are reflected in the living.
Do you have any striking family resemblances in your family? Do you, perhaps, have a doppelgänger – someone who looks uncannily like you, even if they may not actually be related to you? As we approach a contentious election season, it’s good to remember as Christians that we are more alike than we are different. Male and female, Genesis tells us, God created us all. Jesus welcomes the children once again today in our gospel and reminds us that we are all, no matter how old we are, God’s children. God is our Father and Creator. Even though we are not blood-related, we are one in the family of Christ despite our many differences.
Our second readings for October and November will be from the book of Hebrews. The main message of the book of Hebrews is that Christ is God’s fulfilled promise of what was foretold in the Old Testament. The author connects Jesus to our past, present, and future. It is a (long!) love letter about all the ways Christ is God’s greatest gift for us. As we begin by looking at the first two chapters today, we hear that Jesus “is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.” Wow! As Christians we know that the Trinity means that God is three persons and yet one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but have you ever thought about Jesus being “the exact imprint of God’s very being?” So when Jesus walked among us, 2000 years ago, people were looking at the imprint, the best resemblance, of God. God creator and sustainer of the entire universe somehow was distilled into the human being of Jesus of Nazareth. When we read about Jesus’ words and actions in the gospels, they are the closest reflection of God’s glory to anything in all the scriptures. When we see Jesus, we see God – it’s even more than just a family resemblance.
But here’s where it gets even better! Hebrews quotes Psalm 8, our Psalm for today, to describe our relationship to God. God chooses to give us Jesus his Son so that we can become his children, Jesus’ siblings. We are a little lower than the angels, and Christ, too, lowered himself through his suffering and death to become one with us. We are crowned with glory and honor alongside Christ, and Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters, Hebrews says. We, like Jesus, are God’s children, which makes us his brothers and sisters. Now, admittedly this is beautiful language, but Hebrews can get pretty theological – so what does this mean in plain English?
Let’s go back to my Norwegian family/Doppelganger example: we resemble Jesus. We are related to God because we are related to Jesus . When people look at us, they see features of Christ. When God looks at us, he sees that we are also his children, related to his only begotten Son. So everything Christ is to us, we reflect back to others – people should be able to see the family resemblance, that we ARE related to Jesus. We were made to reflect God’s glory, just as Christ comes to reflect God’s glory. This is our primary purpose!
While Hebrews and Psalm 8 are pick-me-ups for our self-esteem to think about our close, intimate relationship to Jesus as his brothers and sisters, Jesus tells us some hard words about divorce today in our gospel. We resemble Jesus, but we are not Jesus himself. Sin makes us hard-hearted like the Pharisees. Sin can destroy relationships, sometimes even the best of relationships, between husband and wife, between brothers and sisters, between parents and their children. Sin means that we are unfaithful to God and unfaithful to each other, sometimes, even though we were all created by God to care for God’s creation and be one family in faith. I know many of you here today are personally affected by divorce – I have preached specifically on Jesus’ words on divorce previously, and I’d love to have more of a conversation with you about this particular passage if you have questions, because indeed these are difficult words to hear. But as we engage this gospel passage with the book of Hebrews, let’s recognize that divorce is one of many examples of our broken relationship to one another and to God – we are not equal to God, but a little lower than the angels. In our sinful state, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them?” we might ask of God. Out of our brokenness the question brings us back to Christ – this is why Christ lowered himself, “so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone,” and we might be saved despite ourselves. Christ’s death and resurrection brings us back into the family of God. Even in the gospel with these hard words from Jesus, immediately following, Jesus brings us back to the children. In their hard-hearted brokenness the disciples want to push the children away. They don’t see the family resemblance! They don’t see the children, ironically, as children of God deserving of blessing. But Christ welcomes them as his own with open arms and teaches us to do the same – to humble ourselves to enter the kingdom of God like little children, fully dependent on the sacrificial love and grace of God. Amen.
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