Tagged: immanent

Hebrews 2:10-18

This text is used for the Lectionary Year A on January 1st, 2017.

The youth of jesusChrist is both transcendent and immanent, perfectly divine and completely human.  Jesus was not a demi-god who was part human and part God.  In the first chapter, the writer of Hebrews showed us the exalted Savior who created the world and then saved it demonstrating that Jesus Christ is greater than everything and everyone.  Most Christians these days seem to intuitively understand the divinity of Christ.  We stand ready to defend Christ’s divinity.  This is the way it should be.  But have we any hope at all in his humanity?  We do.

We might focus a sermon on the necessity of Christ’s humanity.  Why did Jesus have to be completely human?  Only as a human could Jesus suffer and become our perfect Pioneer.  So the necessity of Jesus’ humanity rests upon Jesus’ total identity with humanity.  God is not out to make his family into one big happy family, but instead to make us one big holy family.  Jesus could not make us holy without entering fully into our humanity.  Thus, he did not merely pretend to be fully human.  No.  He actually became our elder brother and unashamedly called his followers brothers and sisters.

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