20th Sunday after Pentecost - Sermon and Video
2024 Pentecost 20 – Genesis 2:18-25 Hebrews 2:1-18 Mark 10:2-16
The Letter to the Hebrews is addressed to Christians who are being persecuted or under the threat of persecution. When you read through Hebrews, you realize that this is hardly an epistle at all. Rather it is a sermon encouraging the baptized to remain faithful to their confession despite the real distress they feel and the real danger that their faith exposes them to. An actual recognizable letter is not found until the final words in chapter 13.
We know that Hebrews is written and preached and disseminated to the wider church sometime before AD 70. The author of Hebrews speaks of the old covenant and the necessary animal sacrifices as if they are still happening in the Temple in Jerusalem. That came to a grinding halt when the Roman Army destroyed the Temple in reaction to yet another Jewish revolt in AD 70.
We do not know what persecution the author is specifically addressing, but Emperor Nero did violently persecute Christians after the Great Fire in Rome in 64 until his death in 68. His focus was on Christians in and immediately surrounding Rome. He blamed them for starting the fire that ravaged Rome.
Since that time Christians were regularly persecuted within the Roman Empire. This sermon served as a much need word of encouragement, an exhortation to remain faithful, despite the earthly threats or outcome. And, quite frankly, it is a sermon that we continue to need to hear. For the insights that are offered about the old and new covenants, ministering angels, suffering, and Jesus as our sympathetic high priest, are words and images that reinforce our faith and ongoing spiritual formation. We too, in the land of the free, as people of faith, are from time to time met with ridicule or dismissed on account of our faith. We need what Hebrews offers as much as those in the first century.
The reading for today begins with the word “therefore,” which means that the words that came before it are of consequence and ought to be heeded. We are warned, “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.”
What chapter 2 is referring to are the very first words of the sermon. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”
We hear, we mark, we inwardly digest those words. First, God has always reached out to his people and spoken to them. Now, we have the Son, Jesus, born of Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit, and he speaks to us through his words, actions, and his death on the cross and the resurrection. Second, we are reminded in no uncertain terms that Jesus is the eternal Son, who is the Word that made the world and holds it all together even now. Third, Jesus is the Son who sits on the right hand of the Father. He may not be confused with an angel or any other created entity. No one sits at the right hand of the Father except the Son.
Our faith is directed by and toward the Son. On account of Him, we have an inheritance that is eternal. On account of Him, we receive his gifts of forgiveness and peace. Jesus has saved us. He saved us from our sins. He saved us from fear of death. He saved us from the lies of the devil.
We do well to listen to the preacher. We do not dare drift away. We do not dare neglect God’s salvation. What does God’s presence and forgiveness now and everlasting paradise in the age to come, compare to mere threats and earthly suffering? It does not compare. We put our trust in Jesus, the founder and giver of His salvation. We do not put our trust in earthly powers. For they are fleeting. We put our trust in Jesus, who entered our flesh and became our brother, so that he could defeat the enemies of faith and break the bonds of spiritual tyranny.
We are warned not to drift from the Good News of Jesus or to neglect the salvation of Christ because that is easy for sinners to do. The temptation is always close at hand to let the anxiety and fear we naturally experience, to rule our hearts and minds, and thus turn away from God’s gifts. Hebrews reminds us that Jesus entered into the fullness of our humanity. He knows what it means to be tempted. He knows what it means to be anxious. He knows fear. Three times Satan boldly and baldly offered Jesus an easy way out of his suffering and death. When that did not work, he used the taunts and the questions and the rumors of the Pharisees and Saducees and others to cast doubt upon him. If he can’t turn Jesus, surely he can turn the crowd, so they won’t hear or see or believe. Was Jesus ever tempted to despair? To give up? We know he did not want to go through with the cross. Yet, Jesus did not drift away, he did not neglect his promise of obedience to the Father, and he did not turn away from offering true, eternal salvation and hope to the world. He resisted temptation.
Jesus knows our every temptation. He died for those temptations. He died for those fears and anxieties. He died to give us peace and forgiveness. And, he continues to pray for us. For he is not only our Savior, he is also our merciful and faithful high priest. Despite knowing us so very well, he loves us anyway. Let us not neglect this gift of salvation and drift away. Let us turn to Him for help. Let us confess him as Lord and God. Through faith we receive Jesus and the gifts of forgiveness and peace that he won for us on the cross. He is our only true hope.
In chapter 13, the sermon is concluded with these words:
20 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen
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