Throughout our Advent journey, we’ve used the prophet Isaiah as our guide. To continue our post-Christmas journey, it helps to consider pre-Christmas stops. Beginning in Isaiah 2, we looked at God’s desire for peace among the nations and how, in God’s future, swords can be turned into ploughshares. Then, we celebrated peace in Isaiah 11 with the wolves and lambs, leopards and goats, and calves and lions all living together in harmony. It’s an amazing picture of what can be.
In Isaiah 35, we found a reminder that we’re not alone. Not only is God with us and inviting us to experience transformation, but we walk along the journey of faith with each other. Then, last Sunday, in Isaiah 7, using King Ahaz, the prophet emphasized the choices we make. We have agency and can seek God’s wisdom to make good choices. Finally, on Christmas Eve, we tried to break away from the familiarity of the story in Luke 2. This allows us to let it speak afresh. All are welcome by God-incarnate.
Today, we continue the journey of faith and address the question of what to do with it. What do we do with God-incarnate’s arrival in the world? Hebrews provides some answers. It’s a complex book that includes guidance about who this God-incarnate really is. It emphasizes Jesus’ role in our faith journey, and chapter 2 stresses his humanity. As we try to live like the grown-up who started life in the manger, we must wrestle with what that means. What does it mean to follow Jesus?
Passages like Hebrews 2 have always been problematic for people in faith communities. Hebrews 2.17 says, Jesus “had to become like [us]in every respect.” Gene Tucker writes, “We know what we are like, and we hesitate to admit [Jesus] into our ranks.”[i] For us to make sense of phrases like the one in Hebrews 2.17 that imply Jesus is like us “in every respect,” we add footnotes, caveats, and appendices. In fact, the writer of Hebrews adds one in 4.15. It says Jesus was tested like we are but remains without sin.
We want to be like him. Yet can we accept it if he’s like us? Joan Osborne asked this question in her 1995 song, “What if God was one of us? Just a slop like one of us? Just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home.” This struggle to make sense of Jesus identifying with us led some early Christ-followers to deny his humanity. They said that he only appeared to be human. This became known as Docetism and was condemned at the First Council of Nicea in 325 CE.
In response to misunderstandings like this, we declare Jesus’ birth, life, and death. Part of the scriptural story, including Advent and Christmas, is that Jesus was human. No one takes this more seriously than the writer of Hebrews. In the abstract and sometime inaccessible language of Hebrews, we see the underlying assumption that Jesus was real. He was born. He lived, breathed, laughed, cried, and did everything else we do. Jesus embraced everything we go through, and his willingness to go through it means that we are not left alone with this experience.[ii]
This is where we get to suffering and how we can follow his example. Because he went through what we go through, his example has meaning. If the Docetists (those who believed that Jesus only appeared real) were right, following his lead wouldn’t mean much.
When I picture following the way of Christ, we begin with loving God and loving others. That’s a bit abstract, and Jesus didn’t stay abstract. In the gospels, he acts. He teaches, heals, feeds people, and is involved in their lives. The example of faith is service. It’s all about serving others. In his book The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen writes about the nature of God as rooted in service. For Nouwen, service comes as part of our shared humanity. He writes about a fundamental woundedness in human nature. This is something we all share. Nouwen said, “The great illusion of leadership is to think that [people] can be led out the desert by someone who has never been there.”[iii]
If you’re feeling like an exile, one of the other members of the church family can help. They’ve been an exile too. If you’re in the wilderness right now, there’s probably someone who’s been there and wants to walk with you out of it. If you’re feeling weak, someone has been weak and can encourage you and help carry your burden. Likewise, Jesus has walked this way too. He’s been there. He struggled. And he knows how we feel. In empathizing with each other, we model Christ.
Our passage refers to suffering. It says, “Salvation is perfected through suffering” (2.10). According to our reading, when bad things happen, we grow. These experiences are the salt and pepper of our lives. Even though many of us have never truly suffered—no waterboarding, physical torment, hunger, or living without a home—we’ve all had hard days. We have all experienced lows.
James refers to the blessings of suffering. “When you face trials of any kind, consider it pure joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance” (1.2-4). Hebrews says it “perfects salvation” and James says it produces endurance. Hard days make us better. We learn through our experiences. Our reading today is about how negative experiences can teach us the most.
When something bad happens, it makes an imprint on our lives. The author Susan Smillie writes about the loss of her older brother in a tragic car accident. It marked her life. She went through great turmoil as she grew older, gradually catching up with and surpassing his age. She wrote about the experience of struggling with the loss in her book The Half Bird. She writes, “We have no idea how much resilience there is inside until we have to draw on it.”[iv]
None of us do. “We have no idea how much resilience [we have] inside [us] until we have to draw on it.” In Hebrews 2, at its core, it’s about seeing Christ and recognizing that he’s been where we are. Once we accept the humanity of Christ, we can better appreciate the example he provided.
How do we follow this example? We go back to the gospels. We return to the overarching story of faith. And we can see the depth of the example Jesus provided. When he fed the 5,000 (Mt 14.13-21), he didn’t ask about people’s politics or whether they signed on for his “kingdom of God” talk. He just fed them. In fact, the only precondition for the feeding of the 5,000 was they were hungry.
Again and again, throughout the gospels, we find Jesus showing us how to live. And since he experienced what we experience, he struggled with the same things we struggle with. We don’t see the full picture. Often, we have a very limited view. We do, however, know that we all share the same flesh and blood, wounds, and pain. Together, we can share our woundedness and grow through the hard times. Our trials produce endurance, and our suffering helps us grow. By carrying the burden together, we can walk together in faith. Amen.
[i] Gene M. Tucker, “Isaiah 1-39,” in New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander Keck (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001), 43.
[ii] Amy Peeler, “Hebrews 2:1–18 : The Humility of the Son,” in Hebrews (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2024), 90.
[iii] Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1994), 72.
[iv] Susan Smillie, The Half Bird (London: Penguin Michael Joseph, 2024), 21.