Pastor Tim Patoka What Child Is This? Our Substitute and Sacrifice
1st Sunday after Christmas December 26, 2021
Freed By Our Brother and High Priest Hebrews 2:10-18 1) Our Brother Is Unashamedly Our Substitute 2) Our High Priest Sacrifices Himself to Free Us When you first meet a person, it’s common to ask them, “what do you do?” because their answer often gives you a clue as to who they are. Take me for example. When I tell people that I’m a pastor, it lets them know that I’ve had some specialized schooling and that I have a heart for God’s Word and God’s people. It’s the same with most any answer we could give whether it be a different career, a blue-collar trade, stay-at-home parent, full-time student, entry level job, or the golden years of retirement. The way you answer, “what do you do?” often says something about yourself. As we greet the Christ Child in 2021, we’ve been asking the question “what child is this?” in our Christmas worship series. On Christmas Eve, we learned that Jesus is God’s gift to us as the Savior himself. Yesterday, on Christmas Day, we learned how Jesus is God himself in the flesh. And on this 1 st Sunday after Christmas, we ask Jesus the question when we first meet someone – what do you do? And the way Jesus answers that is as our substitute and sacrifice so that may be our Savior. Our verses this morning from Hebrews chapter 2 present Jesus to us in a very close and personal way as our substitute and sacrifice. As our substitute, Jesus is our brother who is unashamed of his close association with us. As our sacrifice, Jesus is our high priest who intercedes for us to God by sacrificing himself. And by Jesus’ work as our brother/substitute and high priest/sacrifice, we fellow children of God the Father are freed from our sins, the Devil, and fear of death. 1) Our Brother Is Unashamedly Our Substitute It may seem a strange to call Mary’s child our brother given the fact that his birth predates ours by 2,000 years, but that is how Hebrews describes Jesus’ family relation to us. When God became truly human, he became our brother by sharing in our same flesh and blood. As our brother, we jointly call God the Father our own Father who has made us holy in his sight. As Hebrews tells us, it’s “for that reason, [Jesus] is not ashamed to call them brothers.” (Hebrews 2:11 EHV) And
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Pastor Tim Patoka What Child Is This? Our Substitute and Sacrifice
1st Sunday after Christmas December 26, 2021
to assure how unashamed Jesus is to be our brother, he quotes from Psalm 22 and Isaiah chapter 8 to say the same point. It’s by being our brother that Jesus is our substitute. And it’s a good thing he is. Because if Jesus were not our brother, then his perfect life, unjust sufferings, and innocent death would not stand in for us. But because Jesus is unashamedly our brother in all the ways told to us in Hebrews chapter 2, we can confidently say that Jesus is also our substitute so that what’s true for him can be true for his siblings. But here’s the thing, is Jesus truly not at all ashamed to be our brother…to be associated with sinners like us? Think to your family or close friends. Is there anyone you’re ashamed to be associated with? Maybe it’s the person who celebrates Christmas differently than you because of how they view the Christ Child. Or perhaps it’s the person who acts a certain way when they’ve had too much, don’t get their way, or are around a certain someone. The reason why we’re ashamed to be associated with them is because they are an unwanted reflection of ourselves. A reflection that fills us with shame that we try to minimize or end. What does it say about Jesus to be associated with sinners like us…to be called our brother? It would seem to be a mark of shame upon Jesus. Looking just at us who have gathered for worship today, how often do we stain Jesus’ name when our hearts are more excited to celebrate Christmas for the earthly reasons than the heavenly reason in a manger? How badly do we tear Jesus’ reputation down when we are ashamed to be Christians in our daily living? Why, if Jesus was thinking like us, he’d want nothing to do with sinners like us because we will only be a bad reflection of him. Yet Jesus doesn’t try to hide the fact that he is our brother. In fact, he’s not ashamed of it in the slightest! And that’s because his coming down to us to be our brother is not a reflection of himself. It’s a reflection of us, the people he came to save. Though we have nothing to offer, Jesus loves us so much that he came down to you and me to be like you and me. To live like we cannot, to pay what we could not, and to give what we could never have – to be our Substitute with his life, death, and resurrection. It is by his work as our brother/substitute that he helps us. And Jesus is not ashamed of that in the slightest.
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Pastor Tim Patoka What Child Is This? Our Substitute and Sacrifice
1st Sunday after Christmas December 26, 2021
2) Our High Priest Sacrifices Himself to Free Us It’s by looking at Jesus as our high priest/sacrifice that we see how his work as our brother/substitute comes into play. The book of Hebrews calls Jesus our high priest with the implied backdrop of the Old Testament worship life. A high priest’s primary work was to intercede to God for the people of Israel. This was usually done through sacrifices where the high priest would sacrifice something as a substitute for the people of Israel so that they could benefit without paying the price. In the same way, Jesus would act like a high priest to intercede for us to God by sacrificing himself as the perfect substitute. In accord with God’s plan for Jesus to be our substitute and sacrifice through sufferings, we learn how Jesus’ work of sacrificing himself as our high priest frees us. It first frees us from our sins by paying the price that we incurred. The Bible clearly says that the price of sin is death itself, which Jesus paid with his death on the cross. Because Jesus is our substitute, his death counts as our own and therefore pays for our sins. Since our sins have been paid for, we are now free from them and get to bask in the warmth of God’s forgiveness. Jesus’ work as our high priest secondly would “destroy the one who had the power of death (that is, the Devil)” (Hebrews 2:14 EHV) The word “destroy” here is better understood as “to render useless, to nullify.” And the way that Jesus would nullify the Devil was through his own greatest power – death itself. What better way for Jesus to show his power than to render the Devil useless by his own tools? Since Jesus has nullified the Devil, we are free from him and all his threats. Jesus’ work as our high priest lastly frees us from fear of death. A Christian has nothing to fear when it comes to death because we know what will be ours afterwards – life in heaven with our loving Father, our brother Jesus, and every other Christian who has and is yet to come. Though death is the end of our lives on earth, it is the start of our lives in heaven, which will be better by far. However, we can also have doubts about Jesus’ work as our sacrificial high priest. If Jesus has paid for our sins, then why doesn’t God give us a free pass to live however we want? If the Devil has been nullified, then why does he still cause so much havoc and heartache with his temptations and conniving ways? If we have been freed from the fear of death, then why does it still worry us so or drive so much of what we do?
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Pastor Tim Patoka What Child Is This? Our Substitute and Sacrifice
1st Sunday after Christmas December 26, 2021
While our current troubles may have us question Jesus’ work as our high priest, let us never doubt the freedom we now have from him. We are now free from sin. Jesus our brother/substitute has paid our price with his death on the cross. We are holy in God’s sight! Free from sin! But that doesn’t mean we’re free to sin. As children of our heavenly Father and siblings of our crucified brother, let us use our freedom to stay away from sin so that we don’t go against our Father’s will or posthumously contribute to our brother’s sufferings. We are now free from the Devil. Jesus has completely rendered the Devil useless by beating him through his own power of death. As long as we remain with our powerful brother and rely on our heavenly Father for strength, we will remain safe from the Devil when he conspires to take as many down as possible before his time is up. We are now free from fear of death. Those we all expect to feel death’s icy hand one day, we’re not worried or afraid about it. we know what will be ours when death finally comes for us – life in heaven with our heavenly Father, unashamed brother, and every other Christian. While we don’t adopt a foolhardy attitude to life, we rest our hearts in knowing what will be ours when death finally comes all because of Jesus and what he did as our brother/substitute and high priest/sacrifice. Concluding Encouragements When we look at Bethlehem’s manger and ask “what child is this?,” let us answer with something better than the world may say like “the centerpiece of my Nativity set” or “the cute cuddly baby we all go ‘aww’ over.” As Hebrews chapter 2 tells us, Jesus is unashamedly our brother and therefore our substitute. Jesus is our high priest who sacrificed himself to free us from sin, the Devil, and fear of death. And as we look to the Christ Child in Bethlehem’s manger, may we always look to Jesus in this way and rejoice in what is ours because of what he has done for us as our brother/substitute and high priest/sacrifice. Amen.
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