What Is Jesus Up To?

 April 23 2023

Hebrews 1-2:4

         This past while it has become quite evident that we have indeed jumped right into spring. I, for one, was not quite prepared to have temperatures in the seventies and with those temperatures, to have all the flowers, with all the accompanying weeds, come popping out all over. The seasons we live in are like that, aren’t they, we know that the season is most certainly going to show up but somehow we are never quite ready for them when they actually get here. This is, I think, how it is for us with this season of the church calendar that we call Easter. You see, most people just think that Easter is just one Sunday and then that holiday is over and on to the next yet the truth is that Easter Sunday is the beginning of what the church calls the season of Easter. This is a season of fifty days, so for this year it begins on the ninth of April and it will end on the twenty-eighth of May. Now, for most people in church when they find out about this season of Easter, they are usually surprised or they probably don’t see what the big deal is about even having such a time set aside to focus on what just happened on Easter. Yet, I do think that there is a real importance to having this time to focus ourselves on the risen Jesus. I find this especially true as we have just come out of the season of Lent where we spent forty days walking with Jesus all the way to Calvary. This was a very intentional time for us to consider why Jesus had to carry the cross and why as his followers we also are called to carry our cross, day by day. So, then we go through Holy Week and experience the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, and we spend time with Jesus at the table of his last supper on Thursday of that week and we watch in horror at his crucifixion on Good Friday. And then, Sunday comes and we hear at last the words,”He is Risen.” On Easter Sunday, we celebrate with great joy all that the resurrection of Jesus means for us. Then, it seems, that we are left wondering, just what comes next? I mean you just cannot worship a Savior who has defeated death on Easter Sunday and then go back to acting as if such a thing never happened. Of course, it figures that there must be more but for most of us, we don’t really know the rest of the story after Jesus was resurrected. Last we saw Jesus he was giving the Great Commission to his disciples, sending them out into all the world. What we don’t really have much of a handle on is just what has happened to Jesus, himself. What exactly is Jesus up to right now, since of course he is very much alive? And just as we spent time with Jesus before his death, in the season of Lent, I wonder if now, in this season of Easter, if we should not also in this special season, again spend time with Jesus, where he is at, spending time listening in on just what it is that Jesus is doing on our behalf as our living Lord and Savior. Fortunately for us, our scriptures have a wonderful book that pulls the curtain back a bit on what is going on in the realm of heaven where Jesus now lives and reigns, and that book is called Hebrews. It has this unusual name because it has traditionally been thought of as being a letter written to a group of Jewish converts, or we might say a group of Hebrews. These formerly Jewish people who had now embraced Jesus as the long awaited Messiah had found themselves wavering in their loyalty to Jesus because of the severe persecution they were under and they were wondering if maybe they would be better off going back to their Jewish faith. So, the writer of this book of Hebrews is writing a letter to convince these formerly Jewish people to remain faithful to Jesus and he does so not by stating how vastly superior Christianity is to Judaism, but rather how superior Jesus, our Messiah, is to everyone and everything else. You see, what the writer of Hebrews understood so well is the strength of our faith is directly impacted by how high and lifted up we understand Jesus now to be. You see, during Lent we focused upon the very real flesh and blood existence of Jesus but as Paul writes in the sixteenth verse of the fifth chapter of second Corinthians, we once regarded Christ according to the flesh but now we regard him like this no longer. Now is when we must consider Christ according to resurrection power and know him as being the one and only one, worthy of our loyalty.

         As the writer of Hebrews begins his letter, he begins by reminding his readers that our God is a God who speaks. All throughout the Old Testament, God spoke through the ones called the prophets, the ones that God promised in the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, that he would raise up to be his mouthpiece to speak to his people. But now, in these last days, God, we are told has spoke to us by his Son. Since we know that what this letter concerns is the faith response of this people to whom this letter is written, then what we can also figure out is why this letter begins with this statement that God has spoken through his Son because it these words that the Son has spoken, these are what all people are to believe are true. So as the writer of Hebrews continues, he is going to make his case as to just why we should listen up and listen in on what this Son has to say to us. The first thing we learn is that this Son has been appointed to inherit everything. In other words, in the end, all that there is is going to be his. Yet, interestingly enough the writer also tells us that this Son was also there in the beginning and it was through this Son, we are told, that all of creation came to be. So, knowing all of this we can understand why we can know this Son as the very radiance of the glory of God. This is the very same thoughts that John had as he wrote his gospel account as found in the first chapter, the fourteenth verse, that “the Word became flesh and he dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father.” Here in the one called Jesus was seen the overwhelming otherness of God, the very majesty of our invisible God on display in human form. The writer of Hebrews goes on to say that this Jesus was the exact imprint of the very nature of God. The word here translated as imprint, is the same word from which we get the word character, so we can say that the very character of God was on display in the life of Jesus. Can you understand the awe that is held within this statement? There can be no one else and no where else we can turn to know the majesty and the essence of who God is than in this one called Jesus. Even the words of the prophets who came before him are held in scrutiny to who Jesus proclaims God to be. Yet if our awe and wonder at who this Jesus, the very Son of God is, the writer of Hebrews goes on to add that he is also the very one who upholds the universe by the word he speaks, the word spoken in power. This Son who has revealed the very glory and nature of God to us is the very one who is intimately working in our world, continuing to bring it into being through his word, a word that we are told is spoken in power. So, think about it, this Son, was there when our world was created, and he will be the one to receive this world as his inheritance at the end of all things, and in between those two points of time, this Son continues to speak words of power which continue to create. It is within this creation then that the Son reveals the glory and majesty of God being the very one who bears the very imprint of the hand of God. Such an overwhelming description of this one we call Jesus begs us to ask, is this the Jesus that we know? Is this the Jesus that we are willing to be loyal to?

         You see, our loyalty to this Jesus is immediately called into question for as the writer of Hebrews tells us, this very same Son of God came and made purification for sins. Now this seems rather abrupt after just hearing such amazing attributes that the Son possesses yet the truth is that it was here, in the purification of our sins, this is where the Son most fully revealed the glory of God, this is where the nature of who God is was most profoundly revealed. There on the mercy seat of the cross, the blood offering of Jesus was poured out for us. What moved him to give his life in this way was the loyal, faithful love of God. This is what compelled the Son to lay down his life in the greatest act of mercy toward us. Here in this most gruesome scene was the glory and nature of God most fully realized. Through the Son’s obedience, those who disobey the word of God can at last join the rest of creation and have lives which are empowered by the spoken word of the Son. This is why Jesus, the very Son of God has now been seated at the right hand of of the Majesty on high, the place of the greatest honor. The writer of Hebrews goes on to tell us that this Jesus, then, has become as much superior to the angels as the name he has received is more excellent than theirs. What he is saying is that the name that we must now call Jesus is the very Son of God, this is the name he must have because he has done what only the Son of God could do, reveal the very glory and nature of God within the very creation that was made through him, the very creation sustained by him. So, this again makes us wonder is this how we know Jesus, as the very Son of God? Do we understand that where Jesus is right now is that he is seated in the place of the highest honor in the universe, in the throne room of God?

         You see, the way that we hear God speak about Jesus is crucial in our understanding of who Jesus is now as the exalted Son of God. When we hear God speak forth from the scriptures, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”, we know that it is Jesus who is this Son, and the “today”, spoke of here, is the day that the Son at last took his seat at God’s right hand, the day when all came under his authority. We also hear God speak forth from his sacred texts, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me as a son”. These are words that speak to us that God speaks about the one we know as Jesus. And yet again the writer of Hebrews continues saying that when God brings his firstborn into the world, he said, “Let all God’s angels worship him.” This idea of a firstborn son speaks loudly about this unique relationship that the Son has with his Father but it also speaks to us about the Son being the one who will bring into his family the faithful brothers and sisters with which he will share his inheritance. Through taking up his seat at the right hand of God, the Son has opened the way for all who accept his gentle authority to receive an inheritance in the age to come.

         You see, Jesus is the Son of God and what he is now doing is establishing his kingdom.This is what the writer of Hebrews is saying in the eighth and ninth verses of this first chapter of Hebrews, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God has anointed you, his Son with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” Here we hear from heaven that God declares that this Jesus is most assuredly the Son, the very one who will sit on the throne above for all eternity, the one who will rule through justice and equity. It is Jesus who loved righteousness and was willing to take upon himself our wickedness so that we might come to love righteousness as he does. The importance of our loving righteousness is underscored in what we discover next about the Son. The writer of Hebrews speaks of the Son’s actions in the end of all things in the tenth through the thirteenth verses, where we read, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the works of your hands; they will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you roll them up, like a garment they will all be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end.” The Son, who is Lord, the one who was there at the beginning, he is the one who laid down the very foundations of our world. And while the earth and the heavens seem as if they might go on forever, the truth we find here is that they will wear out just like an old article of clothing which gets tattered and torn. Yet, we are told, it is the Son, he is the one who remains. The Son will not only remain but he is the one who will take a universe that has become worn out and he will roll up the old heaven and worn out earth, bundling them up like an old coat and he will give them a toss in the trash can. But all is not lost for what must be held on to is that here is a vision of the Son as the judge, the one who will determine the end of all things. Yet, none the less, the Son, remains and as he remains so does our hope that he will create a new heaven and a new earth where justice and righteousness will at last prevail.

         So, in this first chapter of the book of Hebrews, we have been given a breath taking look as to just who the risen Jesus is and where he reigns and rules from, right now. Yes, he walked this earth as the man we know as Jesus but who his true identity was remained hidden until the cross, until that moment when he shone forth with the glory of God, until at last the world could know with utmost certainty the very nature of God, that our God is indeed the God of loyal, faithful love. Now we know, Jesus is the very Son of God and this was verified in his resurrection from the dead. The salvation that he has won for us then is not just about what he has done for us, but further, it is about who Jesus was, and is and always will be, the very Son of God. The work Jesus does cannot be separated from who he is as the Son of God.

         If his actions on the cross and his resurrection were not enough for us to be convinced of the true nature of Jesus, that he is, in fact, the very Son of God then we are called by the writer of Hebrews to hear what God has spoken of his Son throughout the scriptures. Again and again, God has spoken about his Son, the one who would come to rule, and reign and be our judge at the last. Yet, when God spoke of his Son as being his firstborn, the hope found there is that the Son is the one who will make it possible for others just as ourselves to share in his inheritance.

         You see, the whole point of reminding us of the high and exalted position of Jesus, the very Son of God is so that we might in the proper awe and reverence listen and obey what he has spoken to us. If Jesus is indeed the one who was there when creation was spoken into being and he is the one who will be there in the end receiving all as an inheritance; if he indeed is the one who bears the radiance of the glory of God and is the very imprint of the nature of God; if he is the very purification for our sins and now he is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high; if all of this is who Jesus really is, don’t you think that we should stop everything and heed what he has to say? This is exactly what the writer of Hebrews is stating when he writes, “Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift from it.” You see, when Jesus is resurrected from the dead and he is exalted to the throne room of heaven the danger is that we may forget of his glory, and his power and his majesty since he is now removed from us. The writer of Hebrews knows that we are prone to drift, to slowly move away, to lapse in our faith and trust of this great salvation that Jesus has given to us. This salvation is the gospel message that Jesus spoke to us, the message that was accompanied by signs and wonders, the very witness of God himself to the truth spoken by Jesus. Yet what must not be forgotten in this great salvation that was revealed to us by Jesus is not just how we might be saved but also just who it is who has saved us. We cannot separate the message from the messenger, the word from the one who spoke it. The gospel message is at its core the Son of God. If we begin with our worship of the Son of God then it follows that we will receive his words with awe and reverence. Our faith only falters when we fail to look up to see the Son upon the throne, the Son who reigns because he has purified us from sin, because he is the very radiance of the glory of God and the very one who bears the very nature of God. When this is who we see, then our response to his word must always be, “He is worthy! I will obey! Amen!