His Communion Gives Us Life :: Hebrews 2:14-18

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Since, therefore, the children [have a communion] of blood and flesh, He also [as a neighbor coming alongside] shared the same [blood and flesh] so that through death he would make ineffective the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and set free as many of those who, in fear of death, were liable to lifelong slavery. For surely, it is not the angels he takes hold of, but the offspring of Abraham he takes hold of. That’s why he was obligated to be like all of the brothers, so that he might become merciful and a faithful high priest before God for the purpose of making atonement for the sins of the people, for in him who suffered, having been tempted, he is able to help those being tempted.

[Introduction]

When we list the qualities of God, we normally speak of Him in BIG terms. We speak of God as being The All-Powerful One (Omnipotent) ... The All-Knowing One (Omniscient) ... The Always-Present One (Omnipresent). We speak of him as being Eternal, and Self-Existing, and Immutable, which is, unchanging. We describe Him as being able to do immeasurably more than we could ever dream ... The Sovereign Creator. He spoke, and the Heavens and the Earth came to be. He spoke and you and I came to be. Through Him all things have happened; without Him, not one thing happened that has happened, Saint John teaches us (Jn 1:3). 

The world, on the other hand, thinks of God as being far, far away ... hands-off ... aloof in the heavens, wherever they say the heavens may be. They say God doesn’t have any interaction with us. They call him a Higher Power. While most people who say they believe in God acknowledge Him as a Spirit, they describe Him only in similar impersonal and incomprehensible terms ... mythical and mystical ... something that transcends imagination. Still others will argue that God is the universe itself, nature itself, reality itself.

Yet ... at 3 pm one Friday afternoon some two millennia ago ... God died.

You heard that right ... God died! 

The immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes ... DIED ... on a cross! ... The Most Blessed, Most Glorious, the Ancient of Days ... “breathed his last,” Luke tells us (Lk 23:46). And was buried.

How can this be? The idea that God died? Our epistle from Hebrews gives us the answer. 

THROUGH THE PRESENTATION OF OUR LORD ON A CROSS AND IN THE RESURRECTION, GOD BRINGS US  INTO TRUE COMMUNION

I. It wasn’t just part of God that died so long ago. 

When the Only Begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, died on a cross, he wasn’t merely “A” son of God ... with the emphasis on the article “A” ... as if being “A son of God” somehow makes Jesus less than God. Instead, using the language of the sermon we call the book of Hebrews ... let’s be clear and concise ... Jesus is God. Jesus died. Therefore, God died. He who is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature and [who] upholds the universe by the word of his power ... bore the sins of many (1:3, 9:28). He made ineffective (or nullified) the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil (2:14b). 

To be clear, God the Father did NOT die. Nor did God the Holy Spirit. It was Jesus who died. This is what we all confess in the Nicene, the Apostles’ and Athanasian Creeds. As Luther summarized so well in the Small Catechism ... (you can read it on Page 322 in your [Lutheran] Service Book) ...  Jesus Christ [is] True God, begotten of the Father from Eternity, and True Man, born of the Virgin Mary ... [He] is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with silver or gold, but with his holy precious blood, and his innocent suffering and death.

Jesus is God with blood that was, and is, shed for you. Jesus is God in the flesh that was, and is, given for you. When Abraham acknowledged on the mountain that the Lord would provide (Gen 22:14) ... he was talking about the mountain we call Calvary, and he was talking about Jesus. He was talking about The God who is merciful and gracious ... steadfast in his promises ... faithful ... covenantal. Abraham had The Faith that apprehends the fact that God would sacrifice his only begotten Son ... our Lord Jesus ... to provide the only atoning sacrifice for all your sins ... and then raise him from the dead (Gen 22:5). 

II. Only True God and True Man could do this for you by first presenting himself in the temple and then by going to the cross. 

This is our Epiphany today. This is what the evangelist to the Hebrews is getting at in our reading today. He writes: Since, therefore, the children ... that would be you ... have a communion of blood and flesh, He also [as a neighbor coming alongside] shared the same [blood and flesh] (v 14a). 

For clarity sake, you need to know that I almost never use the word communion in a sermon. When I do use it, I almost ALWAYS use it exclusively in its primary meaning: Communion is a word that means “with unity.” In Scripture, communion is the equivalent of fellowship or participation ... with unity. You have a fellowship ... a communion of blood and flesh ... unity with each other. He has a communion with you ... unity ... because he is the neighbor who has come alongside you. The Immortal, Invisible God-only wise shares that with you. Jesus didn’t do this just to identify himself with you and your suffering ... to be like you. He did this to take your place, coming alongside you. He was not only sympathetic that you were dying in your sin, he was empathic ... experiencing what you experience ... and compassionate ... actually doing something about it. You and I are not able to atone for our sins. But God can and did. 

Apart from God, we are helpless ... hopeless ... blind and deaf and dead. We wallow in hate, distrust, and fear. We have the venom of vipers under our lips ... our mouths full of curses and bitterness ... our feet swift to shed blood (Rm 3:13b-15a). 

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested (Rm 3:21). In an epiphany of extraordinary proportions, God Incarnate has appeared in the temple ... first as a 40-day-old boy ... now for the Lord’s Supper. God in the Flesh has been touched and seen by Simeon ... and can be touched and seen by you. The Mother of God was purified so that she could give birth to our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to share and continue to share himself with us in a communion of blood and flesh. 

As the evangelist proclaims so well ... Jesus was obligated to do this so that he would be like all of his brothers ... a neighbor walking alongside you ... so that he might become merciful and a faithful high priest before God for the purpose of making atonement ... providing the atoning sacrifice ... for the sins of the people (v 17) ... for you.

If you don’t know what those sins are, I implore you to look into the perfect mirror of the Law, and learn to recognize them ... to confess them, knowing that God who is faithful and just will forgive you ... not because you confessed them ... but precisely because Jesus made atonement for them ... the sins of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but is one who in every respect was tempted as we are, apart from sin (Heb 4:15).

III. Jesus did this bring us into communion. 

In his divinity, he stayed faithful to the will of God, breaking and hindering every evil purpose and plan of the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh and thereby crushing the serpent’s head, as promised in the Garden (Gen 3:15) ... and then descending into hell to proclaim victory to those who deny him as the Sovereign Lord of All. 

In his humanity, Jesus died for you. But because God is just, he rose from the dead ... to give you the hope of everlasting life. And now you can live.

It is not the angels that he takes hold of, but the offspring of Abraham (v 16) ... you. You who are baptized have been given faith ... a faith that saves ... through a baptism that now saves you (1 Pt 3:21). God has given you a communion in baptism ... communion with himself. He has united himself with you in the blood and flesh of Jesus ... a communion with the same blood and flesh that Jesus is still giving for the life of the world. 

Amen, Amen, Jesus says in John 6[:53], I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 

[Conclusion]

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is why we have communion every Lord’s Day and on all the other Festivals and Feasts like today’s observance of the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of our Lord. God’s promise to make you holy just as he is holy is coming to light through Christ who washes you and feeds you tangible means to impart his grace to you. 

We can [now] come before the throne of grace, with confidence, in order to receive mercy and find grace (Hb 4:16) ... in Jesus’ name. Amen. 

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