Recognize the Babe of Bethlehem!

1st Sunday after Christmas, 12/27/09
Hebrews 2:10-18


Recognize the Babe of Bethlehem!
I. As your suffering brother
II. As your victorious brother


Imagine that a friend of your family has just had a new addition to their family. You have the name of the hospital, so you make the trip to see the new mother and her new baby. As you make your way to her room, you stop at the nursery. It’s filled with pink babies in clear plastic bassinets. You can’t read the names from where you stand so you look from one to the other trying to see which one looks like the baby of your friend. But, since you have no idea what the child looks like, you can’t tell one newborn from another. In fact, for all you know, the baby you’re looking for may be in the room with its mother.

Isn’t that the way it is with newborns? Unless they have some distinctive hair or facial feature, they look a lot alike to those of us who aren’t their parents.

If Jesus had been born at Miami Valley Hospital instead of the local stable in Bethlehem, you would have had the same problem picking him out from all the other babies. In fact, if you were to compare him as a newborn with how you looked as a newborn, you would notice very few differences. He could have passed for your brother.

That’s exactly the point that the writer to the Hebrews makes. Jesus came to this earth as our brother. He looked just like any other newborn. He could have been your blood-brother. But because of the similarities, don’t fail to recognize him as your Savior.

Newborns don’t stay that way for long. While we still have the chance, spiritually speaking, let’s take one more look at the Babe of Bethlehem this morning. As we do so, be sure to recognize him. Recognize the Babe of Bethlehem. Recognize him as your suffering brother and as your victorious brother.

Part I.

Our text opens with the announcement of God’s grand plan of salvation. We read, “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.” God’s grand plan is to bring people to glory. That means his plan is to save people from their sins so that they could enjoy life with him in glory forever. What a loving, awesome God we have! You see, God is not some systems controller that keeps pushing buttons so that things happen. Nor is he some spectator that enjoys sitting in some heavenly sky box and laughing or crying as the human race makes its way through life. God’s main plan is to bring sinful people to himself in glory. He loves people so much that he wants to spend eternity with them.

But, as he states in our text, that plan involves the suffering of his Son. But it’s impossible for God to suffer. He doesn’t have a body. In fact, he’s unable to experience the effects of suffering. He lives in eternal bliss and glory, not pain and suffering.

Therefore Jesus came to this earth as your brother and the writer to the Hebrews quotes the words of Jesus to prove that point. First, he quotes Jesus as saying, “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.” Jesus spent his days on earth declaring God’s name. To declare God’s name means to preach his word. That’s the work we saw Jesus doing in the temple already as a boy. He sat with human beings, learned with them, talked with them, preached to them, and sang God’s praises with them. And, as he states, he considered these human beings to be his brothers.

The writer quotes him a second time, “I will put my trust in him.” There are many times in the life of Jesus that he had to trust in his heavenly Father for help. We see him in great agony on the night before his death praying to his Father for that very thing. And yet he trusted that whatever his Father wanted, that was the best for him and for the human race. Such a trust is such a human thing! That’s what makes him our brother.

And, thirdly, he states, “Here I am, and the children God has given me.” As the Son of God, Jesus was active in creation. He was responsible for the creation of all things including the human race. And yet, here we have him placing himself into the same basket with all human beings. That’s because he is one. He’s our brother.

And that’s the way it had to be if Jesus wanted to be our Savior. You see, God didn’t send his Son to this earth in human flesh and blood just to see if he could do such a great thing. The Son of God in human flesh and blood wasn’t some divine experiment. Nor was Jesus a test model for an idea God had for a new breed of creatures. Jesus was the eternal Son of God. And yet, as only God, he couldn’t suffer. We needed the Son of God to suffer for us. By becoming our brother Jesus could do just that. Recognize that! Recognize the Babe of Bethlehem as your suffering brother.

If you came to hear something new from me this morning, I’m sorry to disappoint you. You know and believe that Jesus is true God and true man. You know and believe that Jesus came to suffer for your sins. You’ve heard me refer to him previously as our brother. So why should I encourage you to recognize the Babe of Bethlehem? Because it goes against our human nature to see him as our suffering brother. It’s been that way ever since he was born. The Jews couldn’t stand the thought of a humble Savior, let alone a suffering Savior. A Savior who allowed himself to be spit on, beaten and crucified was absolutely foreign to them.

Believe it or not, it’s still foreign to people today. Even many people who call themselves Christian pooh-pooh the suffering and death of Jesus. They only focus on his loving words and life in an effort to live like him and thereby earn their own way to heaven. They don’t like to think about the fact that their sins caused such suffering and such a horrible death.

And we don’t either. Every time we deny that our sins are so great, we deny that the death of Jesus was so terrible or so necessary. Every time we think that other people may need forgiveness but we don’t, we deny that Jesus had to come as our brother to suffer for us. That’s nothing more than looking at the Babe of Bethlehem as if he were any other baby. Recognize him! Recognize the Babe of Bethlehem as your suffering brother! It’s in that truth that you find real Christmas comfort, true Christmas peace, and lasting Christmas joy.

Part II.

For as long as I can remember, only the loser suffers. In every game I’ve played, only the winner walks home with the trophy. But not in the battle for your eternal soul. Your brother Jesus suffered, but he also won.

Recognize the Babe of Bethlehem as your victorious brother. The writer to the Hebrews portrays Jesus as human and yet also as a divine conqueror. “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Jesus came as our brother to destroy death. Well, it looks like he lost that fight. Unless the Last Day occurs first, we’re still going to die. In fact, we’re trying to prepare ourselves for it.

But the writer here says that Jesus destroyed death and the devil. How so? We’re still going to die, but not as the beginning of our punishment for sin. That’s what we’d face if it hadn’t been for our victorious brother. We’d be facing death forever in hell. But Jesus destroyed death by winning forgiveness for us. Therefore, when we die, we’re facing life with God in heaven. Our brother really did win!

He also won access to God for us. The writer says, “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.” In the Old Testament, the people could only approach God through the high priest. That was due to their sinfulness. Now we have forgiveness for our sins through our eternal High Priest and therefore we have unlimited and eternal access to God. Our brother won that for us!

And he even won us help in the really sticky situations of life. “Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” Do you have trouble saying “No” to sin? We all do and we’d be helpless before Satan’s temptations if it weren’t for the fact that our brother, Jesus, defeated Satan for us. Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, yet he resisted. He didn’t give in. He won. And by faith in him and through the power that he gives us through his Holy Spirit living in us we can enjoy the same results. We, too, can battle temptation and just say “No.” We can do that when we recognize the Babe of Bethlehem as our victorious brother.

Oh, how often we feel like losers in life! We’re forced to deal with the loss of life, health, wealth, happiness, security, comfort, love, peace, satisfaction, accomplishment. And if we’re not dealing with it ourselves, then we’re helping someone else deal with it. At times it almost seems as if life is one big loss and then we die. But not when you recognize the Babe of Bethlehem. That’s why he had to come to this earth—because our lives were losing propositions. We were going down in defeat to Satan. We were headed for eternal death in the cellar of hell. But at Christmas God sent his Son to change all that. He sent him as our victorious brother so that we could be God’s children forever, so that we could enjoy heaven forever, so that we could experience the results of God’s great plan to live with him in glory. Because we know and believe that, we also have the power to deal with the losses of life and the temptations of life and win. That’s what happens when you recognize the Babe of Bethlehem. This life ends in victory. So recognize him! Recognize the Babe of Bethlehem as your suffering but victorious brother. Amen.