The Greatness of Christ

Hebrews 1:1-4

Introduction

Why are you here? Seriously, what are you doing here? More specifically, for those who identify as Christians, why do you bother? Why would you want to be a Christian? Why would you want to follow Christ?

Those might seem like strange questions but they are important. For many people, the answers are not obvious. The fastest growing religious identification in the west right now are the nones. They are not necessarily atheists, but they do not identify with a particular faith group. There may be a God out there, but they are not necessarily prepared to follow Jesus. And really why should they?

For some people, following Jesus is simple as that was what their parents did and their parents did before them. Our family has traditionally been a Christian family. While I appreciate Christian heritages, there should be more to it.

The truth is that there are many other religious teachers out there other than Jesus. And it is not as simple as everything Jesus said was true and everything other teachers said was false. I could share with you a compilation of teachings by other faith teachers and without knowing their source, you would likely agree with most of it. The most obvious example is the golden rule, which in different forms is found in a variety of faith traditions.

So that brings us back to the question: Why follow Jesus? It is a fair question for us to be asking and we would not be the first to ask it. In fact the letter to the Hebrews is a long answer to that question. Some people were beginning to wonder why they should follow Jesus. The author of Hebrews attempts to encourage them in their faith. He does that by beginning with who Jesus is and that is a good place for us to start as well.

God’s Final Word

The author of Hebrews does not argue for the existence of God, he takes it as a given. Not only that, he is working with the assumption, one shared by his audience, that this God speaks. God is a personal God who wants to communicate with his people. That basic idea is very common throughout the ages. There is not much to attract us to an impersonal God who is unaware that we exist. The question is: How does God communicate?

One way is through the Scriptures and here the author means the Old Testament, especially through Moses and the Prophets. God was in relationship with Israel. God corrected them when they went astray, God rescued them when they were in trouble. God gave guidance to them in the way to live. When we think of prophecy, we think of predictions. The most common message from the prophets was to remind the people of what God has said, how they have have fallen from God’s expectations and then challenging them to return to a life of holiness and justice. This was good and this was important but it was not enough.

The author could have then just said “And then God sent Jesus.” That is what God did but that could be interpreted as God sending another prophet or teacher. There are plenty of religions that believe that God sent numerous prophets and then capped things off by sending the ultimate prophet who finally made things clear. That is not what this author is saying at all.

God did not send another prophet, God sent a Son. Look at all that he says about this Son. This Son was the creator of all things. This is what is said in John’s Gospel. The Son didn’t just appear in that manger during the reign of Augustus Caesar. The Son has been around from the very beginning, it is through the Son that all things have come into being and the Son sustains this creation. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.

At this point, there was not a full understanding of the inner workings of the Trinity as developed in later councils. But this passage recognizes that Jesus was not just a human and in fact, Jesus was not just a super-human. 

While eventually the author will do a comparison between Jesus and Moses, here he begins by comparing Jesus to the angels. They did not think of angels and cute little babies with wings. They were seen as incredibly powerful beings that could destroy you with little effort. Not only was Jesus superior to the greatest of the prophets, Jesus was greater than the most powerful of the angels.

The point here is not just that the Son was powerful, the point is that this is the way that God chose to communicate with us. This echos a parable that Jesus taught.

Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.

He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

“But the tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

“What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. Haven’t you read this passage of Scripture:

“‘The stone the builders rejected

    has become the cornerstone; 

the Lord has done this,

    and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” (Mark 12:1-11) 

It was through the death of the Son and heir that the purification of sins spoken of in Hebrews took place. God gave his Son and allowed that Son to die for us.

Responding to the Word

What the author of Hebrews wants for us audience is for that truth to sink in. He wants them to soak in the understanding of how God has spoken to us. It is the same thing that we need to do.

What if? What if everything that is said here is true? What if Jesus is more than just another religious teacher? What if Jesus really is the Son? Not a son of a god, like a demi-god in the Greek myths but the exact imprint of God, radiating fully God’s glory? What if God spoke to us through this Son? Not just through teachings, although they are extremely important. But through his life, death and resurrection. What if all this is true?

We could spend time going through all the religions, comparing each of them. But at its foundation, Christianity is unlike any other religion. A rabbi once told me that he feels much closer to Muslims than to Christians because what we believe about Jesus is so radical. It is radical. That is the point.

Christianity does not ask us to weigh Jesus’ teaching against other religious teachings. Christianity asks us to compare the incarnation with any other kind of divine communication. If we open ourselves to the possibility that this is true, then we are going to have to decide how to respond.

Conclusion

I began by asking why you are here and why you want to follow Jesus. I don’t know your answer but I know my answer. My answer is Jesus. Not just Jesus the teacher, although his teaching shapes me. My answer is Jesus the Son. God sent prophets and teachers. Good things happened but more was needed. God sent his Son. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that all that believe in him may have eternal life. The Son came. The Son that created this amazing world around us also re-created us through what he did in his death and resurrection. That seems like a very compelling reason to believe in Jesus.