He Gets Us

Hebrews 2:14-18

What are you most afraid of? The phrase “Be afraid, be very afraid” was a tagline from the 1986 horror flick The Fly. Google the phrase and you’ll get about 183 million results. But the trick is to be appropriately afraid of the right thing. What people commonly fear is not always what should be causing that spike of adrenaline. Here are some examples:

Are you afraid to fly? You have a 0.00001 percent chance of dying in an airplane crash. On the other hand, the car insurance industry estimates that the average driver will be involved in three or four car crashes in their lifetime and the odds of dying in a car crash are one to two percent.

Are you afraid of heights? It’s the second most reported fear. Your chance of being injured by falling, jumping, or being pushed from a high place is 1 in 65,092. The chance of having your identity stolen is 1 in 200.

Are you afraid of lightning? The odds of being struck by lightning are 1 in 2.3 million. You’re much more likely to be struck by a meteorite – those lifetime odds are about 1 in 700,000.

How about dogs? Their bark really is worse than their bite: Your chance of suffering a dog bite is 1 in 137,694. On the other hand, your chance of being injured while mowing the lawn is 1 in 3,623.

How about sharks? Did you know  that you’re much more likely to be killed by your spouse (1 in 135,000) than a shark (1 in 300 million).

Won’t ride a roller coaster? If you have the patience to stand in the line, the chance of a roller coaster injury is 1 in 300 million. But if you play with fireworks on the Fourth of July, you’re really playing with fire: the chance of injury is 1 in 20,000.[i]

We could easily add to this list. In addition to heights and flying and sharks and dogs and lightning we could add spiders and snakes and clowns and a host of other things people are deeply afraid of. But beneath them all lies one great fear – the fear of death. All other fears are but masks worn by that great fear … death. Turn with me to Hebrews 2:14-18.

When we’re young, we love birthdays because we get to eat cake and open some presents and they bring us closer to privileges like driving and voting and independence. But as we age, birthdays lose their luster for many of us. Why? Because the accumulating years mean we’re getting closer to that time when we won’t be here. The aches and pains and mounting medical issues that come with aging make like more and more difficult, but they also remind us that our bodies are wearing out and eventually, they’ll quit.

At some point most of us try to eat a little healthier, exercise a little more, learn to relax and reduce stress and its impact on our bodies to try to lessen the impact of aging. Others get more extreme … surgeries that lift and tuck here and tighten things up there to make us look less …. old.

But the truth is that no matter how healthy we eat, no matter how regularly we exercise, death eventually catches up with us all. Even among those who are suicidal … and as a therapist I’ve worked with several … its not that they want to die. It’s that they can’t imagine continuing to live with the physical or emotional pain (or both). It isn’t that they want to die. It’s that they can’t keep living “this way.”

We don’t even like to use the word “death” unless we’re talking about a dead battery. We don’t talk about someone dying. We talk about them “passing away” or “departed” or “is no longer with us.”

English writer Somerset Maughm’s short story, “Appointment in Samarra,” is an old tale about a servant who had gone to the market in Baghdad, and then came back to his master shaken to the core over an encounter he had there.

“Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd, and when I turned I saw that it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Now lend me your horse and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.”

The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs into its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. When the merchant went down to the marketplace he came to Death and said, “Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?” “That was not a threatening gesture,” Death said. “It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”

We read scripture about Christ defeating death, often a funerals as we gather to celebrate the life of someone close to us who has died and mourn their death. In a world where we encounter death in some form almost every day – news of a tragic accident, loss of life in wars and natural disasters, a friend or family member who dies – what does it mean that death is defeated? Is that only a promise for the future, or does it have something to say to us today too? Look at vv. 14-15.

Notice what the writer is careful NOT to say. He does not say that death is gone, because it isn’t. Not yet. Scripture promises that that time WILL come. Revelation 21:4 says, “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” That time is coming, but it is not yet.

So what DOES the writer say? First of all, that through his death, Christ has taken away Satan’s power. He is the one who has the power of death. But the word translated “destroy” here doesn’t mean “cause to no longer exist.” Satan still exists and seeks to keep people from Christ and render those who belong to Christ ineffective in bringing others to Christ. The word “destroy” here means “to render inoperative or ineffective.” Like an old appliance sitting in your basement that no longer works. It’s still there, but it doesn’t run anymore.

And Satan’s defeat came as Christ delivered his children from the fear of death. Not death itself … yet. But the fear of death. How does he do that? By experiencing for us the kind of death that we deserve because of sin, so that we don’t have to experience it ourselves. Death in sin. Not just physical death but physical AND spiritual death. So now, when we die in Christ, we do not have to experience judgment for our sin and the ensuing punishment. That was meted out on Jesus on the cross.

A boy and his father were driving down a country road on a beautiful spring afternoon, when a bumblebee flew in the car window. The little boy, who was allergic to bee stings, was petrified. The father quickly reached out, grabbed the bee, squeezed it in his hand, and then released it. The boy grew frantic as it buzzed by him. Once again the father reached out his hand, but this time he pointed to his palm. There stuck in his skin was the stinger of the bee. “Do you see this?” he asked. “You don’t need to be afraid anymore. I’ve taken the sting for you.” We do not need to fear death anymore. Christ has died and risen again. He has taken the sting from death.[ii]

But we still fear death because it represents the unknown. It’s an experience people go through that they cannot come back and tell us about. Even those who were raised from the dead have died again, except for one. Only Christ was raised to life and never died again, but even he ascended into heaven bodily and isn’t right here to tell us exactly what it’s like. We know what the process of dying is like up to the moment of death. Nurses who work with dying patients recognize certain signs that tell them that death is immanent.

When my grandpa was dying in the nursing home back in early February, my sister, who is a nurse in another nursing home, told us that it’s pretty common for people to have a last, energized day like he did where he was able to talk and laugh, and then die a day or two later. And even when we were with him and we knew he was actively dying … no longer really communicating with us, she told us that it’s common for people to wait until their family is gone and then die when they are alone. We know those patterns.

But from the moment of death on? We don’t know. We know what happens to their bodies, but we don’t know what it feels like as the person who has died. Because the ones who have gone through it, and they are legion, can’t come back and tell us what it is like. Yes, people have had “near death experiences.” A pastor I know even had one. What we don’t know is just how far into death they have gone before coming back. We don’t know what it is like beyond that. We don’t have a road map and no GPS can walk us through it. And that’s scary.

But look closely at v. 16. The word “helps” here is an interesting word. It doesn’t just mean that he helps us spiritually by taking our punishment on himself. The word literally means “to take by the hand.”

Elisabeth Elliot, who has now died herself, was a missionary in the jungles of Ecuador to the tribe that murdered her husband Jim. She tells of one time in the jungle when she and her native guide were traveling a primitive path through the jungle, and the trail suddenly dropped into a ravine. The only way across was a fallen tree. Her guide nimbly jumped onto the tree and started across, but Elisabeth, who says she was scared to death that she would fall off the tree and down into the ravine, was frozen on the path. Her guide saw her fear, came back across, held out his hand, grasped hers, and led her across safely.

That’s what Christ does for us. He sees our fear, grasps our hand, and walks with us through this life, and right through death and into the Father’s presence. He has walked the path before. He does not fear it. And he walks with us through it, whether we can sense his presence or not. He is holding your hand right now, walking with you. And even as you die he will not let go.

But he didn’t experience death as some sort of super human who was protected from certain aspects of it or knew the outcome. Look at vv. 17-18.

He “had to be made like [us] in every respect.” Yes, as the eternal Christ he was fully divine. But St. Paul tells us in Philippians 2:7 that he “but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” Emptied himself of what? His rights as God. He was fully God, but he was also fully human.

To be able to defeat death for US, he had to experience it LIKE US. And so we see him fearful in the Garden of Gethsemane as he knew his hour of death approached, and knew that he would have to experience death fully, both physical death – separation from the body, and spiritual death – separation from God. That had to happen so that we wouldn’t ever have to experience the separation from God part, and so that one day we would be able to live eternally with him. Not only did he experience that horrific double death for us, he experienced it AS us, and he experienced it fully LIKE us.

What does that mean? It means he gets us. He’s seen death not just through his divine eyes, but through our human eyes. In our human experience. His humanity was as real as ours. He suffered like us. He was tempted like us. And so he can help us. Not by shouting directions from on high, but by grasping us by the hand and walking us through it. He’s held the hand of every martyr who has been murdered because of Christ. He’s held the hand of every follower of his, over all of life’s mountains and through all of life’s valleys. Through every part of this life and through death and on into the presence of God.

Apart from Christ, death is a terrifying thing. In his book Dying and the Virtues, Matthew Levering writes:

The famous American writer Susan Sontag died of cancer in 2004 at the age of 71. When her cancer returned after a long remission, Sontag was struggling desperately against it. She refused to hear that she was dying, even in the midst of her treatments. She dreamt and spoke continually “of what she could do when she got out of the hospital” and once more took up the reins of her life.

The future was everything. Living was everything. Getting back to work was everything. She insisted that she would make a completely fresh start and would write in a new way. She would do the things that she had always wanted to do, rather than wasting her time doing things that she had previously done out of mere duty. Her son claimed that she concentrated her limited energy in undertaking a “revolt against death,” and she died “unreconciled to her own extinction.”

Sontag, of course, did not believe in God or in life after death. Her sole hope consisted in medical and scientific data and in the treatment plans of her physicians. Her son said, “she thought the world a charnel house … and couldn’t get enough of it. She thought herself unhappy … And wanted to live, unhappy, for as long as she possibly could.” Weeping and panicked as she neared her death, she told the nurse she was dying, with the implication that the whole thing was horrific and absurd.[iii]

Apart from Christ, that’s our experience of death. But in Christ, it is something different, because he experienced death and judgment fully so that we do not need to fear death. And he holds our hands through this life, up to its end, and into the next.

That doesn’t mean we need to embrace death. This life matters. Your work here matters. Your life here matters. It is important. It has value and is to be cherished. St. Paul described his view of life and death this way: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). Life in this world is a gift from God and is to be cherished and lived fully. Lived fully in and for Christ. But death is not something we need fear. Yes, we face it with apprehension. But we know that Christ will hold our hand through it all.

We’ve seen death from the perspective of those apart from Christ. What is it like for those who follow Christ. We don’t know exactly. But I love the description C.S. Lewis gives in the last of the seven books known as The Chronicles of Narnia. In the book, The Last Battle, he writes …

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadow Lands – dead. The term is over; the holidays have begun. The dream is ended; this is the morning.”

And as he spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion, but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page; now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read; which goes on forever; in which every chapter is better than the one before.[iv]

[i] Louthian Law Firm, www.louthianlaw.com/avoiding-injury-2014/

[ii] Adrian Dieleman, Waupun, Wisconsin. Leadership, Vol. 15, no. 1.

[iii] Matthew Levering, Dying and the Virtues (Eerdmans, 2018), Chapter 2

[iv] C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle