The Sufficient Savior

Hebrews 1:1-4

Men in Black is a comedy about two special agents who work for Men in Black, an underground agency created to protect earth from tyrant extraterrestrials. Agent K, played by Tommy Lee Jones is the old, hardened, experienced agent. Agent J, played by Will Smith, a hotshot, New York City cop being recruited to join an agency almost no one even knows exists.

Before J relinquishes his police badge to join the Men in Black,  K explains the scenario for him, because he’s still unsure of what the agency does and wants of him.

Agent K explains, “All right, kid, here’s the deal. At any given time there are around 1,500 aliens on the planet. Most of them are right here in Manhattan. Most are decent enough. They’re just trying to make a living. Humans, for the most part, don’t have a clue.”

Agent J asks, “But, uh, why the big secret? Humans are smart. They can handle it.”

Agent K answers: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago, everyone knew the earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everyone knew the earth was flat. And fifteen minutes ago you knew that people were alone on this universe.” With a sigh, Agent K adds, “Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.”

J asks, “What’s the catch?”

“The catch?” K says. “That catch is you will sever every human contact. Nobody will ever know you exist anywhere. Ever.” K pauses and then adds, “I’ll give you till sunrise to think it over.”

As K strolls away, J shouts, “Hey, is it worth it?”

“Oh yeah, it’s worth it,” K answers, “If you’re strong enough.”[i]

Is it worth it? That’s the question we all want answered. Is it worth it to follow Jesus? Is it worth it to trust him? Oh, we don’t ask that question when the skies are blue, the temperatures warm, and the breezes light. We don’t ask that question when life is good. But we all ask it when storm clouds appear, and the water turns choppy, and the thunder rumbles and the lightning strikes.

When life turns stormy – when it seems as though everything should be coming together and instead life blows apart, when the relationship you been praying for and sacrificing for breaks up, when the job you’ve given your life to flies out the window and you find yourself unemployed, when friends or family members no longer want to spend much time with you because you follow Jesus – yeah, we all ask that question then. Is it worth it?

That’s the question the writer of Hebrews wants to answer for us. Is it worth it? Is it worth it to hang on to Jesus when doing so costs me something real? Is it worth it to keep following Jesus when my prayers for health and prosperity go unanswered? Is it worth it to keep following Jesus when people avoid my business because I follow Jesus? When family members shun me?  When friends turn their backs on me?

Today, we’re beginning a new series on the New Testament book of Hebrews. We don’t know for sure who actually wrote Hebrews. Barnabas and Luke have been offered as possibilities in the past. A more recent but very popular conjecture among scholars is that is could have been written by Apollos, an influential Christian pastor and leader at about the same time St. Paul was active.

We do know that whoever wrote it was a pastor, because Hebrews isn’t actually a letter. There is no introductory salutation and it doesn’t have a lot of the characteristics of a letter. Hebrews is actually a sermon, written by someone who was highly educated and a skilled writer and orator. Yes, there is a closing greeting typical of letters at the time, indicating that Hebrews was probably  written to be read aloud to a congregation the pastor wasn’t with at the moment. But this is actually a written sermon. A sermon whose purpose is to encourage a discouraged church to hang on to Jesus, even though it was getting hard. Many were thinking of going back to their pre-Christ lives, because the cost of following Jesus was hitting too close to home.

They lived in a shame culture that emphasized solidarity with family and community. Becoming a part of a countercultural community of faith wasn’t something family and friends and business customers would overlook. These harried Christians were losing customers at their businesses, they were losing family, they were losing friends – shunned because they followed Jesus. And so they were thinking about quitting. Thinking about going back. Giving up. Throwing in the towel. And so this pastor writes to encourage them to hang on to Christ, because there is no other like him. His greatness, mercy, love, and the effectiveness of his salvation have no equal.

Turn with me to the introduction to this pastor’s sermon – Hebrews 1:1-4.

God is a God who speaks. God desires relationship with his creation, and therefore, God speaks to us and listens to us. He hears us. But he doesn’t just listen. God speaks. The book of Genesis paints a picture of a God who spends time with his people. God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, talking and listening. Sin and rebellion broke that intimate fellowship, but God continued speaking to his people.

God speaks to all through what we call his general revelation of himself. He speaks to us through the grandeur of creation – through the vastness of the cosmos, the creativity and intricacy of design we see throughout his creation – from the largest of galaxies to the smallest subatomic particles. He speaks to us through his providence for his creation – the sun that shines, the rain that falls, compounds that heal disease and sickness. And he speaks to us through our consciences, that inner voice that says, “No, don’t do that.” Or “You should really do this.” But Job tells us that the voice of God speaking through creation, through providence, and through conscience “are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him!” (Job 26:14).

God speaks more specifically through Scripture. He spoke to Israel through his prophets. When the writer says “God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,” he’s talking about what we call the Old Testament. And now, God has spoken through his Son, Jesus. Through his own words, and his actions – right up to the cross and the empty tomb – Jesus embodied the voice of God to us. Now, But Jesus didn’t come to replace the Old Testament. He came to fulfill it. The Old Testament is God’s promise and Jesus, the New Testament, is God’s fulfillment of that promise.

In his autobiographical novel, Everything Sad is Untrue, Daniel Nayeri describes fleeing from Iran as a boy to escape persecution for his Christian faith. At one point, he asks the reader a question:

Would you rather have a God who listens or a god who speaks? Be careful of the answer … There are gods all over the world who just want you to express yourself. At their worst, the people who want a god who listens are self-centered. They just want to live in the land of “do as you please.” And the ones who want a god who speaks are cruel. They just want law and justice to crush everything …. Love is empty without justice. Justice is cruel without love. Oh, and in case it wasn’t obvious the answer is both. God should be both.

Time and again, Jesus proves to be a God who listens. People seek him out by the thousands – but he never refuses a conversation. The only time Jesus ever silences anyone, saying, quite literally, “Be quiet!” it’s a demon (Luke 4:35). Other than that, he’s willing to give anyone the time of day. Blind Bartimaeus shouts to him on a crowded road. While others scold him to keep quiet, Jesus beckons him over and gives Bartimaeus the floor. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asks …. Whatever the blind man had to say, Jesus was all ears.

He’s not just a sounding board, though. Jesus has something to say. Words are the very tools Jesus uses to bring forth his plans …. When his friend is dead and lying in his tomb and Jesus says, “Lazarus, come out!” and the dead man comes out …. In other words, when Jesus speaks things happen.

Jesus is a God who listens and a God who speaks, a God who simply enjoys talking with people. He doesn’t mind being inconvenienced. He’s willing to seek out those who differ with him …. because he is a God who knows, a God to whom all hearts are open and no secrets hid.

The fact that Jesus is the kind of God who wants to be in a personal relationship with us is remarkable compared to the false gods who either speak from on high or listen to us with blank stares .… The Christian faith reveals that we have more than just words, but the Word made flesh.[ii] God speaks to us most clearly through Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, who fulfilled in its entirety the promise of the Old Testament. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt 5:17).

So is the message of God, spoken in and through Jesus, worth listening to and anchoring ourselves to? Is Jesus better than anything else we might think we can anchor ourselves to in this life? The answer is a resounding “YES!”

Why? Because Jesus is first and foremost the ETERNAL SON. Look at Vv. 2-3a. Jesus is the heir of all things. That means that all things belong to him. The cosmos with all of its galaxies – their stars and their planets. The angels in the presence of God. Heaven itself. This tiny but blessed planet with its mountains and valleys, oceans and lakes and rivers – from the heights of Everest to the Challenger Deep – and every nation and people and culture, every person who has ever lived – it all belongs to him. Psalm 2:8 – a royal psalm spoken to David and fulfilled in Christ, says, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.”

In fact, all that is was created through the work of the eternal Son. St. Paul, in Colossians 1:16 says, “For by him (by Jesus) all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him.” When Genesis says, “In the beginning God created …” it is referring just as much to the Son and the Spirit as to the Father. All things were created BY and FOR him. He is the heir of all things, and the cosmos was created through him.

But he didn’t just create and then leave things to run their course. He is intimately involved, sustaining the cosmos and moving toward it’s God-ordained end and goal. He created the world, the entire cosmos, and time itself, and he continues to sustain it all and carry us all forward. Without him light would not shine, rain would not fall, rivers would not rush, and we would not have the air to breathe. St. Paul in Colossians 1 goes on to say, “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). He is the source of life!

But the writer doesn’t stop there. The creator and heir of all things is also the radiance of the glory of God and God’s exact imprint. The word used for radiance there pictures not the dull glow we may see from a lamp if we’re in another room, or the glow of a city on the horizon, but the direct beam of light coming from that light’s source. Jesus radiates the glory of God and God’s exact imprint.

The Son doesn’t eclipse the Father. He expresses the Father’s identity on earth. He is the eternal son – heir, creator, and sustainer of all things, who is the radiance of the Glory of God, bearing God’s exact imprint. If we want to know what God is like, we need look nowhere else than Jesus, for Jesus – more than any mountain or ocean or star or galaxy or explosion or storm – reveals to us the glory and the grandeur and the love and the grace of God.

Look at V. 3b. The passage takes a really abrupt, shocking turn, because this cosmic Christ, this glorious one, the eternal son, made purification for sin. Not only is he the ETERNAL SON, he is the INCARNATE SON.

The God who speaks, who desires relationship with us, and whom we broke fellowship with through sin, sets aside his glory in the person of Jesus to come to this small corner of the universe, to live in a backwater town in a backwater country on this tiny planet, and then he did the unthinkable. He allowed us to kill him. He gave himself, sacrificed himself to purify us from our sin and restore our fellowship with the Father.

In Philippians 2:5-8, St. Paul says it this way: “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Not only did he allow us to kill him, but he allowed us to put him to death using a cross – the cruelest, most humiliating, most painful way to execute someone humankind has ever developed. The eternal son emptied himself as the incarnate son.

But then, after emptying himself, after the cross, after being laid in the tomb, he was exalted. Look at Vv. 3c-4. Having done what he came to do, having made purification for sin, he sat down at the right hand of the Father. That is the place of honor and authority and respect. He took his rightful place in the throne room of God. And as majestic and awe-inspiring as the angels are, they pale in comparison to him. They, like we, are created beings, and he is the eternal creator and sustainer of all – angels and human beings alike.

St. Paul, in Philippians 2, goes on to say, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-10).

What do you think about Jesus? Because that matters. Andrew Greeley writes, “The only real Jesus is one who is larger than life, who escapes our categories, who eludes our attempts to reduce him to manageable proportions so that we can claim him for our cause. Any Jesus who has been made to fit our formula ceases to be appealing precisely because he is no longer wonderous, mysterious, surprising.

We may reduce him to a right-wing Republican conservative or a guntoting Marxist revolutionary and thus rationalize and justify our own political ideology. But having done so, we are dismayed to discover that whoever we have signed on as an ally is not Jesus. Categorize Jesus and he isn’t Jesus anymore.”[iii]

Jesus is bigger than our categories. He is bigger than the republican box and the democrat box and the Marxist box and the communist box. He is bigger than our agendas. He is bigger than the sum-total of all of our ideologies. He is the eternal son, the incarnate son, and the exalted son. And you can anchor yourself to him. When life falls apart, he will create a new life out of the ashes. When relationships fail, he will not. When friends and family reject you because of him, he will not leave you. When you have nothing, in him you have everything. When the market crashes, his power and provision have not been lost. No matter who sits on this world’s thrones, he sits on the throne over them all at the right hand of the father. His worth surpasses the worth of all that is. He is the sufficient savior, and you can anchor to him.

In his memoir, Everything Sad Is Untrue, Daniel Nayeri recounts the gripping story about why his mother became a Christian.

She grew up in a devout and prestigious Muslim family. She was a doctor and had wealth and esteem. But eventually she would forsake all of that to follow Jesus. She was forced to flee for her life from Iran, eventually settling in the U.S. as a refugee. When people ask her why, she looks them in the eye with the begging hope that they’ll hear her, and she says, “Because it’s true.”

Why else would she believe it? It’s true and it’s more valuable than $7 million in gold coins, and thousands of acres of Persian countryside, and 10 years of education to get a medical degree, and all your family, and a home. And maybe even your life. My mom wouldn’t have made the trade otherwise.

If you believe it’s true, that there is a God, and he wants you to believe in him, and he sent his Son to die for you – then it has to take over your life. It has to be worth more than everything else, because heaven’s waiting on the other side. That or my mother is insane. There’s no middle. You can’t say it’s a quirky thing she thinks, because she went all the way with it. If it’s not true, she made a giant mistake. But she doesn’t think so.

She had all that wealth, the love of all those people she helped in her clinic. They treated her like a queen. She was a devout Muslim. And she’s poor now. People spit on her on buses. She’s a refugee in places where people hate refugees. And she’ll tell you – it’s worth it. Jesus is better. It’s true … Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. The whole story hinges on it.[iv] Is it worth it? Oh yeah, it’s worth it. Let’s pray.

[i] Men in Black (Columbia Pictures, 1997), rated PG-13, written by Ed Solomon, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

[ii] Sam Bush, “A God Who Listens and a God Who Speaks,” Mockingbird (3-23-23)

[iii] Andrew Greeley’s introduction to Lloyd C. Douglas’s The Robe, paperback edition (New York Times Book Review. Christianity Today, Vol. 30, no. 9.

[iv] Daniel Nayeri, Everything Sad Is Untrue (Levine Quierido, 2020), pp. 196-197