You gave him authority over all things.
It appears that when the writer of Hebrews read that passage, he looked out at the world and did not see humanity having the "authority over all things" which this passage describes. He looked out and saw what we can just as easily see; he saw that creation and humankind often appear to be at war. And often it is nature that appears to have authority over humankind. That is why, in Hebrews 2:8, the writer of Hebrews says, "we have not yet seen all of this happen;" or, to translate more literally, "we do not yet see all things subjected to [humankind]." The kind of human authority that Psalm 8 encourages us to expect is not what we observe in reality. Why not?
The writer of Hebrews gives us a powerful answer. The writer of Hebrews knew that Jesus was made "for a little while lower than the angels." He also knew that God had "crowned" Jesus "with glory and honor." That led this writer to view Psalm 8 as a type of prediction, a prediction confirmed by Christ Jesus. Jesus was made lower than the angels when he took on human form. Jesus was certainly made lower than the angels when "he suffered death." And Jesus the Christ was "crowned with glory and honor" when he was raised from the grave and seated at the right hand of God.
The writer of Hebrews looked at those facts of faith and saw in them a confirmation that God’s intention for creation would one day be fulfilled. Jesus is the proof that one day all that God has made will be just as God decreed. Jesus is the precursor of that glorious fulfillment. Jesus’ present status and glory make clear that one day humanity will have the relationship with creation which Psalm 8 describes.
But when the writer of Hebrews mentioned that Jesus had been "crowned with glory and honor" he could not help but get off on a little tangent––a very significant tangent. Why has Jesus been "crowned with glory and honor"? The writer of Hebrews says it is "because he suffered death for us." He then goes on to say, "Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone."
This morning we celebrate the grace of God, the grace of God that sent Jesus to taste "death for everyone." But Jesus did not just die, and God’s grace did not just place Him upon the cross. The writer focuses our minds upon Jesus’ resurrection and ascension when he says Jesus has been "crowned with glory and honor."
God sent Jesus. God sacrificed Jesus. God raised Jesus. God is the One who crowned Jesus with glory and honor. We are here this morning to celebrate the grace of God, to celebrate the powerful grace that sent and raised and crowned our Lord.
Why? Why celebrate that? What difference does it really make? It makes all the difference in the world. Let’s just take worry as an example. I read recently of a cartoon featuring Frank and Ernest dressed as cave men carrying clubs and engaged in a sober conversation. Frank says, "Yeah, I’m worried all the time too––I wish we’d never invented the future tense" (From Marguerite Shuster, The Living Pulpit, Jan-Mar 1999, 10). The person who knows Jesus––who knows Him as the resurrected Lord who tasted death for everyone, who knows Him as the resurrected Lord crowned with glory and honor––for the person who knows Jesus the future is not a cause for fear but a cause for celebration; because we know that out there in the future is the Lord Jesus who suffered death for us, and out there in the future is the God who by His grace sent Jesus to taste death and to be raised and to be crowned with glory and honor. Because of Jesus we can embrace the future tense. We can embrace the future ten
se without fear or worry because we know the glorified Christ who is crowned with glory and honor; and, by His reigning, He reveals that evil will not win, death will not have the last word, the grave will not be our final place of abode. Jesus crowned with glory and honor makes very clear that the way things are is not the way things will always be. Since God is God, righteousness will one day reign over all that is; God made that clear when He raised Jesus from the dead and seated Jesus at His own right hand. Remember it is Jesus to whom God said, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet" (Hebrews 1:13).
Christ is seated. His work of redemption is done. It is His Father-God who will defeat all of Christ’s enemies. And when all of those enemies are defeated, Christ’s reign will be fully realized, and everything will be just as God always intended; everything will be just as Psalm 8 describes.
So we can live everyday enlightened and transformed by the power of Easter. We can live everyday knowing that God will not be defeated. We can live everyday with courage to battle against unrighteousness because we know that it will be defeated. We do not grow "weary in well doing" (Galatians 6:9 & 2 Thessalonians 3:13 in the King James Version of the Bible), because we serve a God of unlimited power and we serve a Christ who reigns because he conquered death for us all.
C. S. Lewis once wrote:
If you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English evangelicals who abolished the slave trade, all left their mark on earth precisely because their minds were occupied with heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one. Aim at heaven and you will get earth "thrown in." Aim at earth and you will get neither (Ibid., 11).
We know and love and have put our faith in Jesus. We know that the next world is the one in which He already reigns. Therefore, we are focused upon that next world, and we work fruitfully and powerfully and transformingly in this world because we know that the power of the next world is with us already, right now, because of Jesus––because of the Holy Spirit. We know the goal of that power, and we work in concert with it.
And because Jesus tasted death for everyone and because He reigns over death, we can face some of the toughest experiences of life in a transforming way. Let me tell you a story I found just this week.
Tommy Dorsey, jazzman and gospel song writer, was singing in a revival meeting in Saint Louis when he got the awful news. This young performer was handed a telegram which read, "Your wife is dead." He had left her back home in the last month of pregnancy. The last look into her face was Nettie sound asleep. All seemed well. Now, she was dead. She had given birth to a son, but within a day he died, too. Both were buried in the same casket. Tommy fell apart in his soul, his inner peace shattered, his faith shaken.
The following Saturday he meandered close to a piano, sat down, and started to fiddle with the keys. A melody appeared in his hands. Lyrics formed in his mind, and out of the sorrow of death, came these words of faith we still sing today:
"Precious Lord, take my hand,
Lead me on, let me stand.
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn.
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light.
Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home."
(From Brian L. Harbour, Preaching, March/April 1998, 36).
The grace of God that caused Jesus to taste death for us all, the grace of God that seated Jesus at His own right hand, that grace makes all the difference in the world. It conquers fear and worry; it transforms the way we view death. O what a wonderful grace, the grace that raised Jesus from the dead.
Dr. James Melvin Washington is Professor of Church History at Union Theological Seminary and Adjunct Professor of Religion at Columbia University. He is a also an African-American, and in 1994 he released an anthology of prayers which he entitled Conversations with God: Two Centuries of Prayers by African Americans. I want to share a portion of two of these prayers, because they articulate so clearly the power that comes from knowing that Christ has been raised and that He awaits us in Heaven.
I want to share first a portion of a prayer by Melva W. Costen. This prayer is dated 1981.
And now oh, Lord, when this humble servant is done down here in this low land of sorrow: done sitting down and getting up: done being called everything but a child of God; oh, when I am done, done, done, and this old world can afford me no longer, right soon in the morning, Lord, right soon in the morning, meet me down at the river of Jordan, bid the water to be still, tuck my little soul away in that low swinging chariot, and bear it away over yonder in the third heaven where every day will be Sunday and my sorrows of this old world will have an end, is my prayer for Christ’s my Redeemer’s sake and amen and thank God (p. 245).
The next portion is from a much older prayer. This prayer is dated 1835 and was prayed by an African-American woman named Maria W. Stewart.
Almighty God, it is this glorious hope of a blessed immortality beyond the grave, that supports thy children through this vale of tears. Forever blessed be thy name, that thou hast implanted this hope in my bosom. If thou hast indeed plucked my soul as a brand from the burning, it is not because thou hast seen any worth in me; but it is because of thy distinguishing mercy, for mercy is thy darling attribute, and thou delightest in mercy, and art not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus (p. 26).
"It is not because thou hast seen any worth in me; but it is because of thy distinguishing mercy." God has snatched us from the fire. He has snatched from the fire with the same power that snatched Jesus from the grave. And that power was generated by His mercy, by His grace, by His everlasting love.
Take hold of that life which God gives. Be freed from worry. Be liberated from the fear of death. Take hold of Easter’s power and rise to new life in Christ.
God’s grace stands ready to forgive and redeem. If you feel and hear God’s call please repent of your sins, confess Jesus as Savior and Lord, and surrender to Christ and through baptism be buried with Him and raised with Him––raised to walk in newness of life. Come now as we stand and sing.
