All in the Family

George Baily in It's a Wonderful Life thinks that his life doesn't matter because he hasn't done anything that important or that significant.

Through a series of bad events George cries out in a moment of frustration that he wishes he had never been born. He's granted his wish. And through the rest of the film we see what life would have been like if George had never existed. He thought his life didn't matter to anyone at all. He thought all he did was make a mess. But in the end he sees that his life did, in fact, matter a great deal; that he had a tremendous positive impact upon many lives.

And that's really what George Baily wants to know—that his life matters. It may be true for many of us as well, to know that we matter, that our lives have value for something. Call it what you want: significance, or a noble cause, or legacy. All people who have ever lived in any time or from any culture have always had an inward impulse to reach up to something higher.

The Bible has a word for that too. It's called holiness. To be set apart; set up as significant or worthy. We all desire holiness because we have all been created to reach for something higher--we all want our lives to matter. It's why we love movies and novels about heros who rise above their circumstances to become something more—something that matters. It's built into us; hard-wired; we can't help it.

The Reach for Holiness

Let's start with that today. We all reach for holiness in some way. That is to say, we all want to achieve something higher in order to proclaim that our lives matter in some way. And ever since the fall of humanity into sin we have been trying quite unsuccessfully to find our way to holiness on our own.

The tower of Babel

Make a name for ourselves

Take it back to a story very early in the Bible. In Genesis 11 we find the story of the tower of Babel.Genesis 11:4

Genesis 11:4 NIV

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

Today

We still long to build our own towers today with our name plastered all over it. Maybe we can't all have our own private TRUMP tower. But what is it that we do want? How does our built-in desire to matter in this life show up?

For some of us it may be Career. Others it may be Money. Maybe we desire Popularity at school or to be the best on our Sports team. Beauty

And we do this no less as Christians. If I am good enough, live a moral life, give enough to charity, serve enough and volunteer enough. Sometimes we fall into doing these things because we mistakenly believe it helps us reach up to God. That it is somehow right behavior that makes us holy before God.

Am I good enough, moral enough? Do I give enough, serve enough?

But wait. If all that is true. If we can achieve some sort of holiness on our own by what we do. Then why do we need Jesus? Who is Jesus? If we can reach holiness on our own, then Jesus becomes the model—he is the example of how to live so that we can be holy like he is holy. But is that right? Lots of people think so. But the problem is that—when we are all truly honest with ourselves—we know that we cannot do that. We cannot live like that. We cannot follow the model that Jesus gives.

The author of Hebrews sets it straight for us. So who is Jesus?

Today's passage: NIV Hebrews 2:10-18

Hebrews 2:10–18 NIV

In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing your praises.” And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.” Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of 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. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human 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. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Two Natures (a brief history of Christology)

Council of Chalcedon

The council of Chalcedon met in 451 AD to clarify ongoing disputes concerning Jesus. The church could not agree on the "natures" of his divinity and humanity. Was Jesus half-man and half-God? Did Jesus start out as just a man, but then rise to a place of divine appointment? Do the two natures mean that Jesus has two beings? Or does he somehow hold two natures within one being?

These are questions we probably don't lay awake sleepless at night relentlessly pondering these days. But back in the early days of the church this was a big deal. They had to figure out who Jesus really is. And I guess in some ways this is still true today.

people today still need to ask the question, who is Jesus?

The church has been asking this question for 2000 years. It is something that theologians call Christology. And in 2000 years of Christology the church has had to face some instances when people have had the wrong answer. So it might be good for us to take just a few minutes this morning and plow our way through a very short history lesson on Christology. Because I think that will help us get a much better handle on what the author of Hebrews is trying to tell us about Jesus in today's passage.

one being; two natures - fully God & fully human

Docetism

I had a church history professor who used to say, "There are no new heresies, only new expressions of old ones." He's right. The misconceptions we have about Jesus today are really the same mistakes people have made about understanding Jesus for 2000 years. One of the earliest mistakes was called Docetism. From a Greek word that means "to seem" or "seems like." The idea was that Jesus only seemed to be human; but really his human physical body was just an illusion. He was actually just a spiritual being that had a sort of human appearance.

Jesus only seemed to be human, really just a spiritual being

This idea was popular because of something in the Greek world at the time known as Gnosticism. The gnostics taught that all the of the physical material world was corrupt. Only the spiritual realm was pure and good. Therefore, there was no way that a perfect God could ever actually take on a corrupt evil physical body.

From Gnosticism | claimed that all physical world was bad

But this is not what we read in Hebrews. Jesus is actually fully human.

Adoptionism (Apollinarism)

On the other side. There were those in the early church who taught something called adoptionism. This was the idea that Jesus was born a human—a regular human just like you or me. In fact, as Jesus grew up there was nothing divine or God-like about him because he was not divine. It was only later in life that they would say God chose him—or adopted him—to be the Son of God.

Jesus was not really divine, just an exceptional man

God adopted/appointed Jesus for divine purpose at baptism

One of the teachers in the early church, a man named Apollinaris taught that Jesus was never truly divine, never truly God. Rather, he was given a special connection to the Spirit of God the Father. Appointed for a divine purpose. He taught that Jesus was in fact completely human, but was not himself God, merely endowed with divine power from above.

But this too is not what we read in Hebrews. Jesus is actually fully God

He is fully human and fully God at the same time. As centuries of Christian doctrine have proclaimed ever since the Council of Chalcedon, Jesus is one being with two natures.

The disciple John begins his gospel by putting it so poetically. In John 1 we read about the mystery of a savior who is fully God and fully human.

John 1:1-3

John 1:1–3 NIV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

John 1:14

John 1:14 NIV

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us

What does this look like in our lives today? How do we see and recognize a Jesus who is fully God and fully human? What difference does it make?

Let's recognize the world we live in today is very different from the early days of the church. When the Council of Chalcedon met in the year 451 it was absolutely inconceivable that anyone would ever truly be an atheist. The thought never even crossed their minds to consider, "What does Jesus mean to people who completely deny the existence of any God?" Because for the vast majority of all human history you would have to be completely crazy and out of your mind the ever think that there is no God. We don't live in that world anymore. In fact, more and more people today would say that you would have to be crazy and out of your mind to ever think that there is a God.

So let's break it down. Most people today have a hard enough time accepting that there is any such thing as God. And within that it is especially hard to accept that Jesus—who became a human being—is at the same time God. We are all looking for something. Hopefully I've shown this morning that we are all reaching for some kind of holiness; we all want significance in our lives; we want to know that we matter. More and more today people try to find the answers to those things outside of any existence of God.

But please, consider this morning where that would leave us. Charles Darwin concluded that nature all by itself showed a predisposition toward survival of the fittest. Only the strongest make it; and this is nature, it is the way of the universe. In a world like that without Jesus we are left with some very depressing conclusions. In a world like that—without Jesus—the weak, the sick, the old, those without power or privilege don't deserve to make it; don't deserve to survive. They don't have value, they don't matter.

In a world without Jesus those who struggle with aging, those with dementia, those who have lost strong use of their bodies, you don't matter; your lives don't count. In a world without Jesus there is no reason in the world why I should allow four children to live in my house, eat my food, hog all the bandwidth on my wifi. Let them fend for themselves [sorry kids]. In a world without Jesus there is no justice for the oppressed, because without Jesus the only justice that counts is a system that allows those with power and control to take more power and more control.

Without Jesus, there is no value, worth to human life

Without Jesus there is no reason to love. No reason to give. No reason to sacrifice for the benefit of someone else. Because in a world without Jesus no one else matters, unless I get something from them. In a world without Jesus no one else has value, unless they add to my value. In a world without Jesus no one else has significance, unless they can be used to make me more significant.

Without Jesus, human value is only measured by what we do

In the last 50 years something happened in corporate America in the way we see employees. It used to be that the department in a company overseeing employees was called personnel. That's changed. You don't find companies anymore with a personnel department. Now it's HR - human resources. You are not a person anymore. You are a resource. In a world without Jesus you do not matter because of who you are, you only matter by what you can produce.

Hebrews 2:11 NIV

Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

You matter. You have value. You are significant. And it's because of Jesus. Because of Jesus we are taken in as part of the family of God. And our adoption as sons and daughters into this family has nothing at all to do with what we have done, or how we live. It is not based upon what we can produce. Our value and worth as children of God is not because of what we do. Our value and worth as children of God is based on who we are. And who we are is based upon only one thing--Jesus.

Because of Jesus, we matter (have value, worth, significance) because of who we are

Because of Jesus we all matter simply because of who we are. Those who are sick or weak matter because they matter to Jesus. The kids in my house who eat my food and hog my wifi matter because they matter to Jesus. The poor and oppressed who struggle for justice matter because they matter to Jesus.

In all our attempts to reach for value and worth and significance on our own we will always fall short. What Hebrews tells us today is that we don't have to desperately reach to be good enough, or moral enough, or popular enough, or rich enough, or beautiful enough. We don't have to desperately reach for holiness. Because holiness reaches down to us.

So who is Jesus? He is the holy God who loves you so much that he reaches down and enters into our lives so that we can enter into his holiness—into the family of God.

In It's a Wonderful Life George Baily comes to realize at the end of the film that his life matters because he sees how much all the little things he did made such a big difference in the lives of other people. That's too bad. Maybe he got a second chance, but he missed grace. In the end, George's life still only matters because of what he did, by what he produced. That's not grace. In the end, our lives only matter because of who we are, beloved children of God. That's grace.