- What are three steps that led to current belief in Jesus as Savior by the preacher and this gathering of Christians? Are the steps different today? Effective today?
Step one was Jesus himself, simply living his life, leading to his public ministry as a mature adult. To his living example, he then added direct instruction about himself, most especially to his chosen Apostles, pressing the point all the way through his crucifixion, Resurrection, and ending only with his Ascension back to His Father. Second step was the preaching and life witness of the Apostles to everything Jesus was, did, and said. The third step was hearing and witnessing by those first converted by the Apostles, who in turn witnessed to the next “generation” of Christians (whatever their age at the time). The preacher includes himself in this group. Note: all three of these steps were accompanied by “signs, wonders, acts of power, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.” The steps remain the same in our day: the direct teaching and acts of Jesus handed on to us in Scripture, proclaimed by authoritative heirs of the Apostles and informally by current believers, and accompanied by actions of the Holy Spirit, from major healing miracles to the simplest of gifts of prayer in the Spirit. Effective today in open hearts.
- What kind of expression would you suppose is on the face of the preacher as he begins to say what we label as verse 6? Why?
I believe that when he begins to quote from Psalm 8, he smiles when he says “someone… somewhere says” because his Jewish background listeners have known and sung these words in Temple and synagogue and with pilgrimage groups since they were children. Psalms was the songbook for Jews, and just as my sisters easily memorized scores of songs as we grew up, Jews could sing practically any of the 150 songs in their songbook. “Someone” was King David, and “somewhere” was in his collection of psalms. They are in on the preacher’s little joke.
- It is obvious that at present we do NOT see all things subject to Christ, so how can we understand Jesus as fulfilling the prophecy quoted from the psalm?
We live in the midst of things, for, as theologians say, we live in the “now and the not yet.” Now Jesus’ triumph has begun, but it has not yet been brought to completion. The most awful consequence we human beings face is death, our permanent extinction after having experienced being, being alive. Christ triumphed over that for humanity with his Resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of the Father. Insofar as I am joined to Christ, I am joined, permanently, to his triumph—my resurrection is assured. We live in the era of His great mercy, when millions are offered the chance to cling to Christ and share in his victory. If the “not yet” had happened and the world ended 200 years ago, none of us living today would have existed or had the possibility of life forever.
- In verse 9, the preacher says that “by the grace of God, [Jesus] might taste death for everyone.” Why did he use the phrase “taste death”?
It was by tasting the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve brought death into the world. It may have been a sweet fruit, but it left a very bitter aftertaste! In his humility, Jesus tastes death, though he did not deserve it in any way, so that, getting inside of death, he could blow it up. This offers a way out of death for anyone who clings to him and asks for mercy.
- For personal reflection: how might suffering help make me a better Christian?
It is not for us to wish suffering on anyone else, especially not with the mindset that “it’s for their own good.” Would we like a dose of that? Instead, think back on some hard time in your own life which, now that you look back on it, gave you new insights into how apparently negative things can work for our growth in things Jesus knows we need more of: a mercy full heart, a willingness to continue the struggle against sin and toward real freedom, a willingness to reject the false promises of happiness our secular society offers, etc.
Do you wear a ring of gold or silver? A lump of either metal must “suffer” –that is undergo melting to lose its shape, and then being pounded and trimmed and burnished to be made “perfect” into a beautiful ring. A hard process with a wonderful result! In coming down, below the angels, to join us, Jesus became one who could suffer. Being really one of us, he did. Too an awful extent. But the beauty, and the truth, and the goodness of the result! All for our benefit if we cling to him.
Jim, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that “unmerited suffering is redemptive” and that black people would “overwhelm with their capacity to endure suffering”. We Christians try very hard to find the redemptive value of our suffering, especially when it comes as a result of senseless tragedies. It is good to try and find the redemptive value of our suffering, but I believe it is harmful to judge those who suffer unspeakable losses and crosses when they cannot find that these sufferings come with any apparent meaning or redemptive value. I believe Mother Teresa suffered so much “darkness” as her dairies after her death uncovered for several reasons. She saw enormous suffering among the most innocent for many decades. While she was able to get many to give financially in her work, she was often very let down by the amount of “hands on” help she was able to get from those who could have helped. Finally, I believe she worked harder than most people can ever fathom and that her own unacknowledged exhaustion (she had to keep going because so many needed her or at least that is what I believe she believed) colored her thoughts on many days. However, it concerns me that she also had impossible standards for herself. Perhaps when she was unable to find the redemptive value that others thought she should she beat herself up even more.