1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The message from God’s Word this 3rd
Sunday after Epiphany and the day we begin celebrating National Lutheran
School’s week is taken from Hebrews 13:8 and is entitled, “It’s All About the Same Jesus,” dear brothers and sisters in
Christ.
2. Virginia, a “grandmother” figure
for many children in the neighborhood, died unexpectedly. Saddened by the death
of this special friend from her childhood, the teenager observed, “I wish things could stay the same as when
I was little.” Don’t we all wish that things could stay the same as when we
were little, when we were first married, when we were in high school, when we
graduated from college, when our spouse was alive or when … ? Don’t we
sometimes wish things could stay the same in our school, church, neighborhood,
family or job? Obviously, many things don’t stay the same. Today we find life
stability and eternal security in the proclamation, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb.
13:8).
3. While all of Scripture directs us
to Jesus, the book of Hebrews does so most clearly and emphatically. Hebrews
includes over 20 different titles and descriptions of Jesus. The epistle to
the Hebrews in the New Testament begins, “Long
ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
but in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son, whom he appointed the
heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance
of the glory of God” (Heb. 1:1–3). Chapter two refers to Jesus as “for a little while … made lower than the
angels … crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death”
(Heb. 2:9). In chapter 9 (v. 15) Jesus is called the “mediator of a new covenant,” and Heb. 12:2 invites us to see Jesus
as “the founder and perfecter of our
faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.”
4. In the first 12 chapters of
Hebrews, we see all sorts of signs that say “Jesus.” Then, in chapter 13, it is as if we have finally reached
our destination, as God’s inspired author summarizes, “Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever.” What did the
original readers and hearers understand with those words? What do we hear today
in our own settings and circumstances?
5. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday.
The book of Hebrews takes us to the yesterday of the Old Testament. It emphasizes
that the covenant was fulfilled in Jesus. The role of the Old Testament high
priest is perfected in Jesus, the holy High Priest. The faith of Abel, Enoch,
Abraham, Moses and many other heroes noted in chapter 11 was a faith in Jesus,
the Messiah.
The Jesus of yesterday is the fulfillment of all that God promised.
6. Yesterday
to the Hebrew readers also included the accounts of the miracles of Jesus that
they were still hearing about — the teachings still fresh in the decades after
Jesus’ life on earth. This is the Jesus that perhaps some of them had even seen
whipped, scorned, crucified, dead and buried. This was the Jesus witnesses had
affirmed was alive again.
7. This
is the Jesus of our yesterday. This is the Jesus who in our yesterday called us
in the waters of Baptism. This is the Jesus who came to us in His Word in our
Christian home, Christian classrooms of our Lutheran School and Sunday School
and nourished us in the faith. This is the Jesus who is the foundation of our
church and school.
8.
This is the Jesus who came to us in
the many and varied yesterdays of our disobedience, wanderings and unfaithful response
to His love, only to forgive us for all our yesterdays and take us to today.
9.
Jesus Christ is the same today. The
today of the Hebrew readers included a time of temptation to return to the
tradition and legalism of Judaism. It included an apathy toward the truths of
the Christian faith and the life of a Christian. In response to those inclinations,
there is the encouragement not to give up worshipping together and to keep on
living in love. There is the encouragement to “run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb.
12:1). Anticipating a time of persecution and hardship, the
readers are encouraged to anticipate God’s discipline and to endure hardship.
Into this today came a Jesus who was Lord of all and Savior for all. Into the
Hebrew readers’ todays came a resurrected Lord who had conquered sin, death and
the devil, and who would forever be victorious. Every day Jesus was there to
say, “Today I am with you.”
10. That
same Jesus comes to us today. Today and every day we wake up as sinners. Today
we are unsure. Today we face temptation. Today we may face ridicule and
persecution for our witness. Today we have our family concerns and church and
school frustrations. But today Jesus comes to us again in the assurance of our
Baptism, in His Word of forgiveness, and at His table, where He gives His Body
and Blood. Today Jesus Christ is the same at our Lutheran church and school.
11. Jesus
Christ is the same forever. Forever is tomorrow and the next day and the next
day. Forever is reached one day at a time. Forever is having Jesus go with us
through all the changes of the future. As I shared in the opening illustration,
we often wish that things could stay the same. Things change.
Whether
the changes are the result of detailed planning or adjustments to unforeseen
circumstances, Jesus is always part of the conversation and change.
12. Forever
certainly has eternal implications. “But
you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly
of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and
to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus” (Heb.
12:22–24).
13. We
are thankful for all those who gathered in our church and school in the name of
Jesus in the yesterday of our school history. We rejoice in every child and
family that learns of Jesus in our school today. We are blessed that through
God’s grace in Jesus we will be with Him forever.
14.
“Now
may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great
shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with
everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing
in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen”
(Heb.
13:20–21).
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