Not Just Any Gift, by Pastor Ed Evans

Scripture: Hebrews 2:10-18
2:10 It was fitting that God, for Whom and through Whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
2:11 For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters,
2:12 saying, "I will proclaim your name to My brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you."
2:13 And again, "I will put my trust in Him." And again, "Here am I and the children whom God has given Me."
2:14 Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, He himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,
2:15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.
2:16 For it is clear that He did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham.
2:17 Therefore He had to become like His brothers and sisters in every respect, so that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.
2:18 Because He Himself was tested by what He suffered, He is able to help those who are being tested.

There is a great quote by Christian author C. S. Lewis about God's gift to you and to me, His gift to the ages, Jesus Christ. It's long, but I want to share it here with you. C. S. Lewis wrote, "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him. 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
In last week's sermon I quoted John R. Rice concerning Jesus, and that is relevant here, too, so I will repeat it:, "You can never truly enjoy Christmas until you can look up into the Father's face and tell Him you have received His Christmas gift."
First, Jesus Christ refers to Himself as "Son of Man," and we find the basis for that as early as Daniel 7:13, referring to a heavenly figure representing God's people, and four times in John -- -- emphasizing His preexistence and His descent into the flesh of this world as a humiliation that both conceals and manifests His glory.
He is also the image and the glory of God -- 1st Corinthians 4:4, 6 and Colossians 1:15 -- such as mankind was made to reflect (1st Corinthians 11:7). But even more than that, for you and I, Jesus' redeeming act of salvation was provided for all of mankind. By faith in Him, we can all participate in a salvation already accomplished by Him. He is that gift of God to every one of us.
I have often thought how fitting, if we would only recognize it, is the idea of giving gifts at Christmas time. For Jesus Christ was the greatest gift that could ever be given, a gift offered to us by God Himself. That's why I reminded us of John R. Rice's precious insight, "You can never truly enjoy Christmas until you can look up into the Father's face and tell Him you have received His Christmas gift."
Any attempt to celebrate Christmas outside of Christ is a futile, empty exercise in playing with things we know nothing about. Those outside of Christ might as well be celebrating the Winter Solstice, the Roman Saturnalia, or the Greek's Lenaea. It would mean as much, and have about as much to do with gift giving as any other hypocritical exercise.
For the gift of the Son of God, to return mankind to the purpose God intended, carries far more spiritual weight than we could ever understand. For example, God did not send just any gift, any angel, and not even the Son of God lightly.
If you read today's scriptural reference thoroughly you will see the ground laid for an extremely important passage, Hebrews 2:14-15, which reads, "Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, He himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death."
Our merciful, loving God was keenly aware of what you and I feel, what we suffer, and what we fear. And how could Jesus walk among us, be one of us, even as the image and glory of God, without the experience of who we are? And so He came to us in flesh and blood, born physically as you and I, spent time growing physically and mentally, subject to the slings and arrows of the physical life, so that He might truly know us, and be what God intended, that meaningful bridge back to God, salvation accomplished painfully on an instrument of torture, humiliation, and death.
I've heard people just throwing off Jesus' sacrifice by saying, "Oh yeah, but He could handle that, because He was the Son of God." Jesus was and still is the Son of Almighty God, but He was also Son of Man, heir to all the human pain of the body, dejection of the mind, humiliation, such as you and I. And yet, He kept His mind stayed on the Father, He knew that a second of the relief He was surely capable of giving Himself, the obvious intervention of warrior angels that was certainly possible, a misstep of serving Himself and His sacrifice to reunite all of mankind with the God who created us, would be in ashes, worthless.
One of the songs that always tugs at my heart is "He Could Have Called Ten Thousand Angels." How many times have you and I, out of sheer instinct, without even thinking about it, lashed out to protect ourselves from a threatened blow? How fast could the Son of God have acted as the muscle-ripping pain built inside of Him, as His breath gave out, and the blood flowed? How quickly?
If you're not familiar with that song, here are the first few verses of the lyrics:

They bound the hands of Jesus in the garden where He prayed;
They led Him thro' the streets in shame.
They spat upon the Savior so pure and free from sin;
They said, "Crucify Him; He's to blame."
Refrain
He could have called ten thousand angels
To destroy the world and set Him free.
He could have called ten thousand angels,
But He died alone, for you and me.

Matthew 26:53 reminds us of Jesus' words: "Do you think I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?" It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to see the skies overhead filled with angels that humans could not see, waiting for a word from the Master, waiting for a signal to stop them from hurting the precious Son of God. And the Bible tells us that on those occasions when God turned the angels loose, they were devastating. What they could have done that day, to relieve Jesus' pain, to pay back those responsible for His pain, His humiliation. This was the Son of Almighty God!
But God had prepared Jesus for this moment, so that not only did Jesus feel it all, was in the kind of excruciating pain you or I would have been in, but He knew the importance of this sacrifice that only He could make, a sinless One for all the sinful people of the world then, and those to come. For you. For me.
1st Peter 1:10-12 reminds us that salvation was not for the angels, and how we respond to salvation is something they are curious about. We can imagine them peeking over the clouds to see our reaction to this precious gift bought with the blood of their sweet Son of God, looking down into the blood of the mercy seat trying to understand salvation.
And yet, perhaps not understanding it all, they would have, and could have according to the Word's description of the power of God's angels, destroyed everything and everyone in sight at a word, a wink, a nod from Jesus. But He would not do that. Thank Almighty God He would not do that, or you and I would be lost forever. .
This was not just any gift given of God, not just an answered prayer, a healing, some object of gain provided through the power and might of God. This was, and remains, a carefully prepared gift of salvation, bought and paid for, for you and I, at great price. At great price. straight out of the heart of God.
Paul, writing to the Romans in a different context, describes the kind of God love that would reach out to us in this way, with the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. In Romans 8:38-39 we read, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." That is in Him, God's gift.
A specially prepared gift, His own and only Son, buying with His own blood, with His death, the gift of life ... for us. For you and I. Please, accept His gift. It's yours, from the heart of God.
Amen.

Daily Scripture Readings for December 27, 2010-January 2, 2011
Monday -- Exodus 20:18-26
Tuesday -- Galatians 3:23-4:7
Wednesday -- 2nd Corinthians 5:16-21
Thursday -- John 3:1-8
Friday -- Ephesians 1:3-14
Saturday -- Colossians 1:15-23
Sunday -- Isaiah 63:7-9; Hebrews 2:10-18; Psalm 111; Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23