Born That Man No More May Die
Hebrews 2:10-18[1]
On Christmas Eve, we talked about how the light of God’s
love shines in the darkness. And, as Henri Nouwen reminded us, “a little bit of
light can dispel a lot of darkness.” For many of us, there’s no darkness we
fear more than death. It’s the ultimate unknown. I realize that when we are
young, death may seem remote and almost unreal. Until someone your age passes
away. I had that happen to me when I was in college. Or perhaps a close family
member whom you loved. Then the stark reality hits you. And when it does, most
of us are unprepared for the fear that grips us. In response to that fear, we in
this culture seem obsessed with keeping death as far away from us as possible. In
days of old, people would die at home, and the family would care for their
body. Now all of that is removed from our presence. And perhaps for good
reason—there seems to be no logic, no rhyme or reason to the way the “grim
reaper” takes its victims. Our inability to make any sense out of death only
increases our fear.
But our New Testament lesson for today presents us with the
good news that, because we bear this burden of mortality, Jesus also came as
one of us, made of flesh and blood. He came not only to God’s unfailing love
and continual presence with us, but he also came specifically bearing our
mortality so that he could die as one of us. And the purpose of his death was
to “free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death”
(Heb. 2:15). Though the Scripture text doesn’t spell out precisely how it is
that he sets us free from the fear of death, the New Testament elsewhere
reminds us that Jesus didn’t just come to die, but also to be raised from the
dead, and by doing so to triumph over all the powers of darkness in this world,
most importantly death.
Part of the purpose of his coming in the vulnerability of
our flesh and blood was to demonstrate that our God is not so high and exalted
as to be unconcerned with or unmoved by our burdens. There have been many who
have believed that throughout the ages. Some of our “founding fathers” in this
country believed God was like a clockmaker who made the clock, wound it up and
let it go. It’s a belief system called “Deism.” They believed that God created the
world, stood back, and lets it go on its way, but doesn’t get involved. On the
contrary, the “gospel of Christmas” is that, by entering our broken and
confusing existence as Immanuel, “God-who-is-with-us,” Jesus took all the
burdens that we bear on himself. And so he made it clear that God is not the
cold and distant deity whom some people have cringed before, and at times even
hated. Rather, God is the one who loves us so much that, as we say in one of
our confessions of faith, Jesus died to show us God’s love as “a love that is
ready to suffer for our sakes.”[2]
That may seem like a strange thing to say about God. It was
the conclusion Dietrich Bonhoeffer came to as he sat in his cell in a Nazi
prison camp. He said, “God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the
cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way,
the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. … only the suffering God can
help.” I think Bonhoeffer knew whereof he spoke. It would not be long before he
would lose his life at the hands of the Nazis. Our lesson for today puts it
this way: “Because Jesus himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to
help those who are being tested” (Heb. 2:18).
But that really is the question, isn’t it? Can a God who is
vulnerable enough to enter our brokenness really be powerful enough to do
something about it? Wouldn’t it seem
that a God who is able to suffer with us is a God who is just as impotent as we
are in the face of our suffering and ultimately our experience of death? In
fact, that has been what some have concluded: God loves us, and God suffers
with us, but at the end of the day, that’s about all God can do for us. If
that’s the case, I’m not sure many would conclude that a “suffering God” is
“able to help” us at all.
Others are unwilling to relegate God (and us) to such a
helpless state in which our experience with death leaves us with a mystery of
suffering that we cannot solve by any means. So they insist that though our
experience of suffering and death may be burdensome to us now, God will
ultimately bring good from it. The same confession I cited earlier says, “nothing
evil is permitted to occur that God does not bend finally to the good.”[3] And there is some comfort to that. But “finally” or “ultimately” can seem like
a very long time. It can seem like a very long time. So what are we to do in
the meantime? How does the suffering love of our vulnerable God help us here
and now?
Well, for one thing, I think we must not underestimate the
power of that love that was poured out at the cross. It may look like the Jesus
who dies on the cross was just as weak as any other human being. It may look
like God is unable to do anything except suffer the pain of watching his son
die. And yet, if we were to conclude that, we would be vastly underestimating
the power of God’s love. One of my schoolmates offered a clarification of
Bonhoeffer’s famous phrase by saying, “Only the suffering God can help, but it
is only the suffering of the God who has greater power than we do over
suffering that is able to help.”[4] And God
does have greater power than we do over suffering, and so he is able to help.
Yes, love can be vulnerable. It does not retaliate, it does
not lash out at those who may in fact take the life of the one who is loved or
even the one who offers love. But love always breaks the power of evil. As we
say in that same confession of faith, “An abyss of suffering” has been
“swallowed up by the suffering of divine love.”[5] All the death, all the pain, all the fear that we can experience in this life,
God has swallowed up into the suffering of his own love for us. Love always
wins the day, no matter how long it takes to get to “ultimately.” And that is
all the more certain with God’s love! God’s love most certainly wins the day.
But there is more to it than that. Although our lesson
doesn’t mention it, surely the implication is there: Jesus did not remain in
the grave. Death was not powerful enough to hold him. God raised him from the
dead, and by so doing he not only vindicated the power of suffering love, but
also demonstrated that God does more than “just” suffer with us when we suffer.
Rather, as Henri Nouwen reminds us, the resurrection is the demonstration that
“God’s light is more real than all the darkness, that God’s truth is more
powerful than all human lies, that God’s love is stronger than death.”[6] And so in
the vulnerability of Jesus taking on flesh and blood and dying for us all, and
in the astonishing power of God raising him to life, we see God’s light
overcoming all the darkness, even the darkness of death. And, as the Scripture
says, “The light keeps shining in the dark, and darkness has never put it out”
(Jn. 1:5, CEV)!
[1] © 2025 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 12/28/2025 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. The title, "Born that Man No More May Die" is taken from a verse of the Hymn/Christmas Carol "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," by Charles Wesley.
[2] The Study Catechism (1998), question
8.
[3] The Study Catechism (1998), question 22.
[4] Steven R. Harmon, “Hebrews 2:10-18,”Interpretation
59 (Oct 2005): 406.
[5] The Study Catechism (1998) question
45.
[6] Henri Nouwen, Here and Now: Living in the
Spirit, 32
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