Week 48—Monday Hebrews 1:5-9
Hebrews 1:5-9
Week 48—MONDAY
LIKE ME AND UNLIKE ME
We add this further word about the virgin birth. In Jesus’ life he is like me and unlike me. He is like me in that he faces life as a man, calling on no power for his own moral battle which is not at your disposal or mine. He performed miracles—for others, but not one on himself. Jesus stands praying as I pray, facing God. He is like me. So like me that I can almost put my hand on his shoulder and say, “Brother Man.” But when I’m about to do it I cannot, for he steps over on the side of God, confronting me with an offer that no one dare offer another without blasphemy: “Come unto me, I will give you rest.” He is like me and unlike me. If he were only like me he could only be my Example. If only unlike me he could only be my Redeemer. But I need someone like me to show me how to live and then someone to redeem me and dispose me to live. I need an Example and a Redeemer. In Jesus I find both. This likeness and unlikeness is in his life. Will it be in his birth? He is like me in that he was born of a woman, unlike me in that he was born of God. The likeness and the unlikeness in his life and birth do not conflict, they coincide.
The incredible myth that Jesus spent the silent years between twelve and thirty in India can be dismissed as wishful thinking without a historical leg to stand on.
The Transfiguration scene is objected to as incredible. But is it incredible? Do we not see that goodness and the luminous face are inseparable? It happens in people now. When they are good their faces shine. Then if we had the Perfectly Good would we not have the Perfectly Luminous? The Transfiguration scene is not contrary to that law at work—it is a fulfillment. People saw this in Stephen: “All who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15). The Transfiguration scene is the highest fulfillment of the law: the good are luminous and the perfectly good are the perfectly luminous.
O Jesus Lord, we see your face and we see more than your face—we see your soul. And your face is your soul exteriorated. Make me shine with your goodness within me. I can shine only as your light and life shine in and through me. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: They looked at him “and his face shone like the sun”—may that be my experience.