Thursday 25th March

Hebrews 5 vs 5 - 10

5 In the same way, Christ did not take on himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’ 6 And he says in another place, ‘You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.’ 7 During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him 10 and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
 
Sometimes we hear people come up with the idea that the crucifixion was wee buns for Jesus and they reason that if he knew what was going to happen at Calvary he knew what would happen beyond death, that God would raise him to life again. That way of thinking takes no account of the fact that Jesus had two natures, fully God and fully man or of the fact that he would bear the sin of the world and endure, because of it, the wrath of God. It was not the agony of crucifixion that brought the words of anguish “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” but the fact that he endured the wrath of a holy God against sin. You see, the author of the letter to the Hebrews captured the truth that this experience was one that Jesus would have avoided if any other way was possible. With every fibre of his humanity Jesus recoiled from the cross and all the anguish it held. More than that from the prospect of enduring the burden and the penalty for our sin and it was the fact that he endured; that he was obedient to death, even death on a cross that means those whose lives are now in him will not have to endure the same. He has done it all