Hebrews 2:10-11 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. 11Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call the brothers and sisters.
We have something that God, the Creator of the Universe, does not have. We have a physical body. That is until Jesus came. Then something was added to God. At that moment, He had a body, and still has a body.
Now HIs body is not like our body, since He has now returned to the position He was before He descended. Having set aside the rights and privileges connected to His deity while he walked on this earth, he had a body, one just like yours and mine. He probably had bumps and bruises on his hands from years of carpentry.
But after the resurrection His body changed. He still had a body, but that body had abilities that were not present before that moment. He could now seemingly walk though walls. He could just appear where He wanted when He wanted.
But His body could be touched and held. He could eat and drink. You could feel the impact of His breath. But certain laws of this physical universe didn’t seem to hold true to His body after the resurrection.
Our text, written in a time when persecution of Christians was happening, emphasizes the physical suffering of Jesus. His suffering formed a bridge between His life and our life. This suffering for God’s will is the common ground between Jesus body and our body.
Right now, as I type, I feel the effects of a hammer on my finger. The nail will fall off in about six more weeks as it grows past the blood trapped under the nail. This physical injury connects me to every other carpenter who ever hit their finger with a hammer. We are a family of finger hitting, thumb hitting people.
In a similar way, when Jesus suffered for doing the Father’s will, He was connecting with those who would follow after Him and suffer for doing God’s will. All who suffer for their faith in Jesus are connected and are family. The suffering at the hands of the unjust is the connection.
Right now around our world there are Christians suffering and dying because of their connection to Jesus.They are staying true to their faith until the end of life here on Earth. They are joining with Jesus in His suffering, a suffering at the hands of the unjust.
Jesus connected to humanity in a way that, prior to His incarnation, He could not do. By taking on flesh, He bridged the gap between the sufferer and the One who could eliminate suffering. In those moment, Jesus gave suffering a divine purpose. And our suffering can have a divine purpose as well as a result.
Suffering is not an absence of God. Suffering is now part of what God brings to the table. He suffered as we suffer. He was hungry and thirsty. He longed for connection, but with humanity and with His Father. He was fully human in all that it means.
So next time suffering comes your way, know that Jesus is right there with you. He doesn’t run away from suffering now, any more than He ran away from it then. He endured the Cross rather than escaping the Cross. He is present in our suffering in a way that He isn’t when we aren’t suffering.
The Arnold Journey 