We are going to begin this week’s PODCAST precisely from where we left off in last week’s podcast.
We left off last week by considering together this most enigmatic verse (Hebrews 5:8):
Even though Jesus was God’s Son, He learned obedience from the things He suffered.
If you are at all uncomfortable with that, then the rest of this story will make no sense, and will leave you with an even greater discomfort.
But if you are willing to allow for the fact that “Even though Jesus was God’s Son, He learned obedience from the things He suffered,” then you are in for this great big blessing: The grand and glorious realization that Jesus, just like you and just like me, learned in real time what it means to live a life of obedience to God the Father.
We stressed last week, and I will ever-so-briefly remind you now, that Jesus was fully human, just like us. Last week we discussed some of the implications of Hebrews 4:15, where the writer emphatically affirms this ever-so-comforting reality:
Jesus understands all of our human weaknesses, for He faced all of the same testings and temptations we do, yet He did not sin.
Jesus experienced every human emotion, felt keenly every human feeling — including our feelings of fear, insecurity, uncertainty, abandonment, betrayal.
I mean, you just wait until we get to the Garden of Gethsemane, at which time there will be no doubt that in Jesus 100% deity meets 100% humanity, with all that that word humanity implies.
As we saw so vividly last week, life threw at Jesus unexpected challenges, unanticipated conflicts, undeserved difficulties, uninvited troubles… Just like life throws at us.
Jesus learned, just as so many of us are now learning, that sometimes, perhaps even most times, our richest life lessons can be taught only in the crucible of calamity.
By the reading of books our minds become broad. But it is only as we walk the pathway of pain that our souls become deep.
Something that Jesus learned.
Something that we are each learning.
Even though Jesus was God’s Son, He learned obedience from the things He suffered.
Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed it might take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.
God bless you as you listen.
Dewey Bertolini 