Hebrews 5:7-10 - Learn Submission from Jesus - March 21, 2021

One of the hottest of the currently hot-button words these days is “injustice.” Injustice is a fact of life in this fallen world. And from the time we are old enough to speak, we are quick to speak out against it. “He took my toy, tell him to give it back.” “I deserved the starting spot on the team, but the coach gave it to his son instead.” But children aren’t alone in their sensitivity to real or perceived injustice. For around a year now, people throughout the country have been protesting what they saw as the unjust death of George Floyd in police custody. On January 6, dozens of people illegally entered the U.S. Capitol building to protest what they regarded as an unjust, unfair election result. From someone cutting us off on the highway to being passed over for a promotion – there are few things that get us more fired up than injustice, especially when it’s personal. But none of the injustices we’ve ever faced in our lives can compare to the injustice Jesus faced in his – not only from his enemies, but from the church, the government, and God himself. But rather than incite a riot or protest his treatment, Jesus submitted to it, down to his very last breath. In doing so, Jesus both saved us from God’s justice and gives us a lesson in submission.

These verses of Hebrews offer us peek behind the curtain of one of Christianity’s deepest mysteries: the interplay, the relationship between the two natures of Christ: true man and true God. The author of Hebrews writes that in the days of his flesh, that is, during his life of humility here on earth, [Jesus] offered prayers and pleas with loud cries and tears. Why? Because as true God Jesus knew exactly what the future held for him and his humanity recoiled in horror from it. The Gospel writers give us the text of the prayers Jesus offered: from Tuesday of Holy Week: now my soul is troubled (John 12:27); from the Garden of Gethsemane: My soul is very sorrowful, even to the point of death (Matthew 26:38); Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup away from me (Mark 14:36). In Gethsemane, Jesus prayed with such passion that his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground (Luke 22:44). Have you ever prayed so passionately that you were physically worn out, so intensely that you broke a sweat? I’ll be honest – I haven’t.

Is that a problem? Yes, it is; not the sweating drops of blood part, but the intense, focused, frequent, submissive part. There are two ditches we can fall into in our prayer lives. It’s easy for us to think of prayer as a Sunday morning thing; maybe a mealtime thing and forget that God commands us to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17) for everyone and everything (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Why would we think that way? Well, there’s an element of pride and an element of distrust. We proudly imagine that we can handle life on our own and we don’t really think that prayer does any good; that God will really hear and answer our prayers. And so our prayers become more and more infrequent and less and less confident. Imagine if we communicated with our spouses like we often communicate with our heavenly Father: sporadically at best, and usually only when we need something or have something to complain about. That relationship probably wouldn’t last very long, would it? On the other hand; maybe you do have a consistent prayer life. You know the Lord’s Prayer and the meal prayers and Luther’s morning and evening prayers so well that you don’t even have to think about them anymore. When that happens, we can find ourselves slipping into the ditch on the other side of the road: do not babble like the heathen, since they think that they will be heard because of their many words (Matthew 6:7). If we speak the words but our mind is somewhere else, that is exactly what God hears: babbling. If our prayers are sporadic, filled with doubt or insincere; we are sinning against the 2nd commandment. And that is a problem.

Our problematic prayer life is part of why Jesus was in such a struggle in Gethsemane. His suffering had already begun; the weight of the world’s sin was on him and his human flesh was weak. So what did he do? Did he protest against the injustice of it all? No. He prayed. He prayed to the one who was able to save him from death. Jesus knew that his best friends had fallen asleep, the betrayer and the mob were on their way, the cross was waiting and that his heavenly Father was the only one who could help. He prayed that God would take this cup of suffering from him and he was heard because of his reverence. Jesus’ perfect prayer life covers our sins and makes our prayers acceptable to God. His blood, his sweat, his tears in Gethsemane were all on our behalf. 

Now, obviously, we aren’t in Jesus’ situation. Often the injustice we suffer is our own fault. More than that, unlike Jesus, the only justice we really deserve is a lifetime of suffering in this world followed by an eternity of suffering in hell. But we can learn a few things from Jesus about prayer. Over the course of his earthly life, Jesus prayed in good times and bad, day and night, both for himself and for others. He honored his Father by praying without ceasing. Sometimes he pleaded with His Father, but he never once questioned his Father’s will (Matthew 26:39). Now, you might say, “A lot of good it did him; he still ended up crucified; apparently God didn’t answer him.” But God did answer Jesus. His answer was ‘no, there is no other way.’ We have to be grateful for that answer and grateful that Jesus didn’t respond to this injustice with resentment or rejection – because if He had not suffered, we would have no hope of salvation. God also answered Jesus by sending an angel to strengthen him for his torturous journey ahead (Luke 22:43). From Jesus we learn that the proper way to respond to injustice is to pray often, to pray confidently, and to pray in submission to God’s will – knowing that his will is best – even if his will is that we suffer (Matthew 7:11). 

Jesus gives a powerful lesson on prayer; but he also gives a powerful lesson on obedience. Although he was the Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. It’s impossible to comprehend how Jesus, the all-knowing Son of God, could learn anything. The author of Hebrews concedes: it is difficult to explain (Hebrews 5:11). But learn Jesus did, and his education came through suffering. Why did Jesus need to learn obedience? Had Jesus ever been disobedient? Of course not. The proof of Jesus’ innocence is overwhelming: the Sanhedrin struggled for hours to fabricate some crime to charge Jesus with (Mark 14:56); Pilate testified to Jesus’ innocence over and over again (Matthew 27:15-26); when he had died, even the centurion who had supervised his crucifixion had to confess truly this man was the Son of God (Mark 15:39). We could say that up to this point Jesus had been perfectly obedient, but not yet fully obedient, because he had not yet suffered for the sins of the world. One translator paraphrases this way “And even though Jesus was God’s Son, he had to learn from experience what it was like to obey, when obeying meant suffering.” 

If Jesus could learn obedience through suffering, what does that tell us? It says that we should probably get to class, right? Jesus’ suffering is a reminder that because of sin, there is no corner of this world safe from suffering. You will suffer. I will suffer. There will be painful events in our future. The question is: how will we react? And now, during this brief reprieve from life, is the time to prepare ourselves to face suffering. If we react to suffering the way the rest of the world does – with rioting and protesting – then we are not learning the lessons God is teaching. When Jesus suffered he trusted his Father’s wisdom and leaned on him for help. So when it doesn’t seem fair that no matter how hard you work you can’t get ahead financially – learn to trust God to provide (Matthew 6:25-34). When God allows pain to linger or sends sickness after sickness – learn that this world is not your true home (Philippians 3:20); learn to long ever more intensely for the glory of heaven. When friends or family or colleagues betray you – learn to lean on God as your refuge and strength, a helper who can always be found in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1).

And when it seems like you are failing every course in God’s school of suffering – turn to Jesus, whose perfect obedience covers your disobedience. Who after he was brought to his goal, he became the source of eternal salvation for everyone who obeys him. What was Jesus’ goal? As we heard in our gospel lesson (John 12:24, 32-33), Jesus’ goal was not to live but to die; to save us from our sins by his death on the cross. By his death, Jesus became the source of eternal salvation for everyone who obeys him. This is why the cross is the central symbol of Christianity; this is why when we are suffering we should look to the cross – for in the cross we find the meaning and purpose of our own suffering; in the cross Jesus meets us in our suffering; in the cross we find forgiveness, peace with God and the hope of eternal life.

If you were listening closely, that last phrase might have struck you as odd; that salvation comes to those who [obey] him. I thought that a person is justified by faith without the works of the law (Romans 3:28). I thought that the gospel message is that we can’t and don’t have to do anything to be saved. Now salvation is only available to the obedient? What’s the deal? A little context will help. This letter was originally addressed to Hebrews, to Jews – to people who were being tempted – because they were suffering persecution – to turn away from Jesus and back to their Old Testament roots – roots which placed their hope of salvation in their own obedience to the Law. As a result, many of them were disobedient to God’s most basic command, spelled out by the Apostle John: this then is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 3:23). This is not the obedience of works, but the obedience of faith (see Romans 1:5). (The Greek term used here is related to the Greek word that means “to listen” to someone – so this obedience is listening to Jesus say It is finished (John 19:30), and responding: “Amen! Yes it is!”) Faith is not an obligation or a burden; it’s God’s gift to us (Ephesians 2:8-9). In good times and bad, we cling to faith in Jesus as the only thing in this world that won’t change, won’t increase in price or lose its value, that no act of injustice can steal from us. Only through faith in Jesus can we learn to be obedient to God’s will – especially when it is God’s will for us to suffer.

We will fail in our prayer life. We will fail to submit to God’s will. That’s why Jesus agonized in Gethsemane and why carried our failures to the cross. He obeyed his Father because we haven’t. He suffered hell so we wouldn’t. He paid for the sins we couldn’t. That’s the gospel. That’s the ultimate lesson God wants us to learn. It’s the lesson that fuels our prayer life. It’s the lesson that that leads us to obediently submit to God’s will. When we think of it that way, when we understand that Jesus willingly submitted to the greatest injustice in history to save us from God’s justice – then the minor injustices we suffer in life don’t seem quite so outrageous, do they? When life seems unfair and unjust learn from Jesus to submit in prayer and with obedience; and, above all, look to him as the source of eternal salvation, the one who will come again to save you from this unjust world. Amen.