Preacher: Jeff Davidson

Scripture Readings: Psalm 8, Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

I’ve always had a soft spot for Psalm 8, our Call to Worship. Back in high school one of our choir pieces set Psalm 8 to music, and then in the middle of it was a spoken adaptation of part of the Psalm. I had the speaking part, and I still remember my lines exactly. “Thou hast made man a little lower than the angels, and hath crowned him with honor and with glory. Thou has put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth!”

I’ve remembered that reading ever since I learned it over forty years ago, and I think it’s a good psalm to use on a Sunday where we are washing feet and celebrating communion.

What strikes me is the hierarchy that’s in the Psalm. There’s God, then the angels, then humans, then animals and birds and fish. It’s not stated, but I guess that nature itself in terms of mountains and trees and things would fall just under animals, birds, and fish.

The writer of Hebrews catches exactly what it is that makes this such a good psalm for today. God’s at the top of the organizational chart, and then nature at the bottom. There’s five parts to the chart, and humans are right in the middle with two things above and two below. Then in Hebrews 2:9 it says, “…but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

In other words, God, in the form of Jesus, steps down off the top rung of the chart right down into the middle with us. Lower than the angels and you know what? Actually, lower than us.

That sounds strange to say, but it’s true. Jesus was fully human and fully divine, so how can he be lower on our chart than us? If you look at it that way than I agree. But consider: Jesus didn’t just become a human, he became a servant. He ate with outcasts. He called tax collectors down from trees. He forgave adulterers. He knelt and washed the feet of sinners.

If Jesus had been the Messiah people expected, a king or military leader or ruler, then he would have been above us on the revised chart, just as the President or those the world calls successful are perhaps a little above us in such a ranking, and he would have been just a little lower than the angels.
Instead, Jesus went straight to the bottom of the human hierarchy. He became a servant of servants. He allowed himself to suffer the degradation and mockery and death of a criminal. Jesus became that which others looked down upon and disdained.

And it was only then, after the death, that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and resumed his rightful place as Lord and Ruler of our lives.

As the writer of Hebrews knows, it is in servanthood and suffering that Jesus demonstrates God’s love for the world. We now enter a time where we will symbolically be one another’s servants. If this time remains merely a symbol, though, then it’s not worth it. Jesus calls us to take the servanthood that is symbolized here and to live it in every part of our lives. Amen.