The Greatest Miracle of All Time

6/29/2009

He told parables on several occasions such as a father, a wise man, a rich man had fields and a vineyard. And he sent his servants, the prophets, to come tell them about their need to give back what they were supposed to, give the proceeds from the land, from the crop to the king. And they wouldn't do it. They kept killing and beating everyone that was sent to them to collect the father's due payment for the fields.

They were his servants, that was his land, and those were his crops. He allowed those people to live on those crops and to prosper from those crops. But when he wanted his portion...he wanted his portion! And so the king would send what we know now are prophets and teachers. He would send his men to collect what was his, and they kept beating the people that God sent, that the father sent, that the rich man sent. They kept beating them and killing them.

And then he said, "I know. I'll send my son. They'll respect my son." And they thought to themselves, "If we kill the son, the heir of all things, then the crops will all be ours. If we kill Jesus, if we kill the son of the King, then everything will be ours." So they killed him.

And what did the king do? He went, sent his armies and totally ripped them to shreds and started over again with people who cared. He didn't put up with it. He gave them opportunity after opportunity. And when they turned him down again and again and again, their time was up -- end of story. He sent his armies to crush the rebellion because it went from an invitation they didn't understand, to an invitation that they turned their back on. And that's when his tolerance and his patience came to an end.

Well, the Hebrews writer said that Jesus was far more than anything that they were looking for. They were looking for a Messiah and a king like David was a really good king. They thought, "We're looking for a good king that will throw out the Romans and we won't be taxed so much. He'll give us a good life, and the crops will grow. And everything will be great."

The Hebrews writer said, "You guys have totally underestimated this thing! This is not just a king like David, because David himself wrote, 'The Lord said to my Lord...'" Jesus quoted that Himself. In other words, David called his own great, great, great grandson, "Lord." How could that be?

And so the Hebrews writer is saying, "If you understood this properly, you would understand that God sent not only His Son, that is lower than the angels as a mere human, but He made Himself a little lower than the angels temporarily." Eventually He would be exalted to the right hand of God.

So God did this amazing thing – a miracle that was greater than parting the Red Sea, a miracle that was greater than healing a blind man, a miracle that was greater than walking on water or telling storms to go away. The greatest miracle of all time is what is known as the mystery of incarnation. The greatest miracle of all time was that GOD could live in a human body – that He could be born as a baby and live on this planet. Because God is uncontainable! No one can even look at God and live, the Scriptures say. And so God made Himself in this special package of a baby, Jesus, created a little lower than the angels. His mother was Mary, and His father was the Holy Spirit. Powerful stuff.

So this miracle happened and opened up a whole new opportunity on planet earth for people to be delivered. He sent prophet, He sent teacher, He sent prophet, He sent teacher. And God's people – or, the people of the planet – just killed them, stoned them, rejected them, hated them, mocked them, made fun of them, lied about them. And God said, "I know, I'll send My Son, the Heir, the person that looks just like Me. The person that thinks just like Me, the one that wears My Name. I'll send them the Heir. I'll send them My own Son, My only begotten Son, My only baby boy. I’ll send them my Son. Surely they'll respect My Son." And they killed Him, too.

And the Hebrews writer said, "They didn't just kill a human created lower than the angels. They killed the very Son of God, who was fully God and fully man," the mystery of incarnation, the mystery of God living in flesh. They killed God Himself, who is now raised from the dead, and seated at the right hand of God and will come back with the angels to judge the living and the dead and to tread out the wrath in His winepress.