In the Days of His Flesh

Well today’s the third Sunday of Advent — just 8 days to go before Christmas — and the reason we’re looking at this passage today is because of a little phrase at the beginning of verse 7 — and if it’s possible, I want you to see this. So if you can, either with your own Bible or on your phone or you might have to look with a neighbor, everybody get a look at verse 7. It starts with the words:

“in the days of his flesh.”

That phrase is important. “In the days of his flesh” is a good literal translation. If you read the NIV translation, it says at the start of verse 7:

“During the days of Jesus’s life on earth.”

That’s a good interpretation of what the writer of Hebrews is talking about. He starts verse 7 by pointing us back to the time in history when Jesus lived on this earth as a man. He wants us to think about Jesus living here in flesh and blood like ours. 

But now why does the writer do this? Why does he bring up Jesus’s life on earth?

It has to do with the context and I’ll explain this super briefly …

It starts in Chapter 2, verse 17 (which we saw last week) when the writer tells us that Jesus is our merciful and faithful high priest because in every respect he was made like us. Then at the end of Chapter 4, verse 15 the writer repeats this same idea and says that Jesus is our high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses because in every respect he has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

So Chapter 2, verse 17 and Chapter 4, verse 15 repeat the same idea. It’s not just that Jesus is our high priest, but it’s that Jesus is our high priest because Jesus became a man like us and actually walked in our shoes. That’s what qualifies Jesus to be our high priest. It’s because Jesus gets us. 

That’s the point the writer has been making — that’s the context — and so now in Chapter 5 he’s about to drive that point home. That’s why he starts in verse 7, “in the days of his flesh” … or “During the days of Jesus’s life on earth.”

The writer is about to prove to us, with an example from Jesus’s life on earth, that Jesus gets us. And we’re on the edge of our seats! This is going to be fascinating. I’m interested in this.

And so here’s a question for us: What example from Jesus’s life might we use to make this point? … If you had to name one scene from Jesus’s life that proves that he gets us, what would it be? …

In the Days of His Flesh

What about the humble conditions of Jesus’s birth? Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, was born in a stable. He had very simple beginnings. The days of his flesh started as something people can relate to.

Or what about the time at the wedding in Cana when Jesus turned the water to wine? This was Jesus’s first recorded miracle, which is something only Jesus can do, but it was such an earthy miracle. The party host had run out of wine. They had this big wedding celebration, with tons of people, and they ran out of wine, which was probably embarrassing, and Mary, Jesus’s mom, was there, and she said: “Jesus, help them out.” And he did. He gave the people wine. In the days of his flesh Jesus met a super practical need. (See John 2:1–12)

Or what about that time Jesus came to the home of Lazarus, his friend, after Lazarus had died. Jesus stepped into a place surrounded by the family members and friends of Lazarus and they were all grieving, and Jesus himself was grieved. He was moved and troubled, and the Bible tells us that Jesus wept. In the days of his flesh Jesus was sad. (See John 11:1–44)

There’s also the time when crowds were following Jesus and parents started bringing their kids to him, in hopes Jesus might touch them and maybe bless them, and the disciples didn’t like this. People didn’t think kids were that cute in the first-century world, so the disciples were telling these parents to beat it, but Jesus said No, let them come, and then he scooped up the children in his arms, and said, And if you wanna come to me, you need to be like these kids. We either will have Jesus as those who are helpless, or we won’t have him. In the days of his flesh Jesus demolished pretense. (See Luke 18:15–17).

Or what about the time Jesus spoke to Zacchaeus up in the tree? What a moment! Jesus was on his way into Jericho, and there was another big crowd swarming him, and Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, but the crowd was too big and Zacchaeus was too short (the literal Greek there is “wee little man”). Remember what Zacchaeus did? He climbed up in a sycamore tree hoping to get a good view of Jesus as he walked by but rather than pass by him, Jesus came right to him, in the tree, and Jesus looked up and said, Hey, come down, I’m about to go to your house. It was a wonderful surprise for Zacchaeus and amazing irony. In the days of his flesh Jesus had a sense of humor. (See Luke 19:1–10)

Then there’s the time when Jesus turned the tables on the way James and John thought about greatness. Or there’s when Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple. Or in John 4, when Jesus was walking from Judea to Galilee, just before he talked to the woman at the well, the text says,

“Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, sat by the well…”

Jesus never sinned, but he confronted sin and human weakness head-on, things like selfish ambition or greed or fear or hunger or disappointment or weariness. Jesus knows about all that, and they’re all examples of how he gets us, but the writer of Hebrews doesn’t talk about any of these examples.

Instead, the writer of Hebrews takes us back to one scene in the Gospels when Jesus was alone. 

If you want to see how Jesus really gets us, if you wanna know how much he knows what it’s like to be us, go to the Garden of Gethsemane. …

Jesus’s Excruciating Prayer

Now the writer doesn’t mention “Gethsemane” by name, and at one level, Jesus’s whole life involved the kind of humiliation we see there, but verse 7 seems to be talking more about a specific event. Jesus “offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death.” 

This sends us back to the Thursday night before Jesus was crucified. We know that he got alone to pray, in Gethsemane, and the Gospel writers tell us that Jesus agonized in prayer. His soul was sorrowful and troubled, and he pleaded with God the Father, not only shedding tears but even sweating blood, and he cried,

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).

Now the Gospels tell us that Jesus prayed often. He was constantly getting away to a place of solitude for prayer. But Gethsemane was the place where Jesus experienced excruciating prayer … “loud cries and tears” … this was a painful kind of praying … and because Jesus experienced prayer like that, I can be assured that he knows what it’s like to be me, and he knows what it’s like to be you. According to the argument of Hebrews, because Jesus prayed like this in the days of his life on earth, it verifies that he knows what it’s like to be us.

And that’s what I want us to linger on today. We’re going to focus in with one question:

How does Jesus’s excruciating prayer in Gethsemane make him get us?

We’re just going to focus on one answer. It’s that Jesus had to wait.

Jesus Had to Wait

We hate to wait, don’t we? If you think about it, pretty much all of popular technology is created to conquer waiting. We’ve been shaped to think that waiting is a problem, when really, waiting is basic to being human. It’s basic to our creaturely existence. And as much as we try to overcome that with our technology, waiting will always be what God expects of us in our relationship with him — and Jesus knows what it’s like.

Notice in verse 7 that the writer of Hebrews doesn’t spell out the exact content of what Jesus prayed, but he does give us the category and manner of prayer. The category is “prayers and supplications” (or “petitions”). This means that Jesus was asking God the Father for something. He requested something. And the manner — how he requested something — was with “loud cries and tears.”

So if we put these together, it means that Jesus was earnestly wanting something. This was a please, please, please kind of request.

And now add to this that God is described in verse 7 as “him who was able to save him from death.” So get this: Jesus earnestly requested something from him who was able to save him from death.

What then do you think Jesus requested? … To be saved from death.

This is another reason why I think Gethsemane is in the writer’s mind. Jesus earnestly wanted to be saved from death. Jesus asked the Father, If it’s possible, remove this cup from me.

Now we know that Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before him, but he did not relish the cross itself. He despised the shame of the cross. Jesus dreaded his suffering. 

The Dread of Suffering

And sometimes I wonder if we really appreciate this fact about Jesus. I think we can tend to think that Jesus was able to endure his suffering because he had special powers as the Son of God. This is complex, and I’m suspicious that somewhere in here in how we think about this, we imagine that Jesus’s deity was the underwriter of his endurance. We think: Yeah, he endured unspeakable suffering … but he was God. 

And it’s true that Jesus was never less than God — he was in every respect like his Father, and in every respect like us — so we would be misguided to think that his deity is what got him through his suffering. Gethsemane certainly corrects that. 

Jesus looked forward to having nails driven through his hands about as much as you would. Just imagine that you knew today that tomorrow, by noon, you were going to have spikes nailed through your hands and feet, and giant thorns crammed in your head, and then before that, you were going to get scourged, beaten 39 times, so that the skin of your bare back is just shredded. And the physical pain wasn’t even the worst part. If you knew that was going to happen to you tomorrow, how would you sleep tonight? I get nervous about the dentist! 

What if you knew in 12 hours you were going to experience the worst pain ever inflicted upon a man? What would you sound like when you prayed?

Jesus is like us here … and he prayed hard … it was excruciating prayer … and did God answer him?

The Whirlwind

This is not an easy question, because Hebrews says God did. Look at the end of verse 7: Jesus prayed …

“to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.”

But wait a minute, we know what happened. The Father did not remove the cup. The crucifixion was every bit as horrible as Jesus dreaded, and probably worse. So how was Jesus heard? … it’s that Jesus was saved out of death, but he was not saved from dying.

The resurrection was God’s answer to Jesus’s prayer — which means Jesus was not saved from experiencing the horrible thing, he was saved from the horrible thing having the final say.

And this means that there was a time, in the suffering of Jesus, when it seemed like his prayer would not be answered. Sunday morning did not happen like that! Jesus had to endure the waiting … which became in Gethsemane a whirlwind of suffering. And we tiptoe into mystery here. Jesus knew and believed that this Father would never abandon him, but then also: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

It’s a whirlwind, see …

I know you won’t, but it seems like you are. 

You’ve said this. I know this. But then … look around. 

The big realities and truths of God are less clear in the whirlwind of suffering — and what could be more human than that?

We know what God can do. We ask him to do it. But we’re stuck in this whirlwind where we’re not sure if he’s doing anything, and we have to wait. Have you ever been there?

No Eagle Landing

Answered prayers are a wonderful thing. I’ve got a list in my mind of several different prayers I’ve prayed over the years and the ways God has answered them. And it’s amazing. God is good, and we should be so encouraged and rejoice together when God answers our prayers. 

I saw last week, in a little video, there was a guy who was out fishing, and he happened to see this Bald Eagle a long ways off across this lake, and when he saw the eagle, he prayed, “God, would you let me get close to that eagle today and get a good look at him?” 

That’s what the guy says to the camera, and he’s doing a selfie video, telling this story. He asked God to get him get close to the eagle, and then he pans out with his camera and the eagle is standing on this guy’s shoulder! No joke!

This Bald Eagle came and landed on his shoulder. And I don’t even know this guy, I don’t know his theology, but I’m like, “Yes! That’s awesome!” Can God make an eagle land on somebody’s shoulder? Absolutely! 

But no eagle landed in Gethsemane … and although God does answer our prayers and we’re thankful for that, there’s a lot of times we don’t have Bald Eagles on our shoulders …and Jesus gets that. 

Jesus prayed an excruciating prayer and he had to wait. Just like you and me. 

And in the waiting, his obedience was not easy.

His Obedience Was Not Easy

Hebrews 5:8,

“Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.”

The way the writer says this means it’s not what we would assume. Similar to what we talked about earlier, it’s natural for us to assume that Jesus as the Son of God somehow came pre-programmed to always obey. 

Or if we pretend the whole world was a big carnival full of carnival games, we might think that all the games were somehow rigged for Jesus to always win. Like instead of the basketball goal rim being bent in (so that the ball barely fits), we might imagine that when Jesus shot, the rim was stretched out extra wide.

We might say: “Because he was a son, obedience was easy.”

But Hebrews 5:8 says:

“Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.”

And we know that was the case for all of Jesus’s life, but that was especially the case in Gethsemane. Gethsemane assures us that Jesus’s obedience was authentic obedience. It was not laboratory obedience in a controlled environment. This was obedience in the waiting, in the whirlwind … which means although his heart always desired obedience, the practice of that obedience was tested. It was pressured. It was challenged. All of Jesus’s obedience was predicated on “not my will, but yours be done” but how Jesus had to live out that obedience was in varied and unpredictable circumstances. It was as varied and unpredictable as the world we step into every day. That was Gethsemane. And Gethsemane became a school. He learned obedience in that waiting, and it was not easy.

We Can Go to Him

I’ve heard it said before, by older and wiser Christians, that the deeper you grow in your faith, the more aware you are of your sinfulness. The idea is that as you mature in faith you sin fewer times, but you also become more aware of how pervasive and subtle your sinfulness is. C. S. Lewis said,

When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less.

This gives me some comfort when I feel like an idiot. Which I’d say has increased in the last few years, I hope that’s a good sign.

Just the other day I was riding in the car with one my children who was driving, and this kid is a good driver. But we were in traffic and there was a moment when they had to hit the breaks, and it was one of those times when you gasp — you can’t help it. You just react, and I did … 

And I’ve thought long and hard about this … I think Jesus would have gasped too. Jesus had reactions. It was a scary split second. But the problem wasn’t the reaction … it was the comment I made right after it.

And I knew right away I was wrong. You know there’s usually a moment like that, in our sin, where we come to a kind of crossroads and we either go this way and double-down and try to justify our sin and act like it’s not a big deal, or we go the other way, admit we’re wrong and confess it right away … which, if this way were more comfortable we’d do it more, but it’s not. Because you feel the shame and regret. That’s not the kind of dad I want to be. That’s not the kind of person I want to be. 

So what do I do with that? … I go to Jesus who learned obedience through what he suffered. 

He Knows Where We’re Coming From

Verse 10: “And being made perfect…” — the idea here is completeness; this is referring to Jesus’s resurrection and exaltation after ‘the days of his flesh was mission accomplished,’ after he suffered in our place and died on the cross — God raised Jesus and enthroned him, and “he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.”

Which means he is not just the Son who reigns, but he’s the High Priest who has made atonement for us, and who intercedes for us. Jesus is seated on the throne of his rule, but it’s also a throne of grace, and I can go to him. We can go to him! Because he knows where we’re coming from. 

He’s been here, in the days of his flesh, full scary split seconds and temptations, and he’s been to Gethsemane … to the waiting and the whirlwind. Jesus has been here and he learned obedience. And he is so kind to us. 

This is where we have to remember Chapter 2 verse 11, that Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters. He really gets us, and one thing that means is that his love for us is a love for us where we are. I want you to know that. Jesus loves you where you are, not where you pretend to be, or even where you aspire to be. Jesus loves us in the days of our flesh, during the days and moments of our lives on this earth in all our weakness and failure.

And so the invitation this morning is to come to him. 

That’s the invitation of this Table.