Hebrews 2:11

Hebrews 2:11

The Brother born for Adversity.

I. The relation of a brother. What is the essential feature of this family relationship as compared with others, close and dear, which we sustain? Surely it is that father, mother, brother, sister, wife, child belong to us, are part of our very being; while in the same measure we belong to them. There is a oneness which precludes the idea of separate interests; interests, cares, sorrows, hopes, joys, are common. Our brethren are obeying the instincts of their own hearts, and seeking their own noble ends, in the sympathy and help they may extend to us. The sense of indebtedness hardly enters into the service on either side. The brother who helps, urges no claim in helping; the brother who is helpful, feels no debt but to love. It is a delight to them to undertake for us in our necessity. There then is an association, a relationship, which has an element of rest, of satisfaction in it, which no other known to man in this world offers; fairest type on earth of the relationships of that celestial state where love reigns supreme in the universal brotherhood, of which the Lord Christ is the Elder Brother, and the great Father is the Head.

II. It is precisely this relationship which by His Incarnation and Passion the Saviour claims. He seeks to give us a relation that we can rest upon; which will draw us by the bands of fraternal sympathy to His strength when we are weak, to His bosom when we are weary and long for rest. We have wearied God with our sins, we cry. The sense of the profound wrong we have done Him is the heaviest part of life's burden. There is that in man which is unable to repose in the naked idea, nay, even in the naked assurance of God. We want some natural bond of union, some natural relationship in which we can rest. Hence the essential gladness of the glad tidings, "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."

III. It is said in a passage of the Book of Proverbs that "a brother is born for adversities." That He might know our souls in adversities surely the elder Brother of the great human family was born in the human home, tasted all pure human experiences, and made Himself familiar with all forms of human pain. We are of His kindred, the brethren of Christ. It is no pity that moves Him to us; it is pure and perfect love. God is pleading His own cause in pleading against our sins. The battle which God is fighting in our hearts is the battle for which He made the great universe to be the theatre, and in which the devil's triumph would rob Him of His everlasting glory and joy.

J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon, p. 10.

References: Hebrews 2:11 . Homilist, 2nd series, vol. iii., p. 102; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. ix., p. 279; H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 199. Hebrews 2:11-13 . Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 453.