Readings:
Jeremiah 26-28
Hebrews 2

We have a flashback here to the early days of the previous king, before the first siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Jeremiah goes and preaches the words God gives him about the coming destruction in the courtyard of the temple and let’s just say it riled the people up some. Now they could’ve took what he was saying, applied it to themselves and changed their way of doing things, but instead they took the other path and tried to have him killed. The princes heard the case and weren’t convinced but the king wanted to have him killed, but Jeremiah had some friends in positions of authority and they prevented him from being handed over to the crowd.

Now we’re back to the reign of Zedekiah in chapter 27 and God has Jeremiah deliver a message to all the nations and to the king in Jerusalem that they are to submit to Nebuchadnezzar because he’s the instrument that God has chosen to deliver Justice and judgment on the nations. There apparently were false prophets telling Zedekiah that God had told them he’d defeat Nebuchadnezzar but Jeremiah warns him not to listen to them. This includes Hannaniah, who promised Babylon would fall within two years and the people who left in the first exile would return. But that was a false prophecy and he paid with his life.

Hebrews 2

We are warned to pay attention to what we are doing and what is being taught to us. Too many people sleepwalk through their religious life and it becomes a routine, but we run the risk of slowly drifting away if we do that.

Angels are ministers of creation, and do the will of God throughout it. But Jesus is higher than the angels and doesn’t just care for, and minister to creation, he is the Lord of all creation.

Christ is shown to be Lord by the fact that God has subjected the earth to him. The earth is not subject to angels as to a lord but as to a vice-regent, for the whole of visible creation is administered by angels.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Hebrews

But even being Lord of all creation, he willingly lowered himself to a position lower than angels, he took on humanity and suffered as we suffer, and died like we will all one day die. He done this because in die he destroys death. The second person of the trinity, higher than angels, became a man and suffered as a man. One of us. For us. Just meditate on that for a moment.

“By the grace of God” Jesus tasted death “for every one”. In his plan of salvation, God ordained that his Son should not only “die for our sins” but should also “taste death”, experience the condition of death, the separation of his soul from his body, between the time he expired on the cross and the time he was raised from the dead. The state of the dead Christ is the mystery of the tomb and the descent into hell. It is the mystery of Holy Saturday, when Christ, lying in the tomb, reveals God’s great sabbath rest after the fulfillment of man’s salvation, which brings peace to the whole universe.

CCC 624

The writer says he saved us who were under bondage because of fear of death. It’s human nature to have an aversion to death, even Jesus exhibits this in his human nature when he prays for the cup to pass him, but ultimately submits to the will of the father and his own divine will. But through the death of Christ we no longer have to fear death, we can contemplate our own death with peaceful knowledge that if we remain in his friendship we have nothing to fear. Not even death.

He became like us to rescue us, but also to relate to us in all ways. We can know that Jesus knows what the human experience is like because he went through it all.

Tomorrow Readings:
Jeremiah 29-30
Hebrews 3