National Lutheran Schools Week 2018

Hebrews 13:8

It’s All About the Same Jesus

January 28, 2018

Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID

Last September as Zion Lutheran Church celebrated its 100^th birthday, we were able to open up the time capsule placed near the front doors when this building was built. We are still considering what to place in the next one, and hopefully soon, we can do that.  It’s a fun thing to think about. In light of what we received from our forefathers in the faith, what will we pass on to our children?  It’s the same question we ask at our school, especially as we bring to an end this Lutheran Schools week. All that we believe, teach, and confess is centered in Good News of our salvation – that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. It’s still all about Jesus because, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). 

While all of Scripture directs us to Jesus, the book of Hebrews does so most clearly and emphatically. Hebrews includes over 20 different titles and descriptions of Jesus. The epistle begins, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God” (Heb. 1:1–3). Chapter two refers to Jesus as “for a little while … made lower than the angels … crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death” (Heb. 2:9). In chapter 9 (v. 15) Jesus is called the “mediator of a new covenant,” and Heb. 12:2 invites us to see Jesus as “the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.”  Then, in chapter 13, we hear, “Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday. The book of Hebrews takes us to the yesterday of the Old Testament. It emphasizes that the covenant was fulfilled in Jesus. The role of the Old Testament high priest is perfected in Jesus, the holy High Priest. The faith of Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Moses and many other saints noted in chapter 11 was a faith in Jesus, the Messiah. The Jesus of yesterday is the fulfillment of all that God promised. He was the One who crucified, died, and raised on the third day.

This is the Jesus of our yesterday. For the original hearers, their yesterday would have primarily meant the Old Testament. There was the record of God’s call and His promises to His people.  Creation and call of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Exodus and Passover. The Babylonian captivity and journey home. The prophetic Word of God proclaimed, promising the coming Messiah, and revealing that He has now come in Jesus Christ.

This is the Jesus who in our yesterday called into His life through the waters of Baptism. This is the Jesus who came to us in His Word in our Christian home and Christian classrooms and nourished us in the faith. This is the Jesus who is the foundation of our church, school, and daycare. A church 100 years old, a school over 50 years old, a daycare 30 years old. All of it rests on Jesus. This is the Jesus who came to us in the many and varied yesterdays of our disobedience, wanderings and unfaithful response to His love, only to forgive us for all our yesterdays and take us to today.

Jesus Christ is the same today. For the original hearers, that included a time of temptation to return to the legalism of Judaism. It included an apathy toward the truths of the Christian faith and the life of a Christian. In response to those inclinations, there is the encouragement not to give up worshipping together and to keep on living in love. There is the encouragement to “run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1). Anticipating a time of persecution and hardship, the readers are encouraged to anticipate God’s discipline and to endure hardship. Into their lives came a Jesus who was Lord of all and Savior for all, the One who had conquered sin, death and the devil, and who would forever be victorious.

That same Jesus comes to us today. Today and every day we wake up as sinners. Today we are unsure. Today we face temptation. Today we may face ridicule and persecution for our witness. Today we have our family concerns and church and school frustrations. But today Jesus comes to us again in the assurance of our Baptism, in His Word of forgiveness, and at His table, where He gives His Body and Blood. Today Jesus Christ is the same at our School. We teach the same Gospel, memorize the same Bible verses, sing many of the same songs that instill the same Christian faith, and so we will continue.

Jesus Christ is the same forever. Forever is having Jesus go with us through all the changes of the future. The Hebrews struggled with how to live out their lives in hopeful anticipation of the Lord’s coming. How could they relate the Gentile Christians, how could they be faithful witnesses when surrounded by those who believed in different gods, different morals, different goals, and different lives? Because of Jesus their lives had been radically changed, but never abandoned by God.

Neither are we. There will be changes, have no doubt about it. Our culture and world are changing at a pace that we can hardly keep up with.  We Christians, our church and our school, are not immune. Whether the changes are the result of detailed planning or adjustments to unforeseen circumstances, Jesus is always part of the conversation and the constant from beginning to end, and into eternity. “Forever” has eternal implications. “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus” (Heb. 12:22–24).

We are thankful for all those who gathered in our school in the name of Jesus in the yesterday of our school history. We rejoice in every child and family that learns of Jesus in our school today. We are blessed that through God’s grace in Jesus we will be with Him forever. 

This sermon was adapted from the National Lutheran Schools Week sermon provided by the LCMS.