The Mystery of Godliness.
I. Our Lord has the Divine nature, and is of one substance with the Father, which cannot be said of any creature. He it was who created the worlds; He it was who interposed of old time in the affairs of the world, and showed Himself to be a living and observant God, whether men thought of Him or not. Yet this great God condescended to come down on earth from His heavenly throne, and to be born into His own world; showing Himself as the Son of God in a new and second sense, in a created nature, as well as in His eternal substance. Such is the first reflection which the birth of Christ suggests.
II. And next observe, that since He was the All-holy Son of God, though He condescended to be born in the world, He necessarily came into it in a way suitable to the All-holy, and different from that of other men. He took our nature upon Him, but not our sin; taking our nature in a way above nature. He came by a new and living way, by which He alone has come, and which alone became Him.
III. When He came into the world He was a pattern of sanctity in the circumstances of His life, as well as in His birth. He did not implicate and contaminate Himself with sinners. He came down from heaven, and made a short work in righteousness, and then returned back again where He was before He came into the world; and He speedily left the world, as if to teach us how little He Himself, how little we His followers, have to do with the world. He could not rest or tarry upon earth; He did but do His work in it; He could but come and go. And while He was here, since He could not acquiesce or pleasure Himself in the earth, so He would have none of its vaunted goods. When He humbled Himself to His own sinful creation, He would not let that creation minister to Him of its best, as if disdaining to receive offering or tribute from a fallen world. He came to it as a benefactor, not as a guest; not to borrow from it, but to impart to it. He who was so separate from the world, so present with the Father even in the days of His flesh, calls upon us, His brethren, as we are in Him, and He in the Father, to show that we really are what we have been made, by renouncing the world while with the world, and living as in the presence of God.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. v., p. 86.
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.