The virus of Casual Christianity can be traced to a one-sided image of Jesus. We identify more with the Highly Exalted Christus Victor than with the humble and humiliated Christ crucified. We imagine that we can strut past the Cross and caper into Glory without sharing in the sufferings of Jesus.

This leapfrog Christology is the root of triumphalism and the uprooting of discipleship. Who wants to imitate a meek and lowly, tried and tempted, despised and rejected, slapped and spit-upon, scourged and crucified Jesus of Nazareth? Hardly anyone. Do you? Jesus fully identified with us in our greatest sorrows and weaknesses. But we fail to identify with him in his humiliation and suffering.

The Preacher of the Sermon to the Hebrews confronts this lopsided Christology and constrains us to follow the Original Jesus on the hard road to glory. Hebrews showcases the humanity and suffering of Jesus more clearly than any other biblical book. He became like us in every way. He experienced the human condition first-hand. He wrestled with every kind of temptation. He learned obedience through suffering. He prayed with weeping and wailing and fear. He endured hostility from sinners like us. He conformed his entire human life to the will of God from the inside out. He died in utmost humiliation for the sins of all humanity. And he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. This extraordinary image of a fully human Jesus is a Pearl of Great Price found only in Hebrews. Consider him.

Discipleship is not an imitation of the Risen Christ, but of the humble, human, historical Jesus profiled in the Gospel and Hebrews. For Singapore, 2020 is the Year of Personal Discipleship. And for all the world, a year of testing by Covid-19. There’s no better time than now to rediscover and return to the image of Jesus proclaimed in the Sermon to the Hebrews. Let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured (HEBREWS 13:13).

The virus of Casual Christianity can be traced to a one-sided image of Jesus. We identify more with the Highly Exalted Christus Victor than with the humble and humiliated Christ crucified. We imagine that we can strut past the Cross and caper into Glory without sharing in the sufferings of Jesus.

This leapfrog Christology is the root of triumphalism and the uprooting of discipleship. Who wants to imitate a meek and lowly, tried and tempted, despised and rejected, slapped and spit-upon, scourged and crucified Jesus of Nazareth? Hardly anyone. Do you? Jesus fully identified with us in our greatest sorrows and weaknesses. But we fail to identify with him in his humiliation and suffering.

The Preacher of the Sermon to the Hebrews confronts this lopsided Christology and constrains us to follow the Original Jesus on the hard road to glory. Hebrews showcases the humanity and suffering of Jesus more clearly than any other biblical book. He became like us in every way. He experienced the human condition first-hand. He wrestled with every kind of temptation. He learned obedience through suffering. He prayed with weeping and wailing and fear. He endured hostility from sinners like us. He conformed his entire human life to the will of God from the inside out. He died in utmost humiliation for the sins of all humanity. And he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. This extraordinary image of a fully human Jesus is a Pearl of Great Price found only in Hebrews. Consider him.

Discipleship is not an imitation of the Risen Christ, but of the humble, human, historical Jesus profiled in the Gospel and Hebrews. For Singapore, 2020 is the Year of Personal Discipleship. And for all the world, a year of testing by Covid-19. There’s no better time than now to rediscover and return to the image of Jesus proclaimed in the Sermon to the Hebrews. Let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured (HEBREWS 13:13).